Hi all, newish here. I am currently an AO in operations at a BB IB in Nashville. Looking to make the move to PE at some point. Is that even possible for someone in operations? What are the decent PE firms in Nashville? I know of Brentwood Advisors and that's about it. Most seem pretty small and seems like you'd have to know someone to get an interview. Tired of boring operations jobs and not making 6 figures consistently.
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Look at the profiles of their analysts. Ask yourself if your profile matches at all in terms of experience, types of previous positions, etc. If it doesn't, then you need to figure out what you can do to first get yourself into these kinds of roles before attempting to go from point A to point D; try point A to point B first.
It's pretty tough to go from ops --> PE. As you note, most of the shops are LMM/MM and recruit heavily from MM banks. If you can lateral to a FO IB position in Nashville, think that would best position you. My sense is that already being there / having Nashville roots will go along way based on buddies that work in finance there.
Ops straight into an investing seat in PE is likely not happening, sorry (PE ops seat is different story). Likely need to spend time as an actual IB analyst first.
But don't IB analysts just get recruited out of school and start as interns? I'm 27 now and most of the incoming analysts are like 21/22 and went to Brown or Cornell. I went to a public state school. Sure I have experience, am somewhat intelligent and have good work ethic, but so what if I didn't go to a target or b-school and am not being recruited out of school?
You have no deal experience. You need to get age and prior experience out of your head. Unless you have relevant experience (ER, valuation, etc.) or have sector expertise to bring to the table for a specific industry coverage group, then you will likely need to start as a fresh analyst in IB first.
I just left PE but I would have hired IB analysts w/ 2 years of experience (even less TBH) over you every single day. It's tough to hear but it's the truth. It doesn't matter if you went to Harvard or Stanford. I'd hire the state school kid w/ IB experience over an ops guy from those schools.
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