Hey PE guys, what’s your W/L balance?
I know a lot of you went to PE because the work life balance was better and it’s cool to be the one doing the deal and not just facilitating it.
But how has your life changed since your banking years?
It was pretty similar to banking and even as a VP I think I work the same or more than many of my peers in banking. You should assume a tough WLB unless going LMM however the big experience game changer is going to be culture, and this one actually does vary. Big difference between working 80 hours a week and feeling respected and your career goals / personal life are at least being considered vs. working 80 hours a week and like you’re just a faceless input in the machine.
From what I’ve heard, the WLB balance is the same, but the stress is much worse because you have more responsibility and your word is held to a much higher standard than as an Analyst
I personally think WLB varies a lot more across PE firms than banks. It really depends on the personalities involved and the fund dynamics of your group / team (i.e. constantly chasing new platform deals or working on the portfolio). I’ve personally been at a MF / UMM and I think the average hours per week work out to 60-65 hours consistently. It does get very busy during live deals (more intense) than banking, but the quiet times are very quiet. In banking, there is a constant stream of client service / pitching work that almost never ends, but in PE, it can be very quiet when there is a dry pipeline, senior folks are on vacation, and portfolio companies are self-sufficient. You have to realize in UMM / MF PE, portfolio companies generally don’t need a lot of handholding because this isn’t their first timing doing this and they tend to be larger as a result. In LMM or MM PE, Associates and VPs tend to be much more involved and that creates a lot of pressure to always be on. Lastly, it’s been said many times, but it’s also about your internal team. Every MF or UMM PE has sector teams and that really determines your WLB. If your senior team has a life outside of work (eg hobbies, family, non profit boards) that will make your life significantly better. I don’t think you can generally firms like some people do here. It’s the same way in PE as it is in banking.
Can you PM me? 60-65/week seems manageable to me for MF/UMM. Very curious how you were able to tell which firms would be better during recruiting - with OCR kicking off I’m trying to understand what to look for in MF/UMM so I don’t end up in a sweatshop.
Don’t really want to give away too much, but it’s pretty hard to diligence unless you speak to the junior folks on the team. I would say ignore WSO rumors and try reaching out to the junior members of the team directly through LinkedIn or HR.
For me it’s been worse than banking. Have averaged ~70 hours a week my first year at a UMM
Banking must have been good to you then. Average about 85 in banking, so 70 sounds not too bad.
I mean 85 is well above average for banking, that’s pretty brutal actually
Same. ~70 at an EB.
Nomura?
Which EB is this fam
That would be significantly better than my current banking stint
Any datapoints at BX/KKR?
Sucks. Almost all large funds have shit WLB similar or worse to banking. Just the way it is. Especially now, record amounts of dry powder to put to work forcing funds to evaluate more opportunities than ever and at a faster pace than ever given the competition our there.
You will have no free time, you will not be happy, and you will fucking like it.
Do you guys work weekends?
Most of them yes
Damn that sucks. How do you have time for your hobbies and things that are fun on the weekend? I mean what's the point of working if you can't even enjoy life. Life is too short IMHO
Have had 3 weekends with no work in the past year and one of those was because I was sick.
Are you looking for another job?
Take with a grain of salt because I'm working LMM and the partners are in fundraising mode right now, but for the last few months it's been about 20-30 hours a week, with live deals going up to like 45 or 50. IDK how I lucked out and I'm sure that it will go up after the fund is raised, but all in all it's been wonderful.
Please do enjoy those hours!
Are you not at all involved in the fundraising work? I would have thought at a smaller firm you’d be taking on some of the heavy lifting in terms of putting together marketing materials, responses to LP diligence questions, etc
It is terribly difficult to get a good read on expected hours in this space. Here's how I would describe my experience.
You can separate hours into normal times and live deals. During normal times I would expect my Monday through Thursday to be 830-10. This varies day to day but is probably the average. Fridays are something like 9-7. I do an hour or two on Sunday. Add this up and you get just over 65 hours. During a live deal, I worked around the clock all week / weekend.
I knew about 8-10 people working in PE at different firms. 2 or so worked more than me during normal times, with the rest working less, some much less. During live deals, everyone worked a similarly brutal amount. Generally, the sense among my peer group is that I work more than the norm in my circle. Granted, my circle only includes a couple individuals working at MF funds.
Compared to banking, this is an improvement. I should add though that when I was in banking I thought 65 hours sounded like a breeze. However, I'm a few years older, and working the schedule I just laid out is nearly as frustrating to me now as the extra 10-15 hours were when I was in college and fresh out of school.
Concur (and SB to) user above about 65 hours being a much bigger drag at the VP level for myriad reasons I can get into if folks would like. Also have worked at several LMM shops but never MM/UMM/MF.
My contribution to the thread is that my non-live-deal weeks are often dominated by travel (averaging 3 nights a week on the road so far in 2022). This actually reduces my hours of "work" as I defined it during my analyst years, although that work naturally happens after 7:00 PM hunched over my laptop in some shitty Westin). However, I still don't have time for activities on weeknights given that inherently unpredictable level of travel.
In terms of compare and contrast (assume market comp levels based on Heidrick & Struggles):
Strong culture is as described above: I felt/feel valued as a member of the team, get that value in cash/carry, and have visibility and coaching to ultimately reach the next step.
Anyway, YMMV at any given firm (and even at the same firm a few years later-- Shop 1 above is now a complete grindfest of 90+ hour weeks for associates) and you should take these datapoints as anecdotal.
Mind sharing what comp is like in your current seat?
Source at this link.
These numbers are pre-covid, so would add ~25% to the 250-499 most recent fund bucket to arrive at what I am hearing from folks in the market. Would be interested to hear others' experience (as these data are rather stale).
I'm the same way in terms of preferring to travel the night before and wake up in my meeting destination without having to stress about morning-of travel.
If you are not going to be happy working 60+ hours a week on average with peaks on live deals in a job you find interesting and satisfying, you aren’t going to enjoy PE. There aren’t successful PE firms whose best associates don’t work that schedule or worse. While it’s true that some firms are less sweaty than others and the quality of the work varies a lot, none of these jobs offer a great work life balance and if that is really what you want, you should find it in another industry
This actually holds true across all industries. I see it too often in medicine (my area), law, finance, accounting, tech, etc. I find it fascinating to get lost in the excel spreadsheet sometimes as time just flies.
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