Hey guys, was hoping to get some insight into a problem I'm having. Ultimately, I'm very interested in the PE/VC/GE areas. I'm at a target school with a very good GPA and some decent internship experience thus far (rising junior right now). However, I'm not 100% sure that I want to do investment banking--honestly, the hours just don't seem worth it to me. My problem is that banking seems to be the "safe" route. You do your banking SA, hopefully get the FT offer, do your two years, and then exit into PE, VC, HF, etc. For someone in my shoes though, would this be the smart move since the modeling experience and banking on a resume is a necessary prereq to move into these fields? Or should I try to go for internships in PE, VC, etc.? My only worry is that there is less of a set path to break into these firms for FT, so I may be limiting my options for FT if I go this route instead of banking. Essentially, my worry would be that I could get an internship at a smaller VC shop, but then they don't take on new analysts or anything like that.
Thanks for any opinions you guys have.
All of this is about your own risk profile and quality of firm. Doing IB first can be better because there is a more structured path to securing a full-time job, rather than at a PE or VC shop. However, interning at a top PE or VC shop could help build your resume and provide you with a valuable network. Those places will rarely give you a FT offer, so you would have to network in the fall of your senior year to get another gig.
Any other responses? Also, other than Carlyle, Bain, Blackstone, etc., do any PE, VC, or GE firms hire straight from undergrad, specifically ones that aren't known sweatshops with hours equal to or worse than banking?
On the venture (both early and late stage) side:
Insight Venture Partners, Silver Lake (takes summers), Bessemer (takes summers), Bain Capital Ventures (I know you said Bain but presumably you meant the buyout strategy), RRE (also takes summers), Union Square, Golden Gate (has taken summers) ... can't think of many more off the top of my head.
Do these places typically hire their summer analysts back for FT? I'd be worried about getting an internship and then being screwed for FT when banking people got offers already.
If you're wary about the hours and have already returned a negative cost-benefit analysis of the projected lifestyle, consider whether you can last those two years that you see as a means to an end. Two years in investment banking might pass slower than you might realize. I know plenty of people who grit their teeth through their summer internships, get the job, and then six months in, have to move on because there's a physical impasse that prevents them from continuing in a productive capacity. While they ended up fine in various fields, it means they did fall out of the PE/VC feedback loop. Consider whether you're comfortable with all that.
The truth is that we did not evolve for the biological purpose of sitting in one position, using the same localized set of wrist muscles in order to perform excessively repetitive tasks in front of the glow of a monitor, completely ignoring the cyclical impulses of our body clock, never conceding to it more than 40 hours of sleep a week, all the while enduring a high pressure environment in which you are a convenient outlet for your superiors to relieve the similar pressures they are experiencing.
Yeah I definitely am weighing options, it just feels like banking is the safe route to ultimately get into where I'd like to be. I know you always have to look ahead to your next job, so I'm worried that skipping banking altogether could hurt me in the long run (if I could even get an offer at a buy side firm out of undergrad anyway!).
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