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bump. I'm mostly trying to figure out if working for the PE firm is even worth my time and if its sort of menial work
If it's possible to do both, then do both. You never know how much the partners at the PE firm could help you down the road, though the way you describe the internship makes it seem more like a search fund than PE. Could you go more in depth as to what your responsibilities would be?
Yeah, it's definitely a real PE firm since they do actually buy up companies and acquire/merge them with others. They have a portfolio of companies as their website describes. My official job would be to "do market research on one of their portfolio companies" and basically I would be scouting out a lot of firms in a specific industry that meet a specific requirement that they need for an acquisition. Cold-calling.
I could spin it in a good way, but I am a little disgusted by unpaid work despite the fact that these guys are definitely well off (some of their closest colleagues have wikipedia pages).
I guess the positives outweigh the negatives since I can learn a lot about an industry, potential for very high-up connections, and have PE on my resume as a freshmen, but I don't want to be looked upon as a bitch.
Given that you want to do IB after undergrad, I would for sure do either the PE internship or both. PWM doesn't have as many transferrable skills for IB as would a PE internship. However, you shouldn't be "disgusted" about unpaid work.
As a freshman, you don't have any phenomenal skills that will really add value to the firm. You should be thankful for having a PE internship opportunity at all, as I'm sure there are thousands who would kill for even an unpaid opportunity.
But yes, given that the skills you will learn from PE are very similar to those needed in IB, it makes the most sense to do the PE one; especially with the connections you'll gain from it.
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