Diversity PE Recruiting?
Hello All. I know diversity recruiting is big in colleges with many IBs running special or separate processes for diversity candidates. Does this also apply to PE recruiting during the IB stint or do PE firms just recruit in a single pool etc. Any insight that anyone could offer into this matter would be greatly appreciated !
Can’t get in without it or what?
LOL at the mad lil diversity bois MSing
fr… keep it coming bois. Lord knows you don’t need to be studying technicals or networking.
PE firms don't give a fuck about diversity (except maybe in the token sense)
Source: click on any PE firm team page
This is categorically false. I help with recruiting at my UMM/MF and there's been an active push towards hiring diversity candidates in the past few years. Maybe around five years ago, firms generally cared less, but now you have LPs and shareholders (public MFs) who care about diversity and ESG. The smaller MM/LMM funds probably don't care as much
OP is asking about "special or separate processes for diversity candidates". Do you know of any PE firms that do this? Maybe a handful of MFs but certainly not the vast majority of the market, weighted by associate opportunities.
Perhaps that is too high of a standard and let's lower the bar - what % of associate opps are at PE firms with some sort of active push for D&I? I don't know, but it's for sure way, way less than analysts/banks where probably 90%+ of analyst openings are at firms with formal D&I programs.
Lastly, not sure how you can say my statement is "categorically false" based on your personal experience at one firm, especially when you agree that firms smaller than UMM generally don't care (if my statement is generally true, doesn't that make it the opposite of categorically false?). Given high degree of fragmentation in the PE landscape (vs, say IB), smaller firms make up way more of the employment opportunities than they do in IB.
Got an offer WITHDRAWN because I'm NOT a diversity candidate. So it's a big thing.
It’s the same recruiting timeline/process but many diversity candidates I know of got fewer rounds of interviews to get through during on-cycle (ie. straight to final rounds) or offers before finishing their modeling tests.
Very difficult to get into MF PE out of undergrad unless you are diversity
Uhhh, of the five BCP PE analysts this past year, none were diversity.
Agree with prior point that most PE firms don't care too much about diversity recruiting. That said, the large cap funds represent only a small number of the total pe funds, albeit a great proportion of AUM. These firms have fairly strict diversity hiring, particularly for the new associate classes being hired, whether on cycle or off cycle.
Agree the senior ranks tend to not be very diverse, but take a look at the junior folks - it's a lot more spread out, and most MFs have now 40%+ female classes, despite roughly only 5% of the applicants being female (data point from four MFs last cycle, could be off for the broader PE recruiting landscape).
That’d be really surprising if women only make up 5% of the applicants for MF PE recruiting considering they are roughly 40-50% of top IB classes. Not saying you’re wrong but that’s definitely a crazy statistic if true
Understand your point, but it's very clear seeing the classes now go through recruiting that females strongly prefer growth equity / startup / Corp Dev roles and that there are many more men who are very gung ho on MFPE.
Rarely have I met many girls whose only goal in life is to be at MFPE / at a tiger cub, and is obsessed with investing, but I do know a good number of guys who are like that.
Can we just stop. You people get everything on silver platter from college to banking already and now don’t even want to do anything on your own. What a joke
Bro are you serious? Look how many diverse people are in the industry as opposed to white males… imagine not knowing anyone, having any connections in the industry, not seeing people that look like you in the industry, feeling like you only got your job because you are diverse…. I bet you don’t have to think about any of these things. Black males specifically have to deal with all this and other pressures from black friends who see you as white washed because the way you speak and the people you associate with. Imagine not being wanted from the black community and not being seen as equals in the white community …. Where does that leave you ? At the end of the day you only get promoted if you are good … a firm won’t promote you if you are dog shit so please think above just the surface level.
I Can speak for Europe only re this topic and I am simplifying a bit bc it’s a complex argument to have over text. But I can state that Diversity in europe does not advantage disadvantaged backgrounds. Ie: if you are a black finance professional, you probably studied at Oxbridge, went to Eaton etc. - not exactly the definition of disadvantaged. Chapter promotions: I saw v capable people not being promoted to promote the diversity candidate, in order to thick the diversity box and look like “diversity friendly” firms. Unfortunately in Europe a meritocratic system does not exist and to go to target schools you have to be well off. IBs recruit only from target schools (also for diversity), and certain firms like Lazard, RTH, Gleacher etc. even look at your high school (which has to be private). But yeah, diversity
Is that on society that your community doesn’t accept one of their own becoming successful in a space that your community historically has not been?
Furthermore, that’s the whole gripe with diversity recruiting. It’s unfair to those who don’t qualify, because you are being held to a different (often lower) standard. Equally as important, it cheapens the achievement for anyone who does qualify, because they will never know if they got the position on merit or because their skin color.
Diversity recruiting is a joke.
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