Advice on Private Equity Job Offer
Hi. I am an undergrad student that's about to graduate from mid ranked business school in Oregon. I have a job offering from a private equity research firm in New York. They're offering me a job as an entry level researcher. My responsibilities will include researching events/trends and players in the private equity industry, gathering information from news sources and finance publications, contacting company execs to validate info, and updating the company's PE database. The hiring manager does point out that I'll have the chance to learn the mechanics and workings of the PE industry and deal with some important people, but the job is mainly on the data-gathering side. There is some data-analysis neccessary to gather and breakdown the data and figure out what's relevant, but not too much analysis. I don't think that I'll do any actually modeling or valuations, though I will have a chance to learn quite a bit about those topics and must understand them in order to gather data effectively.
I'm planning on doing my CFA and perhaps a MBA down the line. For an undergrad starting out and wanting to break into PE, or perhaps i banking, is this a good starting job to take for maybe a few years?
Also, I want to learn and practice some financial modeling skills on my own. Will this help my finance career much?
Thankyou guys!
what are your alternatives?
Depends on what your other options are.
Without modeling, the move to PE will likely be difficult, but possible.
IS this a firm like Preqin ?
1.) If you have no other options and you'll need a pay check go for it.
2.) If your parents can support you and you didn't make it to banking this time around I might consider getting a masters in accounting if your school has it and either trying one more time or even going big four for a few years. As lean as most PE shops are, you would be a difficult value proposition for them without having a solid foundation in both modeling and accounting. I'm afraid that as competitive as these industrys are, in this environment its not enough to say "I taught myself modeling in my spare time," there is just too many qualified candidates flooding the market.
3.) A CFA is fairly uncommon in both PE and IB (with the exception of analysts who are looking to move to institutional buy-side firms such as large hedge funds and CLO's), so be aware this isn't a guarantee shoe in to these type of firms and its a HUGE time commitment.
My alternatives in finance are pretty limited since I come from only mid ranked bschool, but there are some decent alternatives in other industries. This firm is very similar to Prereqin by the way, but deals mostly with PE.
Right. A CFA is generally not that common and obviously won't get me the job, but I figure it's good to have that knowledge on hand and also lends me a fair degree of credibility. I was hoping that if I can learn some modeling skills and combine it with a CFA, that'll help my resume. One reason I want this job is that if I don't do it, I'll have to go into a non-finance role. At least with this job, I can make the case to the PE firms and i-banks that I've worked in the industry and learned about it. If I go into another career route, it may be much harder to do that.
I guess I have 3 follow up questions.
1.) I want to know if this job really adds much to my resume and professional background or if it's not going to do anything for me.
2.) How much more valuable would it be to find a similar research firm that lets its hires learn/implement modeling and valuations?
3.) How important are connections in IB and PE? From what I know, it seems like a lot.
Thanks again fellas.
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