Second Year IB Analyst PE Recruiting

Honestly with how early on-cycle is, it's becoming pretty common. I recruited as a second year on-cycle last year and while I obviously can't compare the experience to what it would be like doing it as a first year, I didn't find anything to be super difficult.

My interviews almost certainly delved into my deal experience more than a first year's, but that's likely because I had a year of deal experience on my resume. I was expected to know the facts of my deals cold, and almost every shop pushed me on whether the rationale of the deal made sense to me / whether I would invest. So while questions may be incrementally harder, I'd argue it's not noticeable because you have a year of on the job experience. Modeling tests are mostly to check a box, just make sure you can do the Version 1 test that everyone has a copy of and you're good.

I interviewed with one MF and 5-6 UMM firms, and I'd say it was almost a 50/50 split between first and second years (at the MF, I did notice there were more first years). I really don't think people hold it against you anymore; in fact, most headhunters will say they encourage first years to not recruit unless they are super prepared and know for a fact it's what they want to do.

The biggest advice I have is to take your headhunter meetings super seriously - not only do you need to sound coherent and why you want to do PE, you need to clearly articulate to them what fund size you're interested in and any geographic preferences. You want to convince them that you're sure of what you want, because they want to avoid situations where they put you in front of their clients and then you don't take the next interview or offer because it's "not what you're looking for". If they sense you don't know what you want, they're unlikely to put you in front of their most important clients