Recruiting in spring of first MBA year for post-MBA?
Want to switch PE firms after my MBA. Old one is big, great returns, etc. but people make a John Deere truck look empathetic by comparison.
Problem is, the funds I’ve been targeting / have previously networked with in fall seem to say they plan on filling their class with returning pre-MBAs and summer offerees. Have no desire to be a summer VP / ASO; that seems like a job for career switchers and military types and I’m not gonna even get dealflow. Not sure I’d even be competitive if I applied, having done the full ASO stint.
So is it worth it to be recruiting now (1st year spring) and try to jump the gun on usual 2nd year fall MBA recruiting at these funds? I’d basically be competing against their prospective interns but want to nail down a slot for 2025 now rather than being told “sorry, Lance Corporal X and McKinsey Matt took our only non-return slots since they got three quarters of a case study right in March and presented professionally for 10 weeks” in the fall.
My 2c - fine to start networking and getting to know VPs/Principals/MDs at target shops, but they won’t know their hiring needs until far closer to your start. Realistically, only a handful of shops have internship programs and many of those roles don’t even convert to full-time, so I wouldn’t excessively worry about spots filling from industry newcomers.
Isn’t it nearly impossible for career switchers to land a PE role? Are Summer roles not targeted at returning folks like you?
There are definitely some MBA summer Sr. Assoc. / VP roles that are explicitly made for people with pre-MBA experience. But OP is right, there are also many other MBA summer Assoc. roles that funds use to inject candidates that are new to the industry (military/consultant/non-PE diversity candidates/etc.). From what I've seen, the offer rates for those roles are tough in this market and they're mainly at smaller funds.
Fully agree here. The internships are for unique/diverse backgrounds and generally not meant for those with prior PE experience. Most with PE experience try something different for the summer (public markets/hedge funds, portco operating roles, etc.).
This is becoming less true in the current market, there are multiple UMM funds hiring summers that they intend to use for FT conversion. I think this is a matter of the current slowdown / bloated headcount where firms that may hire for 0-1 MBA role want to have the summer be in effect an extended interview period before pulling the trigger on making a post-MBA hire
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