PE Associate Exits
Seems like there’s endless discussion on WSO about the “best IB groups for PE exits” and the MF/UMM/MM recruiting funnel in general.
But there’s surprisingly little concrete intel on exits after you’re already in a PE associate role — especially for those not sitting at a top MF platform.
Curious to hear anecdotes / your experiences on:
- Lateral PE moves (MM ➝ UMM? Any anecdotes of XYZ person moving upstream would be appreciated)
- How easy or hard was the lateral PE recruiting process? How did you approach talking to headhunters, and was it easy to get looks?
- HF exits (do you get interviews at strong SMs if you’re not from a MF/UMM?)
Bumping for visibility
Honestly, you can do pretty much anything. I've seen VC, HF, Product, Corporate Strategy, Corporate Finance, Entrepreneurship, REPE, Startups, MBA, PC, Engineering, Consulting, Burnout...
Even from a middle market PE firm I've seen great exits. The biggest question that will be the biggest determinant of your success is what do you actually want to do and what gives you energy to compete against someone who is equally as skilled but isn't "in the game" as much as you are.
I was a PE associate >5 years ago. I still grapple with what am I doing with my life. I've bounced around a couple of the above. The hardest part is being "off the track" and knowing you are flying the plane now. The faster you can figure out where you want to fly the plane, the better off you will be.
Hopefully the plane isn’t heading into a tower brother
You're on some Sky King type shit
Bump, curious for exits from co-investment and fund investing programs - like NB, AlpInvest, HarborVest, GIC, etc
As the above commenters mentioned, the "exits" become a lot more varied and there isn't really a "path". Most WSO threads are about recruiting for IB and PE because there are hundreds of people following the same track for their initial jobs, but after that it's really up to what you actually want to do and learning about those paths from your smaller network
Also, there are already a ton of threads regarding PE lateral and HF recruiting tbh
Following
going through this process now and looking for interesting operating roles. I will say that even with good experience / strong firm / good references anything you do will require a lot of work / planning (need to stage accordingly.) Definitely think PE associate exits are overly simplified by a lot of people on here, though I do agree there is more optionality / variability in outcomes
thanks. could you elaborate what you mean planning? did you find it hard to get looks from headhunters?
I am trying to do chief of staff / first ops hire type roles so it is a bit less structured (not reliant on HHs). By planning - I mean that you need to give thought to what you want to do (requires introspection / networking conversations / research) and also need to engage a sufficient number of processes. Given you are busy on top of this with an 80 hour per week job that ebbs and flows - need to give yourself sufficient time before exiting
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