PE On-cycle Recruiting Timeline

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to understand the PE on-cycle recruiting timeline and I have a few questions. Any insights would be greatly appreciated!

  1. Does on-cycle PE recruiting typically target incoming analysts who haven't started their roles yet or current analysts at BB firms who have already been working for a few months?

  2. If one is successful in on-cycle PE recruiting, it usually takes another 1.5-2 years to join the firm. When does this countdown start? For example, if I graduate in Winter 2024 and start a full-time role at a BB firm, can I expect to start at the PE firm around May 2026? Is that how it generally works?

Thanks in advance for your insights!

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This year, a couple of firms did diversity events in early July. Headhunters started reaching out the third week of July for intro chats (and some firms started coffee chats) and then it kicked off on that Friday.

I was in the third week of training - some people probably had about a month and a few banks hadn’t started yet.
Not all firms went though because it was so early and not many people were ready. Things have picked up in the last few weeks and will probably be on a slow burn throughout the fall/early winter.

Most offers are for July/August after two years of an analyst program. Starting in January is rare - if you want to recruit for PE at all, you probably would wait until the fall when it kicks off for everyone else m. You’ll have more time under your belt so may be a positive.

 

Thank you so much for the information! So, to clarify, do headhunters typically not reach out to incoming analysts with return offers immediately after summer? And do firms generally focus only on the new analyst class, rather than incoming analysts?

 


Yeah firms like Henkel will get your email from analysts during the summer and get you in their database

 

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