How Many Processes Did it Take You to Get a Buyside Offer? Keep Striking Out…
Hey fellas, wanted to get a gauge on what is normal for how many buyside processes it took you to finally land an offer. I get that right now is not the best environment for recruiting given the layoffs and slow M&A activity, but I feel like I keep striking out. So far these are the net results of my recruiting. This has been off cycle over the course of several months.
LMM PE: second round, rejected
UMM PE: first round, rejected
Credit Fund: third round, rejected
MM PE: final round, rejected
MM PE: first round, rejected
The frustrating part has been that I keep getting positive feedback from recruiters such as “they really enjoyed the conversation but decided to move forward with other candidates”. I keep prepping like crazy but can’t seem to convert. Is this normal or am I just not good enough lol.
Any advice would be appreciated!
First rounds are whatever, I wouldn't be too worried about those - even second rounds. If these were all final round eliminations I'd say it might be an issue but first rounds are kind of a matter of luck sometimes.
Just need more reps. I would talk to more recruiters, ask friends or people in your group for people they've had good luck with if you need those.
You should also be reflecting on each of these as to why you didn't get an offer - maybe the first rounds went okay, hard to have a 20 min interview go off track - but the third and final round ones you should have some idea of what happened and be working on fixing whatever you think went wrong.
Makes sense. I have had a few people from HR interview me in first rounds which seems a little weird? Idk how they are supposed to evaluate how good a 25 year old is on investing knowledge. I try not to read into it too much and just do the best I can.
Yeah I wouldn't even count those as misses. I see the HR notes from the other side and sometimes it is just really questionable what HR focuses on...
See if you can clean anything up from the other misses. I would also consider networking if you come across opportunities you're really interested in - you'd be surprised how much reaching out to an associate or two can help you. Ask the HH first as some are crazy about controlling the process, but most don't mind if you casually get coffee with an associate to get a feel for their experience once your resume has passed screening
Same dude, I’ve had final rounds with 2 MFs, 1 UMM, and 1 MM, thought all went went and got the ding. Additionally got good feedback. Insane process given on-cycle kids who couldn’t do LBOs got offers
So wild dude. And I feel like these interviews are pretty damn hard too.
In one of the processes I was in the headhunter told me the fund set up 30 first round interview candidates for one spot. Fuck us bro. I was insta dinged on that one lmao.
hey I'm an incoming IB analyst looking to learn more about on/off cycle, can I pm you pls?
Following,
agree that 1st rounds are a hit or miss, so don’t worry about it. Offcycle has always been intensive and that sucks, but keep grinding and you will get there for sure.
Also wanted to know what were the final rounds like? Was it only modelling, case, how many / who conducted the same.. wud be helpful if you could share
Final rounds were usually with the founder/ or partners. In both instances it was me against a few other candidates competing for one spot. This was after the modeling test/case study. Mostly was focused around investing style/fit at that stage.
Shit has been a grind for sure. Not going to give up though. Will keep at it until I find something good. I really do not want to settle for something I’m not excited about though and that is my real fear in all of this - getting an offer at a shop that I am not really stoked on and then feeling like I have to take it because I’ve gone through so many processes that it may be my only option.
I truly do feel what you mean, in a similar spot myself, some days are truly heart sinking, but gotto pick ourselves up, it’s not over until it’s over…
Model doodling/reading up is one way I keep myself busy
Man I think I went through 8-10 processes before getting my offer. Only made it to 2 final rounds and got offer from 1. This was 2 years ago too when recruiting was hotter. As others have said off cycle can be super random. Pretty common for a fund to have a guy in for a super day and still have first round interviews going on, so you could be doing your first round and not have a chance.
This is encouraging to hear. Thanks for the info. Sounds like this may be the norm for off cycle then. Everyone else I have talked to seems to have had similar experiences to me right now, especially with the applicant pool being larger than usual with current analysts looking to move to the buyside coupled with all the kids who were laid off.
Think I went through 5 processes, before landing the offer (way hotter market too) it was a grind man, it'll hit soon just stay at it.
Bleh. I don't miss the days of being staffed on several live deals and trying to find somehow to sneak away every other day for 30-60 minutes to do an interview.
Seeing that you are now in PE, how did you actually pull this off? Any specific tips?
I went through 9 processes myself before getting my offer a few months ago, just keep grinding and you'll get something
Terrible market and PE jobs are ultra competitive. Typically with IB jobs a huge amount of people apply but it's mostly noise and a lot of applicants are people trying to up-tier from no-name boutiques, switch careers from TAS/Audit/FP&A, etc.
With PE you're typically competing with an equally large pool, but it's filled with good junior bankers who know their shit. And people actually try to stay in PE. Thus the competition is a lot harder than up-tiering to another IB firm even in great markets.
If it makes you feel better, once you do get the offer, your chances of making it to VP will be even slimmer. Not trying to be a dickhead - this dynamic exists for all of us.
Took me about a dozen firms, any number of interviews with each from 1 round to 5-6
I was off cycle and this was pre-COVID, but for firms that I actually interviewed with, I'd say 4-5.
I had something like 10-12 processes, including 4-5 final rounds and 1 offer. I’m a top performing associate at my fund. Very, very frustrating to go through. It’s also all splitting hairs and a lot dumb luck. Some people in my fund would ding totally different profiles than others, almost opposites required behaviour wise and no way of known ‘how to act’ with whom. I was ready to give up when I landed an UMM offer. Hang in there
You have to realize these jobs are ridiculously competitive, even for IB analysts. For every 1 seat at a half decent MM PE shop, there's ~50-100 IB analysts who are hoping for a spot. Probably ~50% don't make the cut for first round, and of those who make it to the first round, they're only going to advance another 50% at most to the next round. Assuming the superday is after the 2nd round, keep in mind that they will likely have 10 or less spots at that point, all vying for 1-2 offers. These numbers move around year to year but odds definitely decline when the hiring market is slow and everybody is trying to leave their sweaty IB role.
Source: family member runs recruiting at a MM PE firm
Went through the process this spring and landed a MM position for this summer. I don't have a stellar resume (3.3-3.4 GPA, Semi-Target College, decent group but not BB), but was able to have a decent pick by the end of it. My biggest struggle was with case studies, it just took more reps with refining how I presented to a mock-IC and structured my thinking around a target. Summary of my 4-5 months of recruiting:
- Interviewed at a total of 8 firms
- Rejected after the first round from 2
- Made it to a model test at 6
- Rejected after the model test at 2 (though i've heard one of these is still recruiting for this seat, so don't know what to make of that)
- Rejected after the in-person final round at 1
- 2 offers and withdrew from the 3rd before they had the chance to offer me.
The successes seem to all come at once after you really hit your groove. I had all 3 "offers" handed to me within 72 hours at the end of it all. Moral of the story is to keep refining whatever sticks out in your mind as the biggest weakness in each interview. This can be a different thing in each process, but making small tweaks to individual components of your total package will compound as you continue to gain experience and try to land something.
I had almost the exact same experience, 8-10 processes with lots of strikeouts and then got my 2 offers in the same week at the end.
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