Senior Associate to VP
After being promoted to Senior Associate about a year ago at my last firm (MM PE), I quickly lateraled (due to horrible culture) to a new shop, knowing that I’d have to do 1.5-2 years to establish my rep to get to VP. About a year in now, and have a feeling my current shop isn’t going to be able to raise another fund (despite them telling me that raising capital was no issue when interviewing - probably a misjudgment on my part but couldn’t quite ask them to open up the books for me).
I’m now in a bit of an awkward spot given I still don’t have the VP title but likely need to recruit in a shitty lateral market.
Any stories, wisdom, or advice from others on recruiting at this in-between level, sticking with it to get to VP, how to navigate the lateral market with multiple jobs in the last 2 years, other potential next steps? I do enjoy PE and have always been a top performer but am losing a bit of motivation for recruiting again in this market, rebuilding rep, and doing the associate level work as I get older. Also, if anyone is hiring, would obviously be great to connect
Bump - in the same boat. The market is atrocious right now.
I haven’t started looking yet but it was pretty bad a year ago as well. Headhunters back then were giving me the line “it’ll pick up after [insert next major holiday]”, which I think they’re still giving people.
How confident are you that your current shop won’t be able to raise a new fund? Any high-level details to share?
They’ve been raising for more than a year and still nothing, extremely high / clearly unattainable valuation marks of current fund, zero liquidity provided to investors to date. 75% confident that they won’t be able to or that it’ll be a significantly smaller fund. If a smaller fund, likely no promotions and simple math indicates elimination of certain roles, so trying to get ahead of that
Can’t give too much more without exposing
Do you also work at BDT & MSD?
I'd also ask - how confident are you that your promotion is tied to their ability to fundraise?
If you're valued, they might promote you anyways while they try to sort out fundraising. May not come with a big raise but at least you'd get the title.
Would argue against thinking your promotion is not tied to fundraising even if you are a top performer...
The first (and easiest) to get cut if they can't raise will be the ones who are up for promotion
^ exactly that plus limited time to build rep and show value
All fair. Just saying if you could be within a 6 month window (1 year in, you said 1.5 on low end), might be worth waiting until December (assuming that's promo time) before recruiting.
While I'll agree the fund will likely trim staff, some of it also comes down to portco load. If you're on important existing companies (that are either important to that future fundraise and/or important to senior peoples' wallets), they may be more inclined to keep you to preserve an exit outcome.
Things are that bad at Liberty Strategic Capital?
Pitching in - in a similar position. Curious how big / strategy of your old and new firm?
Been recruiting and market’s bad, esp at mid level. Would stay put if you can (even with no promotion) and try in 8-10 months if market recovers.
I am hiring if you have good deal experience. DM if interested.
Can’t dm but interested
Also interested
OP here. Unfortunately can't DM given the comment is anonymous. I created a burner email ([email protected]) - happy to connect and send over my resume if you're able to shoot a quick note to the burner email.
On deal experience - have been able to get a good amount of reps with 2 platform acquisitions, 5 add-ons, and a variety of portco work (refinancings, workouts, etc), with most of the deals being in industrial/consumer
Feel like we’re gonna be seeing a lot of this going forward. Call me a sourpuss, but the PE hype has been stratospheric for so long, and so wide, how can it end any other way?
Any color on the market? Are you getting inbounds for Sr. Assoc/VP opportunities? Been crickets for me...
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