Was wondering if anyone had any information on the full time recruiting process at MF's (BX, KKR, Apollo, TPG, Warburg, etc.) for undergrad students. I'll be at a top EB for my SA stint and, though I will most likely stay for FT, I figured I might as well at least try for a few MF's now since it might give me a leg up come associate recruiting. Any advice on how the recruiting process is structured and on how to do well in any coffee chats/interviews is appreciated. Thanks.
Trending Content - Private Equity Forum
Career Resources
It's a process that moves quickly. Seats are so limited (PE analyst classes are so small and there are so few firms doing them) that everything is entirely done and dusted within a couple weeks of the summer internship program ending.
I'm a few years removed, and the entire phenomenon is young to begin with (with the exception of Silver Lake who has been taking the top couple kids at Wharton forever [actually, the very best sometimes went to Silver Point or Apollo]), but top candidates often had their interviews lined up before they left their banking internship.
Anecdotally, my group lost a fantastic intern (who spent interned both as a sophomore and junior) to a MF, and that kid had their MF offer the Thursday after the internship ended.
Know that the circles are so tightly-knit at that rarefied level (if you can't detect the dripping sarcasm, God help you) that the MF PE analyst one or two years in (who was a standout during OCR) is often roping their business fraternity or social fraternity little or grandlittle or best friend in.
Anecdotally, that intern I referred to before was the same gender and ethnicity and program within the same school as the last analyst that fund hired. It's a machine; the funds know what type of candidate they want, and in the end it winds up being a self-perpetuating phenomenon.