Should I tell the PE firm I am recruiting for if I have gotten into grad school?

Title says all.

Next month, I will be interviewing with a PE job I quite like and also applying to grad school. If I get the job, then by the time I join, I will have already received an acceptance/rejection from the school. So if everything goes well I really only plan to stay ~1 year at this next job. 

Should I flag that I am applying to school during the recruitment process? Or is it better to stay silent? If I stay silent and then give my notice next summer that I am heading back to school...I'm just concerned they would think I'm quite snake-y for hiding it from them, since it would be pretty obvious I applied a year ago. 

I would like the door to be open to me to come back to the same firm in another office after I finish grad school (so would love to have my managers vouch for me), so I don't want to burn bridges. Is there any way for me to navigate this without taking an L on any front? If I kill it in the year I'm there, have a great attitude, be loved by all, but then drop the news to my boss in a really apologetic manner, what are the chances my reputation stays intact?  

Thanks

5 Comments
 
Most Helpful

Honesty may not get you the outcome you want, but it will never bite you in the ass. I think deceit will leave a bad taste in some folks’ mouth in this case.

FWIW a few years ago a friend of mine recruiting to lateral and also for PE at the same time and ended up with both offers; he told his bank he would like to accept but would only be there for a year before PE; he told the PE firm he had recruited simultaneously and asked for permission to lateral for a year until his PE role. Both the bank and the PE firm assented to the agreement 

 

Honestly doesn't make sense to tell them. Yes, you absolutely do risk them being a bit pissed off in a year when you leave, so you'll have to know that going in.  However, at least in my view, you leaving after 1 year makes you a significantly weaker candidate.  I'm assuming they would like the person they are hiring to stay with the firm for at least 2 years if not longer?  If they are looking at you side by side vs. other candidates who don't have your circumstances, it's a pretty easy decision for them to not make you an offer, I would think.  

 

Thank you for your response here. Does the same apply to a first-year analyst fresh out of college who has been accepted to HBS 2+2/Stanford Deferred and is going through PE on-cycle recruiting? Would it help or hurt a candidate in front of a HH when you tell them that you have a tier 1 b-school lined up 4-5 years down the line? 

 

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