PE Associate Lateral Process
With chatter around PE recruiting picking up, wanted to post for updated takes on the PE associate lateral process.
For those who have gone through the process, how different was it from your initial PE recruiting process? How did you broach conversations with headhunters about title and comp (upfront or towards the conclusion of a process)?
How did you handle the relationship with your current firm and the headhunter who placed you there? Understand that the headhunter is effectively locked from working with you unless your current firm clears it, but does that expire at any point?
Overall, what worked well for you and what didn't? What do you see as being different in today's hiring market?
Been through the lateral process (MM --> Large Cap).
There is a lot more variability in terms of process and is dependent on the role you'll be stepping into. These are presumably partner track and firms are typically hiring due to i) expanding team size or ii) filling turnover. Processes can be dragged out over months (firm gets busy on a bunch of deals, spec for the role changes, etc.) or can be extremely short (we lost a sr. associate and need someone asap).
Be upfront with headhunters about title - comp will usually be pretty consistent between geography, fund size, and title. Should have a good sense for firms that underpay.
The headhunter relationship depends on circumstances - gets tricky if you're leaving 1 year mark and haven't discussed with your current firm but they will usually be discrete if you reach out regardless.
Overall, I would say be very selective in your lateral search. This is a pretty strong hiring market (in part due to WFH burnout/turnover) so there should be decent opps but hopping around PE firms as a senior associate can trigger all sorts of red flags if you're not progressing up to the VP level. Look at the age and tenure of the mid and principal-level ranks - is there a clear path to VP/principal/partner?
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