Growth PE => HF?

Does anybody have personal or anecdotal experience about transitioning from growth to a hedge fund? My guess is probably not, but I was wondering given that (1) the growth / PE shop is of decent size (multi-billion $ AUM) and (2) the HF seat would be covering public names in a growth sector (biotech, internet, etc.) For context, this is for incoming analyst out of ugrad, so no formal IB experience.

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I think it heavily depends on the type of growth experience you're getting coming out of undergrad with no formal IB experience. 

Most growth platforms at the Analyst level will have you at the very minimum be a sourcing monkey 40%-50% of the time...sometimes if you're lucky and the fund cares about Analysts the other 50% of your time could be devoted to modeling or at least getting some light modeling reps and other technical work that a Pre-MBA associate may pass down the pipeline. If you come 2-3 years out of a growth shop and all you did was source (not that sourcing is not a useful skill...just not relevant to the HF world) and have very few technical skills then you will have to fight very hard to convince L/S funds to take you seriously and give you a look. Most likely a strong combination of networking, ambition, passion, and luck. This is an important time to show your passion for public markets. 

If you did a fair amount of modeling in your 2-3 year analyst program then I think you will be better equipped to show that although you didn't do banking you have the model reps and ability to hit the ground running.

Keep in mind the HF world is highly individualistic and it is not as team-oriented as transaction-based industries like IB/PE. This translates to less hand-holding and a lot more critical and independent thinking rather than just being an enthusiastic team player on a 4-5 man deal team.

 

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