Dartmouth Partners Interview Shitshow Help
I am currently in an interview process for a PE summer internship, the recruiting for which was outsourced Dartmouth Partners. I am an undergrad. The firm is not one I care to be at so I'm really just meandering along the process. I know that these guys are supposed to be pretty well known and do associate PE recruiting and the like. I've just had a really bad experience with them so far. The interviewer has sent me like 10 different (incorrectly timed) calendar invites in the past 5 days even though I already scheduled my interview with them through one of those calendar websites for a specific time. When I have contacted them to communicate with them directly about these issues, they have either ghosted me, gotten back to me extremely late, and/or acknowledged my problem and then repeatedly sent me the invite I just told them was incorrect. Today, literally when I was asleep, they changed my interview time from next week to today, and also changed my interview medium (from zoom to teams) or something like that. Obviously, I was asleep and I didn't notice. Then 10 minutes into my interview I got a call and an email to my personal email (which I don't even know how they found) asking where the fuck I was. I was still asleep at this point so I obviously didn't notice the call. When I woke up, I saw the email, told them that we had scheduled our interview for next week, and still have not received a reply from. At this point, I'm just sick and tired, and don't even want to interview with them anymore. What they've done to me so far is extremely irresponsible and preprofessional. The sad part is that the interviewer is 5 years into his job at Dartmouth, not a fucking intern.
I know that headhunters are extremely picky about candidates and they will not look at you twice if you don't do well in their process the first time. Does this extend to undergrads and outsourced recruiting? Am I effectively blacklisted from Dartmouth Partners and subsequently the firms that use them to recruit because of this bad experience (which may be blamed on me)? Finally, I am an American student and looking to stay in the United States. If I do get blacklisted, does it even matter because they seem (from my WSO research) to be a UK-based firm. So am I fucked or am I fine. Are there any funds that use Dartmouth in the US?
You're based in the US correct?
Dartmouth is primarily used in the UK, and they are known to be quite shit. I doubt you'd be blacklisted and even if you are, you could bypass that by a referral if in the US or explaining the situation to a senior at Dartmouth if it really is that important. Dont stress about this though - you did nothing wrong.
PWP USA uses Dartmouth
yeah had my first round, sucked ass
It’s sounds like they are so unorganized that even if they black listed you, they would forget about it within a few weeks.
Dartmouth Partners sucks ass lol
Same here. I get scheduled for two interviews, go to the first one and no one shows up, then I go to the second one and they say I was already interviewed.
Dartmouth Partners sucks ass
which firm is this for? Is this summer 2023 related?
Went through Dartmouth before, recruited into a equity type position at a fund, turned out it was a quant role and when I got into the 2nd interview he and I were confused how I even got past the recruiter interviewing role.
Some of the people interviewing for DP are fresh grads with humanities degrees with no idea about any finance terminology. Truly embarrassing firm.
Echo this as the girl once kept on proposing me fig roles while I was in leverage finance and she mixed up the bags
In the UK they are respectable no?
No.
Dartmouth is amongst the worst organizations I've ever had to the displeasure of dealing with. Super disorganized.
By far the shittest recruiter on the street
Imagine screwing up this badly when your entire reason for existence is just facilitating introductions
dartmouth needs to fucking go - shocking accounts from many different ppl
Dartmouth is to recruiting as Evri/Hermes is to deliveries.
I am not sure. That is reserved for Greenwich Partners.
Surely Pinpoint Partners as well
By far one of the worst HHs I have ever worked with. Astonishing how they still can land top notch clients
Horrible experience with them as well. Was contacted by them on LinkedIn where they suggested I should apply for an internship at a major US PE fund in London. Only problem was that the link didn't work and of course neither the recruiter or their support team replied. Haven't had much better experiences with other recruiters though. A recruiter from Blackwood reached out to me asking to set up a call regarding an opportunity at a large-cap US tech fund in the UK. I replied that I was highly interested and said I was free at any time that suited her. No response after that...
I think that there is a problem in general with the entire industry though. HR departments at banks are also absolutely horrible. Terrible communication and always messing up details such as interview times, what position you applied for, what period you are interested in etc. I don't understand how they can even manage to mess these things up as you always have to state them clearly in the application or via email. Pisses me off when people are unable to handle their jobs, especially when it's a really simple job that doesn't really require a ton of brain power to get it right.
Makes sense though, right? Doesn’t matter how bad the candidate experience is for recruiting, people will still apply to firms like PWP and will still have to go through Dartmouth if that’s who they have chosen to outsource their HR function to.
You're right, most people will still apply. However, as soon as people get options that might no longer hold true. Let's say you've already got an offer from one place but you are also recruiting for another place which is just slightly better. If that recruitment process is a real mess then you might just say fk it, I don't have the energy for this. As such, the candidates with no options will remain interested no matter how messed up the recruitment process is. Meanwhile, the ones that are most likely to say fk it are the ones with options and these are often the more attractive candidates.
I had a horrible experience some time ago. Was recruiting for an internship in IB and it was a really long process. After application, tests, video interview, and 3 interviews I finally get the offer. Only problem is that they have messed up the periods. They thought I wanted an internship during the fall when I wanted one during the spring. I ask them how they got that idea since I filled in that I was only available during the spring in the application and clearly stated it in all three interviews. It must have been an misunderstanding they said. If they had known I wanted the period during the spring before, it wouldn't have been any issues as they really liked my profile but the spring off-cycle spots were filled a couple of days ago. I will never recruit for that bank again after that experience and when friends ask me about the process I tell them that same story. When HR messes up on a large scale it can have a quite negative impact on the pipeline of candidates and reputation for a firm.
Contrarian opinion here. It really depends on the Dartmouth Rep. I’ve been through their process 2 years ago and landed my current role. Was fortunate to have an Exec Director level who was amazing at liaising and helping me get the job (offer pointers to the interviewers / firm culture) during the screening. But you’re right, some cases they have fresh grads (couple of months into their recruiting role) that just follows the script during the initial screening and knows very little. So it could be hit or miss
Had a terrible experience with them, glad to see it isn't just me. Interviewed for a very legitimate fund so their client list is still good, but the Dartmouth side was a nightmare. Was dealing with a director so you think they would have their shit together - canceled at least 50% of our calls, often 5-10 minutes before, and would insist on scheduling calls before every round of interview, just to have no idea who I was speaking to or where I was in the process (when all of the emails said that info). They are based internationally so I was scheduling and prepping for early AM calls just for them to cancel 5 minutes before.
Really odd process and I ended up blocking their email alias because it was so frustrating to work with them.
It’s still this way and have had multiple interviews and case studies and 2.5 months in into the interview process. The last interview I had was 5+ weeks ago and complete silence from Dartmouth - not sure if the silence is for me to take a no for an answer or what do I do. I think some sort of feedback would be nice but was thinking of shooting the hiring manager a direct email to ask about the next steps or is that a little too much? After investing hours and hours the least one can do is tell you the outcome - please help what to do next?
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