332 Comments
 

Ask your friend to respond to CPI’s email and include you. That happened to a friend, his name and email were different. Total pain but HH seemed happy to get the intro.

 

The links CPI sends are individualized, but just have a 2nd year give you the CPI contact they interacted with and reach out directly. Completely ok to reach out directly.

 

The HHs who have reached out to me have been pretty clear in their intro emails that they don't plan on starting for 2023 summer yet but are just taking indications of interest and asking you to fill out profiles. That said, it only takes 1 person to start jumping and the others were surely start at least getting initial meetings in.

 

Yeah just for avoidance of doubt to those reading this thread for actual advice, it's totally normal not to have a closed transaction on your resume. Especially if it's M&A (as opposed to some type of capital markets transaction), these processes can often times be anywhere from 6-18 months long depending on the situation. And often those who have "closed" a deal in their first few months will have joined midway through an existing process and can only speak to certain portions of the transaction - which is also just fine but don't get it twisted and think that having no deals which have closed under your belt going into recruiting is a hinderance.

You can always put live deals on your resume under transaction experience as anonymized bullets such as: "$5B sell-side of a public life sciences company to a strategic acquirer (ongoing)" as long as you can eloquently speak to its dynamics / your role etc.

 

I went through the process without having closed anything. Listed a couple live deals I was on that were later stage so was easily able to go in depth about the business, process, etc. Pretty much said “expecting to sign in XYZ,” no one will ask you what you can’t tell anyways since they know it’s all confidential. Didn’t have any troubles, no one seemed to care or even ask about the fact that nothing was closed.

Will note that I believe hedge funds may ask you to only list closed deals, not even redacted info.

 

To give more context, some firms do this. They might get your info straight from the HH’s as well if you’ve already had your coffee chats with them… It isn’t a sign of the larger process kicking off IMMEDIATELY. It is a sign that it will kick off soon, but don’t take the coffee chats / “informal chats” to be an indicator of the process kicking off officially. I would, however, treat these “informal chats” / “coffee chats” as informational interviews (I went in with the mentality that they were interviews). I would be lying if I said they weren’t somewhat screening (definitely are screening in my opinion).

 

Have a question, if you started FT in January cause you graduated early, would you be recruiting for off cycle right now? Also have a friend who start off cycle in December. Do we recruit with the current AN1s who have been on the desk since September or so, or do we recruit with the class entering this summer? I'm a bit lost on this.

 

Sorry to bug you, but I feel like I'll be in your old shoes just a few months from now. Did these same on-cycle recruiters keep in touch with you after on-cycle wrapped up? Or did you have to network for off-cycle interviews?

 

Pretty new to this. I had a few questions if anyone had any info:

  1. For 2023 starts, when does that actually happen? Like is it flexible or does everyone start on a certain month? I've heard summer 2023 but thats about it
  2. In years past when have interviews started from first reach-outs? CPI's email materials imply there is time to prepare and some HHs have said they are not starting yet, so seems early but no idea on that one
  3. I know its super place specific, but generally is growth and MM down easier than MFs?
  4. Is there choice if say its a short timeline and you want to prepare more? Like any ding to being a 2024 on-cycle vs. now?

Thanks yall

 
Most Helpful

1. Not tuned into this year's process timing but generally for on-cycle, most funds will start at the same time. Usually one fund will kick off at some random time and literally everyone else will follow over the following couple weeks instantly.

2. Not sure about first reach outs but generally speaking you'll have already had a dialogue and profile set with all the HH firms and they will come to you out of the blue with first round opptys as they come up. So you have time to prep when you connect with the HHs but you are totally liable to be called to the interviews when recruiting kicks off - which is always a moving target. Keep in mind what I'm saying is for on-cycle recruiting. For off-cycle you'll get plenty of time to prep more as they'll give you the firm name ahead of time and you'll be notified of when your interviews are ahead of time as they'll be scheduled normally as opposed to ad hoc last minute.

3. Yes generally but as you noted, it is place specific. For example, in general, one can assume the Blackstone/Apollo/KKR etcs processes will be much more fast-paced and have a larger pool of candidates and often times their modeling tests are conducted impromptu and in person at moments notice for on-cycle. But many firms also do this which aren't MFs. And some people are better at the quick 1-3hr modeling + sometimes case test than say a growth firm which allows you 24 hours but gives you a crazy amount of data to parse through and needs you to build an operating model / complex cap table with all kinds of bells and whistles / provide a longer form case with more detail and thought required. It just depends, as you said.

4. Yes you have a choice. On-cycle is NOT the only option for you to get into PE. Plenty of funds don't recruit on-cycle and plenty of fund which do recruit on-cycle may recruit off-cycle due to hiring needs and the like, the most important thing is to keep your finger on the pulse with all the HHs and be proactive.

Hope this helps, happy to expand more on anything I said or provide more color.

 

That’s incorrect. Multiple ppl in my analyst class got MF offers today

 

Just pulling up to say good luck to everyone. On-cycle process is kinda trash and can be immensely stressful, but tell your story compellingly, remember that you are the asset in this equation (don’t just take an offer/interview if it’s not what you want to do), and go crush it.

I questioned everything while finishing a modeling test at 4am the night on-cycle kicked off, but ultimately pushed through and landed a great seat. Even if on-cycle doesn’t go as planned, tons of my friends got fantastic roles off-cycle. Things will ultimately work out.

 

Curious about others, but have gotten about 50% calls set up for profiles that I completed (not sure if there’s a resume screening process involved)

Timeline was pretty quick turnaround (basically a few days after I got initial outreach / profile completed)

 

why do you think that is? Do you think it's because they are no longer interested in MF PE after having worked in banking for 9 months vs. the traditional 3 months? Or do you think there is another driver?

 

At one of the funds you mentioned for tomorrow (now today lol). We actually started last night around 9-10 PM. If it makes you guys feel any better, a lot of the candidates have been really unprepared and we have yet to give any offers (so plenty of room left in our class). We aren't going to rush to give out offers to people just on the basis of pedigree. Cut some clearly smart HYP folks who just didn't know what they were doing period (which I totally get given how quickly this process launched).

 

They said Oaktree is already done interviewing when I asked. But I got a few others

 

What's the latest on New Mountain? Did they give offers out tonight? Had 3 interviews in office and they said they would follow up shortly but I'm assuming I'm cut

 

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