How to Get on Career Track / Stay Post ASO years

Basically title. I'm an incoming analyst at a MM fund who is interested in staying in PE for the long term. Understand that promotions are scarce in the industry and most ASOs are not offered a career track / visibility past mid-level. How do I solve for career longevity in the industry? Assuming it is a mix of performance, relationships, politics, etc. Thanks. 

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Mixture of firm needs, a minimum of competence, and politics. The older UMM/MFs simply are too bloated at the mid-levels to promote more than just a few people. Similarity a firm rapidly expanding needs people, and will promote most if they are competent. Politics is more relevant for firms that don't promote most people: politics by nature is going to be firm dependent.  At Veritas for example, only one opinion matters.

 
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I wrote this little spiel a good while ago - while I'm not usually one to quote myself, I will say after three years in the VP world, I still maintain the sentiment completely.

Half of it is in your court: your personal performance at your day job as it pertains to supporting yourself, your team, and your current project. Directly paired with this is your disposition and emotional awareness, which drives how you execute, pivot, react, and coexist with every eccentric character or fucked-up deal of this wild industry. Gotta have both of those nailed in my opinion. 

That's the easy part. Still maintain to go the long way there is a comical amount of timing and luck that may or may not find you. You can make that argument about any career, really, but I can't tell you how many times I either witness it play out with somebody here or realize how lucky I just got when something good was bestowed me. Plenty of good and bad luck events have shaped where I am now, for better or worse. 

Focus on the first part because that's all you can. The luck will find you one way or another. Get after it

 

I agree competence is important and there's not much you can do outside of showing you are a well-adjusted person who is competent; but think it's a bit of a naive take to say it's half the battle. Some of these MF's are promoting 1-2 kids out of 10+, I truly don't think none are competent or only 2/10 are competent. I do think being the most competent in your class is very highly correlated with promotion odds, but there is not much you can do if nobody get's promoted or if there is a nepo in your class who gets the promotion over you. 

 

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