Need Some Advice From Consulting → PE During On-Cycle

Hey looking for some advice about the topic above. Any help or insights would be greatly appreciated!!

In Dec I graduated (UG) from an ivy, and I am returning to the T2 consulting firm I interned at last summer. I am in their Private Equity/Due Diligence/Value Creation group. Was thinking about making a shift to PE eventually, but I got an email within the last 2 weeks from a well known HH firm in the PE space offering to set up an intro call if I am interested in on-cycle recruiting. I "registered" via the email they sent and provided my general interest, background, resume, etc.

I wanted to ask about the process of recruiting and if I should even go through with it as a incoming BA/AC at a T2 firm. If I'm going through with it I should have enough time to prep given I am not in school right now.

  1. Coming from a T2 firm will the HH and PE firms take my candidacy seriously? I know its hard for consultants, let alone consultants from T2.
  2. How prepared should I be for the for the HH intro call? I know I should treat it like any interview (e.g. make sure I know my resume/experiences, come off professional), but is there anything else that I am missing (e.g. will they ask me technicals/paper LBOs/ modeling)
    1. If I plan on participating in on-cycle, is there a time that I should set up the call by? (Mid-March? Mid April? Sooner the better? Whenever I am ready?)
  3. How realistic is a MF deal team in a "consulting friendly" PE firm (Bain Cap, Advent, H&F)?
    1. If it is unrealistic to go for a deal team should I consider ops teams at MFs and do they recruit during the on-cycle period?
  4. If MF is prolly unrealistic, is UMM and MM a better place to realistically target to work on a deal team?
    1. Sort of tying back to the previous question, is it possible to recruit for a MFs Ops team and a deals team in a UMM/MM at the same time during on-cycle as time is limited?
    2. Also given that I did a healthcare major in college I assume I should target Healthcare/Life Science focused UMM/MMs?
  5. Do growth equity firms recruit during this period of time as well? Does the consulting skillset align a bit more with GE versus deal teams at private equity firms?
    1. If I decide to target GE is their interview process different from PE and will the expectations be different?

I know its a lot of relatively broad questions and perhaps some of the questions I need to answer myself (e.g. Deal Team vs. Ops Team) but I would greatly appreciate any insight that would give me more information to help make a better informed decision. Any insights would be golden, especially consulting →PE. Thanks a ton! 

2 Comments
 
Most Helpful

You absolutely should do on cycle , but candidly it’s pretty unlikely you’ll get too much traction.

Yes MF is basically out of the question. Spend some time looking at “formers” from your firm and peer firms. MM , LMM, and some VC are a lot more “possible”, but still extremely hard. Audax, HGGC, and Lee Equity are the flavor of firms I’ve seen that would be open to your background , but still really hard to get for anyone

 

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