23 Comments
 
Associate 2 in PE - Other

Title. It feels like career development has gotten fucked this last year and there aren't even any shops you can jump to. 

For what roles?  Half the people I know are desperate to hire good asset managers.  If you're on a part of the team that drives value by managing existing assets, job demand is really strong, as people realize that all the shit they bought at low leverage now needs to be actively managed to mitigate losses, instead of flipped to the next idiot backed by low rates and high leverage.

Acquisitions and development roles are probably a little thinner.

 

Depends on team and/or function. I work for a vertically integrated sponsor and our asset management team is expanding to support growth. On the other hand, acquisitions (the team that I work for) isn't actively looking to add headcount given how deal flow has slowed over the past year (plus the team has always run lean given how scalable investment people are). But definitely share the sentiment that hiring has been way more selective / targeted 

 

Got hired in Acq and Asset Management last month. Backfilling someone else. Good timing plus several other factors.

 

Just graduated and am really struggling to find opportunities for recent grads. Understand you have a lot more experience, but just a perspective.

 
Most Helpful

Hate to sound cliche but it depends. If you’re a high quality candidate (good school, institutional experience), I don’t think it’ll be too hard to find a spot at an opportunistic private credit fund (a lot of debt funds raised billions in ‘22 & ‘23). Some of the top names in the biz are looking for acquisition associates for summer ‘24 (GIC & MS). I think for general acquisition roles, hiring won’t normalize probably until late ‘24 or early ‘25. Understand that acq is a well-paid role and shops aren’t gonna hire if they’re not generating acquisition fees from closed deals. I think Asset Management roles are hiring now and will continue to hire through this cycle. FWIW, I think opportunistic credit is the place to be for the next 3-4 years because rates will be elevated for some time, I believe banks will lose market share due to regulation, conservative UW, and shrinking portfolio (i.e selling office and overlevered multi loans), and lots of deals will need to figure out how to plug in holes in their capital stack due to banks being on the sidelines.

 

Urban Mogul:

Hate to sound cliche but it depends. If you're a high quality candidate (good school, institutional experience), I don't think it'll be too hard to find a spot at an opportunistic private credit fund (a lot of debt funds raised billions in '22 & '23). Some of the top names in the biz are looking for acquisition associates for summer '24 (GIC & MS). I think for general acquisition roles, hiring won't normalize probably until late '24 or early '25. Understand that acq is a well-paid role and shops aren't gonna hire if they're not generating acquisition fees from closed deals. I think Asset Management roles are hiring now and will continue to hire through this cycle. FWIW, I think opportunistic credit is the place to be for the next 3-4 years because rates will be elevated for some time, I believe banks will lose market share due to regulation, conservative UW, and shrinking portfolio (i.e selling office and overlevered multi loans), and lots of deals will need to figure out how to plug in holes in their capital stack due to banks being on the sidelines.

I’m in acquisitions now and been seeing exactly what your saying on the lending side. Been thinking of jumping to that side. Any insight into comp for debt funds for analyst/associate positions?

 

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