Glocap Recruiting Guide

Where did you see that?

Private Equity Interviews

And I have a set of more extensive guides planned, which will be more down-to-earth, practical and focused on results compared to the other stuff out there.

No promises on when I'll be done... I still am a banker after all.

dosk, did you honestly just offer your blog post as a substitute for a 150 page guide written by experienced recruiting professionals in the area? I mean, great and good that you are writing all this stuff for free etc. but that guide goes into a completely different level of detail.

I was just offering up something in case he wanted a brief, free guide.

And yes, I realize it goes into a completely different level of detail than what I'm offering.

While there is value to some of the paid guides out there and they can be quite helpful, I sometimes do think people overpay for what they get.

That was my only point.

And per GameTheory's point, it is good if you are trying to get into PE from an unconventional background.

On a side note - private equity interviews aren't really that tough. In a lot of ways, banking interviews can be tougher. Considering how busy I was leading up to my interviews and how little time I had to study, I felt extremely under-prepared. Afterwards, I felt like the interviews were extremely easy. I mean, if you actually worked on the deals you have on your resume, you know them inside and out already. Maybe a quick refresher on the numbers is all you really need. You've probably sat in countless meetings with senior guys summarizing the business model of the company and their competitive advantages, and the deal rationale. If you're halfway conscious during half of those meetings, you can regurgitate all that information in your interviews. The best resources (and sorry Dosk, I've never read your blog), are the older analysts in your group who have gone through the process, or analysts in your class that have, as well. In one case, I had an interview with a firm a week after my cubemate had it. They're important interviews, but people tend to stress out about them a little too much for how hard they actually are.

However, the hardest interviews by far were the smallest shops (300-500mm), as described to me by friends. They usually only have one or two slots open and no pre-screening process like the bigger shops. Culture is huge because of their small size, so they take their time and make sure it's the right person. As a result, you could easily spend an entire day doing multiple rounds, a case study, a lunch, and a dinner.

Especially at either the largest PE firms or the smaller firms, for the reasons you stated. I know many, many, good analysts who interviewed with the likes of KKR etc. and did not get offers or even move beyond the 1st/2nd round. At those types of places the interview process is always going to be competitive, simply because all the most competitive, driven people apply.

But yes, in general I was rather under-prepared as well and still did ok. Still, I think it does pay to have some idea of the format/what to expect, whether that's via older analysts in your group or other sources. :)

Plastics:

Has anyone bought this? Any idea if it's worth the money?

Is that what you're talking about? - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Glocap-Guide-Getting-Private-Equity/dp/14196659…

I read parts of the guide, and thought that the most useful part of it (which comprises a significant portion of the book) is a discussion and analysis of various candidate case studies. In these studies, the book talks broadly about the candidate's career path, what challenges they had to overcome to get into private equity, and the way they could best position and prepare themselves for interviews. The book certainly spent time identifying what key attributes private equity firms look for in potential hires, but relatively speaking, didn't do much in the way of preparing the person for the interviews themselves.

Coming from a non-banking background, I was still able to land interviews at several MM private equity firms as well as a couple large buyout shops. I think the book helped me position myself and taught me what I needed to convey in a cover letter as well as in my 1-minute pitch, which was especially important since I didn't come from investment banking. However, my actual preparation for interviews was aided primarily by my friends that worked in banking or in private equity, as well as my own initiative (for example, being able to build an lbo model on the spot wasn't inherent to my job so I had to teach myself how to do that). I would also recommend Josh Lerner's casebook on Private Equity and Venture Capital, since that book does a much better job teaching you how to think like a private equity investor rather than just trying to "game" the recruiting process, if that makes sense.

Hope this helps

Do you think it would be helpful to write such a guide on how to build quick lbo models for interviews and in general how to approach PE interviews?

I have a lot of ideas but I'm considering writing an in-depth guide like that, and am always interested to hear what people think is useful/not useful for interviews/the recruiting process.

I think the modeling guide would be helpful to people, if not for interviewing purposes for educational purposes. However, I can't think of one fund offhand over a billion in capital, with the exception of Crestview, that requires a modeling test (I think maybe D.E. Shaw did a case study).

To be honest, I can't really think of how you can really deep dive into the process. I thought it was pretty simple: meet with recruiter(s), set up several morning "doctors appointments," study up on your deals, don't say anything stupid, sign on the dotted line.

Maybe what would be helpful to people is a description of all the major shops and some breif bullets about culture, history, recent/notable deals, and interview process. I wouldn't rely on secondhand data for this, though.

Interesting that you didn't have modeling tests - some of the firms I interviewed did have it, while others just did case studies. A few smaller ones were actually very informal and didn't even go into technical stuff much at all.

My guide would probably be more along the modeling side vs. the process side, since as you said, it's not that complicated.

Description of the major places seems like it would be useful - you're right, can't rely on second-hand info for something like that. Maybe when I have more free time in a few months....

i had modeling tests at one of the large LBO's as well as several of the MM's