Deal experience for resume
I am currently an IB analyst starting to look for buy-side opportunities. I work in the industry group of an MM. Unfortunately, during my time in banking none of the M&A deals I have worked on have closed. As such, all my deal experiences are fairly boring in spaces such as IG credit or equity issuance.
I am wondering, for the sake of applying to the buy-side, would it be better to cite these capital markets deal experience which have closed, or it be better to vaguely write about analysis I have done for M&A assignments that have yet to close? The work on M&A deals are obviously much more modelling and analysis intensive which should be more beneficial for buy-side recruiting, but does the fact that the deal didn't close hinder the work and make it not worth talking about? Given that there's limited space on your resume which is better to put?
I'm only in IB, so PE guys may have a better feel, but I would write about the M&A experience, since that is most relevant. Even if the transaction didn't close, you can still talk about what role you had in the process and provide high-level details. If you can't mention the firms by name, just use "$500mm Technology Firm) or something to that effect.
At my prior bank, I had a similar issue, but still learned plenty in the process. So long as you demonstrate you understand the process and the perspective (i.e. you ran several LBOs an assessed IRRs based on X,Y,Z), I think you will have a shot for MM PE firms.
Just my thoughts.
I agree with peinvestor2012. It is not uncommon for analysts to write about deals that haven't closed. Usually they write "Pending" or "Deal Pulled at LOI Phase" and then proceed to describe their work on the deal. The folks that handle recruiting for junior PE roles understand that an analyst can gain highly relevant experience from busted deals. In fact, most first year MM M&A analysts only have 1-2 deals closed by the time they are recruiting for PE anyways. Some don't even have that (depending on the year --- many had zero circa 2009).
Comp... how would you go about structuring that into a sentence? I haven't updated my resume in a while, but for transactions that didn't go through, I don't go into quite as much detailed as "Deal Pulled in LOI Phase".
For instance, I'd put down something like, "Served as buy side advisor for $XXX million IT company in its leveraged acquisition bid to take XYZ Co. private". Do you think it is beneficial to add where the transaction stalled (in this case, our confirmatory due diligence caused our client to drop its offering price and the seller went with a different bidder)?
I just don't want to go overboard with detail on the resume, so it gives me some depth to discuss in future interviews.
^^^ nailed it. That's exactly right; PE interviewers won't really care much about your capital markets deals. Even if you can't name the company in an M&A transaction you can still talk plenty about your experience, your role, what made it a good / bad company and investment. This will be much more valuable in interviews.
Disclaimer: I am in UG and am heading into my first IBD SA gig this December (I'm from the S.hemisphere), so this question will be naive.
If you can't name companies when describing your work on deals that didn't close, what's to stop someone from making stuff up? How do buy-side interviewers/HR verify your claims?
Hypothetically, if you created enough detail behind the situation, you could make something up. But, it would be a highly risky maneuver, since the interviewer could ask several relevant questions that you may need to answer on the fly.
Once you actually go through a deal process, you quickly understand how detailed things become and how many little pieces of information there are. I suppose it has probably happened before, but I wouldn't dare try it.
Embellishing one's role in a process is much more common.
I worked at a boutique IB this summer, and I'm not sure how detailed I can get into my deals because we worked with lower MM clients. Would you happen to know where I could find some "deal templates" so I could structure my resume in preparation? (Basically, I don't know how much detail I'd have to know...)
Thanks in advance, that was super helpful.
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Thanks, very informative.
What if you are interviewing for a credit fund? Would some credit issuance transactions be worth mentioning? Or are WIP M&A deals still the way to go?
Completely depends on how your resume has been laid out. Frequently I'll see analysts list the deal as the main bullet and then describe their role in the deal in a couple of sub bullets. When it is done this way, you can simply put in parenthesis the status of the deal. For example:
Obviously there are many ways to do it. As an investment banking analyst I'm sure you'll find a way to make the content flow.How do you list deal experience on a resume? (Originally Posted: 07/10/2015)
How do you go about listing deal experience on a resume?
If the transaction has been publicly announced, can you list "Sell-side advisor to Novark Pharmaceuticals, Inc in a transaction with CVS Pharmacy"? Should there be more detail included in that one bullet point (ie. purchase price and method, target's revenues, etc)
Similarly, if a transaction is not announced or the deal is still in the works, how would you list it?
I've typically seen bullets such as: - Advised Acquisition Corp on the $5.0Bn acquisition of Target Corp (Announce date)
If deal is not announced, but is substantially progressed, I've seen resumes with the company names obfuscated but with enough details to give jist ("A large consumer products company"). NEVER give enough detail to betray confidences. Heard of an interview once where the interviewer said "You know there is only one company that fits that description, right?"
Also do not disclose anything that is not publically disclosed (most common: undisclosed deal value).
If you're junior, just include selected transactions. If you're senior (officer level, VP+) you can probably put an add on deal sheet.
Selected Deal Experience on Resume (Originally Posted: 12/16/2011)
Hi Guys,
I am a junior who worked at PE fund last year. I am looking to be a IBD SA.
I want to differentiate myself from other candidates and besides generic bullet points that include ( conducted diligence with industry research and valuation analysis) by including deals that I worked on.
I wanted to write about deal experience i did on my resume, do you think I can add a bullet point like the one below?
Completed industry research and selected comparable companies and transactions for the investment memorandum of a $25M mezzanine investment in a 100M+ revenue information services company.
Questions
1) Is it alright to put it down and speak about it in interviews as long as I do not talk about the name of the specific company?
2) Can I write about multiple deals I worked on including deals where investments did not occur as long as I do not lie?
3) Should I list this separately from my normal bullet points in a section titled "selected deal experience" or should I just include it as part of my normal bullets.
4) Also is there a way to sneak in AUM for the fund or the institution I worked for somewhere in my bullet points?
Gracias
Pretty sure it wouldn't be a problem if you did 1 and 2, just don't have any names and make sure you can talk about every detail.
For 3, just format it so that it is within the section that you've set aside for that position.
4 might be a little tricky. You can definitely mention it during the interview, but I would personally leave it off.
Thanks for your reply. I was really hoping to add the AUM to my resume b/c i feel like there are so many people who work at PE shops with less than $100 M in AUM (there is nothing wrong with that) , and the fund I worked at has more than 1 Billion AUM. I think this will look good when people are looking through resumes but I wanted to know if there was a way to do it without looking like a douche.
There is an easy way to do this - put a general bullet describing the work you did, "Assisted XXX fund with 1 billion AUM in their XXX efforts." Next bullet point put "Selected deal experience" with sub-bullets underneath describing 3-4 deals. Easy.
I start with a main bullet that sums up fund size, strategy you worked on, type of work done (modelling, DD, valuation, bankruptcy) and how that fits with general fund strategy (mezz at a PE firm is different than mezz at a cross-cap HF) subbullets for the transactions, deal that closed first, for the shit that didn't pan out say why (sponsor advanced to final round of bidding but lost or needed warrants that they didn't want to give to hit target IRR). That will create interesting conversations around what sounds like a strong experience.
AUM does not make you a douche. It makes you credible. As a student you lack credibility - this goes a long way toward resolving that. Being a douche makes you a douche. If you are kind of person who worried about this, you probably aren't one. Brush up on deal details, you need to be able to tell the story (but not numbers) of each investment as well as you did the first time you read the CIM.
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