Why private equity practice vs. general practice?

I'd guess about 60-70 hours a week is pretty typical. Some very late nights before decks are due. I did this for 2+ years and then ended up at a hedge fund in an investment-adjacent role. Very glad I bit the bullet, it opened the door to a lot of jobs that I otherwise wouldn't have gotten a look at. 

Assuming the above responses are for the US, I'll provide a bit of a UK view (going off of the geo tag having UK in your post).

PE practice

• hours: 55-60h is our office average, with of course certain cases going to 65+, but these are generally <20% of total for us, based on the last 12 months of DDs I've seen
• work: we do mostly CDDs indeed, but you also have VDDs (same but for the sell-side, meaning typically longer and better access to company data, but also more politics), ODDs or Ops DDs (looking at operational impact of CDD synergy plan), and post-acquisition strategy work (these are usually longer and vary quite a bit)
• pros:
  • repeatable toolkit (you tend to do the same 4-5 things every time: market modelling, competitive positioning, customer analysis/survey, VCP/synergy plan)
  • short cases (2-4 weeks usually, unless VDD or post-ac)
  • very well-defined scope during cases (PE clients know exacrtly what they want and expect you to get to the point quickly)
  • predictable hours (more below)
  • exposure to large number of industries in short time (caveat that many will be tech/healthcare related)
  • little to no travel (you move only if co-locating with your team, in case you're spread over several offices, even then it's usually not necessary)
• cons:
  • long hours (you definitely know you'll have 2-3 finishes past 10pm, sometimes near or past midnight, but you won't get blindsided with sudden scope changes/client requests last minute)
  • low variety in types of work (since you do the same thing over and over again)
  • usually little to no exposure to clients for presentation / working on client skills (it can vary based on the client and the Partners though)

General practice

• hours: ~55h (our office avg; I'm also in that neighbourhood but I have seen cases go way above 65h+ in some instances, for multiple consecutive weeks)
• work: anything and everything under the strategy Sun (depending on your firm's or office's specialisation of course)
• pros:
  • usually lower hours (although it depends entirely on your client & partners on the project)
  • variety in types of projects (you can do cost reduction / pure strategy / market entry / post-merger improvement / etc.)
  • client exposure (you can hone your client mgmt skills over time quite nicely)
• cons:
  • hours can be unpredictable (if your client suddenly wants to see a whole new analysis by next steer co in 2 days, that's on you to make it happen)
  • travel (can be a big negative when it's weekly and makes you wake up at 4am every Monday)
  • less varied exposure to industries than PE practices (although you can still see a few different ones, but fewer due to the longer project durations)

A lot of great points have been brought up, and all are accurate. Ultimately, I would propose making the decision based on the following framework:

1. What topics are you interested in?
2. What kind of skills do you want to develop?
3. What do you see yourself doing in the foreseeable future?
4. What kind of WLB sacrifices are you willing to make?

(1) What topics are you interested in? If you want to do public sector, tech implementation, or org redesign work, then the PE practice is probably not the place for you. If you have in interest in finance / investing, understanding market trends, and uncovering new insights in the context of an M&A transaction/LBO, then this may be a good fit. 

(2) What kind of skills do you want to develop as a junior consultant? If you really want to improve your communication and presence, client interaction, and ability to diplomatically manage stakeholders, then you are probably better served working outside the PE practice because there are limited opportunities for client interaction on a DD. If you want to develop strong quant skills (e.g. market modeling and putting together other data-driven analyses, running a survey) and the ability to extract subtle learnings from expert calls, as well as fast speed-to-output, then DDs are perfect for that. 

(3) What do you see yourself doing in the foreseeable future? Of course you might not know at this stage, but are you at least remotely interested in PE as a career path? If so, definitely try a diligence or two. Worst case scenario, you don't like it and its over fast, best case scenario you end up loving it and setting yourself up well.

(4) What kind of WLB sacrifices are you willing to make? I say sacrifices because either way there is a sacrifice to be made, whether its being away from home/loved ones when you're on a travel project outside the PE practice, or the grindier, longer hours (on avg) of a diligence. 

I would also consider what drew you to consulting in the first place. Was it the possibility of interacting with clients on a frequent basis? The analytical thinking skills and structured approach to problem solving? The chance to impact change at large corporations? These reasons are probably going to have an impact on whether you prefer one type of work over another. If you're still curious about the PE group, I recently put together a short video on my experience with DD projects - hopefully it can provide some extra color as you decide.  

Are you entry level? If so, then I highly recommend you do generalist.

It may be different at other firms, but where I’m at any generalist can do as many DDs as they want and can opt in to join the PE practice. Getting hired into the PE practice directly is less selective and is considered less desirable where I work - these roles only exist at my company because they can’t convince enough generalists to do DDs. They don’t let consultants hired directly into the PE group do ‘normal’ consulting projects. 

Id also say the ROI of doing more than 6 months of DD work drops off. At that point you have enough experience to have developed the core DD skill set and open up high finance exit ops - getting some other projects under your belt at that point will do more for your profile.

Above posters seem to be focused on the pros and cons of joining PE practice itself. Joining the PE practice when you have some experience, or doing a rotation in the PE practice as a generalist, is one thing - joining at the entry level is completely different and would be a major sacrifice of your optionality within the firm in my experience. Again, maybe other firms handle it differently