genuine question - looking for advice

i was working at a consulting firm last year and unfortunately got term’d due to performance. i know - not great, but there were genuinely lots of personal reasons (family suffered a financial crisis after a scam, grandma fell super sick, parents went through a divorce) and i tired to let HR know i needed a break but i didn’t qualify for sabbatical to take time off yet.

im still early in my career but really bummed about this. i was able to find a new job without any employment gaps to hold me in the mean time. but now i’ve gotten relatively far in a pe recruiting process - they asked for references. i provided references from senior managers who are willing to vouch for me since they know the whole story but im worried what happens if the pe fund goes and back channels to some random md i never worked with and all that md sees is a score with no context.

will this follow me forever? feel like i cant get away from one mistake 

any tips on how to navigate this as i go into the final round with the pe fund?

3 Comments
 
Most Helpful

Funds do back channel if they know someone there or have a friend, but that doesn’t seem likely, especially given how junior you are. I personally don’t think something like this will follow you forever. If you are close with the reference providers, ask them to not mention anything about it. The other option is tell the fund about the termination but there’s no reason to bring that up unless they somehow find out about it (which seems to me a low probability). Maybe it comes in a background check (idk) and then you can tell them about the life events with back up from your reference providers.

 

yup it's a first year associate role at a lmm fund ($300-500M), pretty small team i think maybe 10-12 people?

all my reference providers have spoken with me and we all aligned on a story so i'm not too concerned about the references, im more concerned about back channeling.

i don't think it comes up in a background check, especially since i was able to find a new short-term role after the term late last year and have been working there since, there was no employment gap on my resume. 
 

hoping you are right that it doesn't seem likely given this is a junior / entry pe role

 

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