Someone told me ~80% of PE associates burn out / get pushed to Corp Dev / Strategic Finance, is this true?
Title - is it hard to remain in PE?
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Closer to 50% stay and rise up in PE from my experience. The rest do HF VC growth and corp/other.
Maybe at a MF this may be the case, but my experience is that it is closer to 50/50
PE funds don't just keep you around forever like banks do. You have to perform. Beyond that, many fail to make the intellectual transition from banking Analyst, where you are actively not thinking (and encourage not to), to PE Associate, where you absolutely must think. Washout rate is high as a result.
This isn’t even true. PE is a game of perception and funds are bloated. Most people in my Associate class were very capable but only 1 could stay another year.
Why was only 1 able to stay? Burn out / stress?
Headcount. If there is a funnel saying most don't "perform" is just wrong. If Associate #1 does 3 deals and Associate #12 doesn't close any who do you think they will keep? What does that say about Associate #12 other than they got bad staffings
You are being deliberately obtuse.
Your older comment says you did 2 years as an Associate in PE and now a director of strategy and your comment on this post says you have to perform and beyond that many people don't transition from banking to PE (where you need to think).
My comment says that isn't the reason people don't make it in PE. My class has 12 and 1 stayed for Sr Associate (no path to VP). I find it hard to believe the senior folks at my fund (who by the way paid us above contracted amount) thought we weren't performing or couldn't make the intellectual transition from IB to PE.
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