MBB London vs Continental Europe for PE Exits (and MBA)

Was the disadvantage for continental offices that strong? Does it matter at all in terms of reputation (for PE or MBA) to be in London?

It's more from a practical viewpoint. These funds are in London, so doing an in-person interview is much easier to squeeze in if it takes 2-3 hours out of your day vs. a full day including travel. Most funds will do multiple rounds over multiple days, all happening roughly in the same period (September-December). Also, if you can work with some of the funds you can much more credibly argue you want to work there. Recruiters usually require coffee chats so easier to do that live as well, although those are probably also easily done over phone/zoom.

Also, having spoken to some consultants, they have mentioned that they thought the switch to the buyside was easier coming from MBB (as opposed to the BB/EB pool)

I doubt that is true. Maybe for the consultant heavy firms (e.g. BainCap) you might have a leg up as you're more familiar with the case studies, but the number of large cap funds you can realistically exit to is much smaller. What I did was just count out the number of consultants per fund as that'll give you a reasonable proxy of their willingness to hire consultants (which can be very different than the willingness to interview consultant). Suggest you do that for the size/type/strategy of firms you're interested in and draw your conclusions if this holds for your segment. Also, I know very few consultants (read: none) who did get a great offer and then decided to not go for it - it's not an easy or intuitive process for consultants.

Finally, if you could describe a little bit your process, kind of the timeline and also what did you do in order to prepare?

Would recommend to interview in your 3rd or 4th year (give or take a few months either side). The 2 years and out like the US doesn't really seem to work as well and hires across the board are a bit more senior to begin with. There's a large cap recruiting 'round' in Sept-Dec as mentioned. This is a 'round' because a lot of firms interview in the same-ish time span to get people in the door. Then there's a second wave in Feb-March, mostly for mid-market or positions that went unfilled first time around. (Lower) mid-market is much less structured though and is more on a needs basis (e.g. a gap in the team because someone left).

Processes can take anywhere from a few days to weeks or even months dependent on the fund. You'll be approached by the headhunter (or approach them) and they will (or won't) "shortlist" you, which simply means to put your CV in front of the fund. The HHs recommend people etc. and the fund chooses who to do 1st round interviews with. Because of this HHs are key -- if you don't come across to them like someone who can land an offer and is likeable you'll get fewer opportunities to interview.

In my experience, the minimum number of rounds is 2 with a case study (e.g. Bain Cap is 2 rounds with 8 interviews total (incl. 1 case study), with a chat with the fund head at the end), but can go much higher. Processes are generally structured across multiple days and you'll hear back after each round if you'll continue with the process. Most likely your interviews will involve a combination of motivational, behavioural, deal experience, consulting style cases, financial cases, and an LBO test with commercial assessment. Can include investment ideas/themes as well (i.e. pitch a company/target basically).