Thoughts on Big 4 M&A Consulting to PE

Hi all,

I am a senior honors student at a semi-target with a full-time Big 4 M&A consulting offer, and I'm looking to transition to PE in 2-3 years. My background includes a 3.7+ GPA, a lower-middle market PE internship first year, valuation and advisory consulting sophomore year, and an MM IB internship junior year - though only some returns were given out due to economic conditions despite a strong review. Given my goal of breaking into PE, I would like to know how feasible it is to leverage Big 4 M&A experience as a launching pad. I would greatly appreciate any advice on positioning myself for PE recruiting through an unconventional path. Specifically, how can I best spin my experiences thus far to appeal to PE firms despite not coming directly from IB? Any advice is appreciated.

Thank you!

3 Comments
 

I asked one of my PE networks this question in a call a few months ago, curious about who is in the industry. The only people with a non-IB background breaking into PE mostly comprise of Big 4 M&A with the occasional Big 4 Audit/Tax (probably on the more operational side, though he didn't specify). However, it seems even Big 4 M&A -> PE is still otherwise uncommon, at least at my networks LMM Fund. 

 

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