Full-time undergrad buy-side recruiting processes for London
This has probably been covered before, but I am interested to hear how the MF/UMM PE recruiting process for London for people coming straight out of undergrad/a 1-year masters who hope to land a full-time gig (ignore my title by the way).
Is there a lot of networking involved, or are you just supposed to apply to open positions on different PE firms' websites?
How does the interview process typically look?
When do firms typically start recruiting, and by when are they finished?
How big are typically the first-year full-time analyst classes?
Thanks for your insights in advance!
Bump
Following, interested too.
1- You can just apply online to the ones that post their openings, but any PE position gets a ton of applications so you are usually better off networking as it will increase your chances. There are not many PE analyst positions in Londons and some firms don't even post their openings, they just have HHs reach out to potential candidates so you are likely to miss out on those if you don't network.
2- Depends on the fund, some include modelling cases and some don't, for some of them it can be 5 interviews long and for some others you might do as many as 15...
3- Also depends on the firm. But firms usually start posting/reaching out to candidates a year before (End of July-August) and they will interview for the next few months, until they fill out their openings.
4- Small and close to non-existent. KKR is starting to take a few guys, BX takes 3/4 for REPE, 3 for PE, 1 for Infra PE. Silver Lake takes 1 or maybe 2 people, Bain Cap may take a few for their Credit and RE teams. There are some other MM PE/Secondaries/REPE firms who also take Analysts from time to time...
To sum up, it is really really hard to land a buyside seat in London as an Analyst. You usually need to have BB experience or some other really good credentials, and most of the spots I mentioned before aren't even filled by people they hire for the FT class, but from converted interns. You are far more likely to get a buyside internship and convert that (And even that it's quite hard)
Pretty spot on. Networking is important.
How would an internship at a hedge fund like Citadel (long/short) be viewed in comparison to IBD SA for PE analyst apps?
That's great experience, shouldn't be a problem. As long as the rest of your resume is good you should be fine.
There are people with no IB experience who land these PE Analyst roles (but they tend to have either MBB or previous buyside experience)
People would think you are smarter but question your intention of moving into PE. Did you convert your internship and if so, why do you wanna move into PE?
Pretty much this. Did an internship at one of the top MMHF and then went to MFPE full time. HH will be apprehensive to put you forward (if you don't have banking or MBB experience) as experience isn't closely related and the C P B M names mean jack shit in public markets without knowing the PM you worked for, let alone in PE (most pe senior guys in europe don't know these funds at all)
Investment team will give you props/ be impressed that you got the internship because a HF internship is hard to land. Nothing more than that from my experience (would actually say it made my recruiting a lot harder) as the work is very different at a podshop and junior pe guys know that. In Europe, the HF route is way less standardised than the US so people will really question why you want to move to PE etc.
Good banking internships (if you are able to get PE internships then even better but banking is still important) + good school + languages + networking are the way to go.
After that comes MBB experience and lastly anything else they deem cool/prestigious (could put a HF internship in last bucket)
Thanks for the candid response; can't say I'm especially interested in PE but was wondering what opportunities I would be competitive for after my SA stint. Surprised its rated less than BB experience but it makes sense given the reasons you have listed - thank you.
Out of curiosity, when did you start applying for PE opportunities?
Yeah I assumed as much; having a strong public --> private markets etc answer is pretty essential. I'm assuming not many people come through with this background (given how few seats are available for these HF summers). Thank you
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