Prepping now for senior associate / VP lateral market in PE. Currently at an UMM / MF and want to stay in this size. What are the interviews like. How long before you want to leave should you start searching? Are they usually for immediate start? Or summer starts to stay on the cycle?
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You should start looking ASAP and expect the search to take a while, the market is flooded at this level and there is little to no hiring
Search now, market is slow. At the sr ass/VP level there is no 'on cycle' really its by needs basis (except for maybe MBA hiring but even that has been pretty dead).
Interviews are pretty straightforward for the most part typically:
1-2 30 min first round behavioral / deal walk through
Case Study (ranges from 48 hours to 1 week case studies but expect 3 statement model + minimum 3 slides)
Final round (4-8 people - similar to first rounds but can vary from purely behavioral to technical but more than half the time you'll be walking through your deals)
How many weeks should I budget for the process in total, like are these typically rolling interviews where it takes a while to hear back given firms want to group candidates all at once?
Assuming 1 week between each round and case?
These processes are slow... i'd say 6 weeks from start to finish
Not to pile on man and don’t know your specific situation. But even for MF/UMM Sr Aso with top background it can take months to years to “never”to find the “right” role in this environment.
Also Depends how picky you are. If you want to stay MFF/UMM, have a specific industry, AND geography, then it’s possible the thing you’re looking for doesn’t even exist, from a supply demand perspective.
Theres huge structural imbalance, large cap PE is Mature/declining, and there’s other headwinds like AI.
Seems like you have great background so I’m sure you’ll be fine. But would plan way ahead and go in knowing the environment. (Also I’m MM+ VP tittle is outdated)
Just landed VP role at MF
Process took ~6 weeks.
Several rounds, varying levels of difficulty. Would say I over prepared, so would advise not waiting till you’re at 100%. That being said, start ASAP.
Process looked like:
R1: HR
R2: Junior VP
R3 & R4: Principal / Director
R5: case study + Debrief with Principal / Diredtor
Super-day: in-person, multiple partners (5+) and HR (these were not hard, though never knew how I was doing within the convo)
1-1.5 weeks between each, decision came 1 week after
Also interviewing for VP roles (although exclusively LMM). Did any of your rounds have technical questions? For the case study, was it like a 3 hour timed model building exercise or they give you a week to put together a model and memo? For deal walkthroughs, did they ask any deep financial questions (i.e. what was the customer concentration for that company)? I have ~5 deals on my resume so hard to remember all the facts for each (and sometimes I get one deal mixed with another).
Were you lateraling as VP from another MF in same Industry / geography etc? Just curious
Negotiated this a year ago but was a lucky case. B-school buddies essentially indistingushable from me in the class of 2023-4 (!) are still looking and messing around with CorpDev and startups. By far the toughest rank in the industry to get a job in right now becuase every year you compete with (1) return offers at the big PE shops, (2) new MBA grads, and (3) the lateral third-year market, let alone (4) the other "washed" applicants still trying to break back in.
MM/LMM places that don't really have the cachet to send most kids to H/S(/W) are also weirdly hard to break into because (1) good Associates just stay on as direct promotes, reducing need for headcount upfront compared to 2-and-out places, and (2) the ex-UMM/MF applicants themselves are flocking "downstream" as they see the writing on the wall. Without being a dick, it's not uncommon at all to see BX/GTCR-level VPs getting hired at the same funds that have Associates coming from the fringes of semitarget schools and Harris Williams / Truist. Not calling the ASOs incompetent at all, just comparing market signals, It's a weird, weird dynamic that's essentially the opposite of what you see at banks (cracked Analysts vs. newb MBA Associates).
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