From med device sales to Private Equity
I have 10 years of experience in medical device sales and sales leadership. I am looking to change career paths into private equity. Does anyone have any advice on landing my first job? Also does my past experience help at all for breaking into PE?
Best route is M7/top 15 MBA -> IB -> PE. This is a 5 year plan to get there though, and you're likely going to be on the older end of the MBA ASO class in IB.
PE does not hire from MBA unless you have PE experience pre-MBA, and I don't think you'll get in from your current seat. PE requires a technical finance skillset (modeling, valuation, transaction work) that is not easy to pick up and 99% of places don't want to train, so you need to learn the ropes in another job.
Why do you want to do PE? This seems a bit random for someone in a high earning career. You'd be better off in healthcare consulting or strategy and you can go to those directly.
Have seen people with deep biotech knowledge or med school background go directly to healthcare PE, but medical device sales is probably not enough of a compelling background to overcome lack of finance experience.
Echo everything above. Also keep in mind you are going to be competing against countless 24 year old kids for PE slots who are willing to work 80+ hours a week and crawl on their knees for an associate seat
Serious question, what are you earning in your current role?
Finance is a young mans game, if you have built a rolodex in your current career, don't discount staying the course and saving money to retire an get out this god awful rat race.
Thank you for the feedback. I am currently earning around 400k in my current role. I am 32 years old and not concerned with starting over or competing with younger applicants for a more lucrative career path.
How many years does it typically take to reach 7 figures a year in PE?
It will take you 5 years to get into PE per the path above (1 year to get into MBA, 2 years MBA, minimum 2 years IB, at that point PE opps start to open up) and probably 5-8 more years to get to principal or partner and earn that much money in cash. Carry is where the real $ comes in but you won't get that for like 5 years. You're not going to be recruiting for the Blackstones and KKRs as a post-MBA associate, so your options will be smaller firms that pay a discount. Staying in IB will also get you to 7 figures around director (also ~6-8 years once you start as an ASO)
FWIW, I have seen a lot of older candidates come in obsessed with the $$$ and 95% of them burn out within 3-4 years. Your time in IB will be working 80-100 hour weeks, answering to 24 year olds who are running circles around you and skipping all family events/grinding on your laptop at friends' weddings/forget about any weeknight plans, including Friday and Sunday. People say they're fine with it, but it's hard to say that without experiencing it. Someone in their mid-30s is just not in the same life situation to grind as someone who is 22 and has no obligations to anyone.
Not trying to be harsh, I would just keep in perspective that you have it really good already and $ is not everything. I'd think long and hard about this... a lot of IB associates would actually commit murder to be able to earn $400k and work 40 hour weeks.
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