WLB / WFH at your PE firm?
All - as many of us banking analysts have signed offers recently / still in recruiting processes for 2023 PE starts, I think we are all wondering what lifestyle / WFH policies are like at various funds and how it may differ from banking, especially since we're now at established partial WFH and post-covid environment. Thought I would start a thread similar to the compensation one to share fund type (MM/UMM/MF), strategy (Buyout / Growth / Credit / etc), geography and your current average weekly hours, how much do you sleep/workout, how often do you have slow periods, etc.
I’ll start.
Fund Size: MF / UMM
Strategy: Buyout
Geography: Tier 1 City (non-NYC)
WFH: 3.5-4 days / week in office, flexible about WFH in morning and evenings (i.e. in at 10-11 and out by 5-6 if you want)
WLB: in terms of buckets, probably “slow” about 20% of the time (40ish hours), moderately busy 60% of the time (60ish hours), and on something very live about 20% of the time (80-100+ hours). Have time to workout (1 hour +) and sleep a decent amount everyday (only exception is from time to time during a live process). Hope this helps and gives people some hope that some semblance of WLB is possible in this industry!
Same here down to location, fund size, and distribution of business.
Also pretty similar experience at a UMM fund. WLB might have been slightly worse for me when we had a flurry of activity but it has since subsided to similar levels.
Generally pretty happy with my experience overall.
chicago?
bump would love for this to take off
London MF (buyout)
WFH: no official policy, basically when you are on something live you come into the office everyday and otherwise you can do whatever you want. Alot of Europeans will regularly work a few days here and there from their home country. Basis of this approach is that everyone is an adult and driven, nobody is trying to take advantage of the system.
WLB: similar buckets to above, would say it's 30-40% very busy. E.g. phase 2 of a deal, lasts 4-6 weeks and you don't have time for much other than work. You can expect to see two phase 2s per year, 3 if you are unlucky. These periods are more intense than my worse periods in banking.
C. 50% medium busy: you are working on some earlier stage projects or PortCo projects. Typically 8-8 logged on from either office or wherever you want to be (and checking your phone outside of that) with time to work out and go for lunch or dinner. The great thing about these periods vis a vis banking is that you have control and visibility over your calendar so can schedule dinners with friends, weekends away etc. Moments like this make me happy I chose PE
Final 10-20% of the time you are doing fuck all and living the life, wondering how you are getting paid so much to do so little. Might have odd banker meetings, light port co work, time for networking etc. Generally times like this are in the summer or around the holidays.
Finally, being in London we have 25 days of holiday a year, almost everyone takes the full 25 days. If you are unlucky enough to have a holiday canceled or have a year during which you randomly get crushed, people encourage you to compensate by taking more at a later date. E.g. knew one guy who was crushed one year, taking only a week off and the following year was off for 2 full months in the summer.
Mind DMing me? Currently a first-year in new york from England
Hi might be late but could you DM me?
Oaktree NYC 3 days in the office
Oaktree LA will be going back to the office real soon
bump
BX NY
in 5x/week
:(
Sovereign Growth in London
WFH: 3 days a week
WLB: Half the time 40 hrs/week, half the time 60 hrs/week. Out of 52 weeks, only had to do work on around 10 weekends
Echoing Londoner above, I had 30 effective vacation days last year and took all of them (25+5 leftover). Vacations are 90% uninterrupted
bump
MF. In office most days, sometimes take wfh day 2 per month and get inevitably screamed at for it. Brutal hours, 100 per week average
What fund so I can avoid? Lol saw your other post saying 90 min 120 max.
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