What differentiates VP candidates post B-school?

Very curious to hear- what differentiates candidates at the MBA level for VP Spots? I have seen a wide variety of outcomes post MBA and was wondering people's thoughts on this? Is it undergrad school, bank, prior PE fund and B-school? How does one differentiate themselves in the interview? I have heard of people with solid IB/PE experience getting interviews at funds and then not converting.

Would appreciate any thoughts from people who have actually been through the process - thanks!

 

1) getting interviews: background and/or strong networking (months in advance!) 2) converting 1st rounds to super days: deep research on fund, strong knowledge of deals, clear articulation of story and why not returning, all around strong performance 3) converting to offer: same as #2 + luck

Not getting super days means your performance needs work bc conversion rate is ~20-30% from 1st round. Offers are 3-10% so luck is a bigger factor (10-30 in super day).

 
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Based on what I saw during my recently obtained MBA it is much harder for internationals. In fact, many midsize or smaller funds just won't sponsor, so you're really looking at 10 maybe 20 funds in entire country if you're hell bent on staying in US. I'm not in private investing, but my impression is that in that line of business your network is where you'll source your deals from, so there's bias towards hiring locals / people who have some advantage in sourcing.

Generally post-MBA outcomes are either a function of structured on campus recruiting access and overall competitiveness as a candidate in that process and/or your networking outcomes. Pretty much everyone I knew that got outstanding offers got them through networking and I went to a top American MBA program so that should tell you something..

 

Unfortunately, even the biggest PE firms tend to be very small organizations in terms of headcount and most back office is outsources (e.g. recruiting with headhunters). Most places understandably won't want to / won't be able to deal with immigration headaches, especially when there's already a surplus of talent in the U.S. It's certainly not impossible, but it's very, very difficult for immigrants to find a spot.

 

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