I need to hear a success story

Hi,

So, I work for a M/B/B consultancy and am in the process of trying to land a great PE gig. I have been invited for interviews at a good number of great shops. There were traditional buyout firms as well as REPE shops and funds with the sourcing model amongst those I interviewed with.

Most of the times I was told that (a) there was some sort of hiring freeze at the moment and/or (b) they were still a bit cautious about consultants.

Any consultants out there who successfully made the jump into PE in recent months? I am a bit frustrated right now and I need to hear a (true) success story to stay motivated :(

 

1) There's definitely a hiring freeze.

2) Are you targeting the right funds? If you're looking at the Blackstones and KKRs of the world, maybe you won't have too much luck. Try looking for top shops that DO hire consultants. Bain Capital, Audax, and Golden Gate Cap are probably three of the most highly regarded funds that have a positive bias for consultants.

Good luck, dude.

 

Out of the three you mentioned, I would think the only one hiring right now is Golden Gate. Bain Cap, like all other big shops, has no deal flow. Though, I hear Bain Cap is looking for associates for their India and China offices. And, I've heard Audax has laid off a few people at the junior level. Given GG has a distress focus and new fund was raised late 2007, they would likely be your best bet for recruiting. I also know of a few people hired into their new credit investing arm.

Not familiar enough with the Apax and BC shops.

 

Not sure what they're doing with the credit fund. I do know they have still been doing deals recently, even in this market. One of the few players still fairly active, albeit slower than last year.

You guys have any other insight into Golden Gate? Been trying to get information for a while now. Pay? Culture? Exit opps? People? All I know is it's considered a top shop, hire a lot of MBB consultants, and have a distressed focus. I saw they were bidding for Circuit City a while back on DealBook.

 

I don't think you'll find that as the 2008 SAs were in a better position than the 2009 SAs. So if you didn't get a SA spot, it was pretty much hell going through FT recruiting in Fall 2008. Although possible, it was harder.

I would say FT hiring will look better than this current SA hiring and that they will take more people than their current expected SA class if the need is there come Fall 2009.

 

I didn't get anything during on campus recruiting. My school barely had good firms recruiting on campus, and the ones I did interview with I got dinged. I graduated without a job lined up and ended up getting a BO position at a BB with the hopes of getting into IBD within 1 year. I just kept grinding and applying for banking positions, networking, learning, developing banking skills, etc... and eventually I got the right opportunity to show my preparation. I had a lot of disappointments along the way. Every opportunity I had was better than the last, I figured this is one of the best opportunities I will have. And again, disappointment. Then the next opportunity would be even better. One lesson I learned from that was you never really know what the future holds, even though it seems like the end of the world because this was your jackpot opportunity and you blew it, as long as you learn from it and build that experience into your game, the next opportunity that comes along will be even better and you'll be better prepared.

The one key is to keep grinding and dont get discouraged.

 

i feel you kaba. Everything is pretty bad now and for some reason the firms i had 1st round with didnt want me back even though i thought i did well. This recruiting season is very tough but i think if you work hard, you will find some alternatives ( hopefully I will,too)

 
Best Response

Dude,there are literally dozens of threads spanning from people in there mid 20's breaking into IB to people who went to a CC. The best advice i'd give you is to cram,network and participate in various extracurricular activities regarding finance/investing.If there is no such thing -- start one. You're lucky because you go to a top 20 UG and there's hope to transfer to a better school or have a nice advantage when you go to graduate school.

Browse this sub-forum and you'll see various stories with people from different backgrounds who have made it.

 

I graduated at the bottom of a top 20 university (really top 15 if you want to get technical) and eventually acquired the soft skills and technical experience to get into corporate finance. I even ran my own business with moderate succes for a few years.

If you're struggling with the material already, I'd question how legit your interest in the field is.

______ Corporate financial/business analyst looking for career/MBA/CFA advice.
 

Agreed; the introductory finance class should really not be hard. Have a hard think about whether you actually like finance, or like the idea of being a banker/PE professional. Those are two very different things. You don't have to be a genius with numbers to do well in finance, but if you're struggling with intro classes then maybe you should go into a field where you can excel.

 

NETWORKING! its more about who you know...the grades you make are important on a level of are you willing to learn the material and forming a base of knowledge and do you have desire to put in the hard work and long hours to succeed...you are going to be retrained anyway......other than that its about who you know.....the upper level guys are the important ones.....they are the ones that tell the people doing the hiring who to give shots to...anyone can study material and vomit answers back on paper but to make it to the top you need to be able to interact with people and play the corporate politics

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18 Command them to do good, to be rich in g
 
pierceandpierce:
Sorry, but what sort of responses did you expect such an aw-shucks post to elicit. People are in this business for money and a good response to the question, "what do you do?" If you want a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps story, stop by a senior citizens center.

Maybe this wasn't the greatest forum to make such a post, and I aplogize for being naive in this instance. That aside, I think you're being a tad ridiculous though in suggesting that the only place I could find a interesting story of success would be at a retirement center. I'm not looking for a tear jerker akin to what you would find in a Disney movie. Further, I'm not expecting to hear about someone who graduated with an associate's degree from a community college and became an MD at GS. Simply, I'm just interested in a slightly different discussion topic than what I have normally been exposed to. Judging by your response pierceandpierce, you haven't experienced any level of success yet, and that's fine, but maybe you could take a note from what someone has to say.

 

No, just a realist. Leave Des Moines or Scranton or wherever it is and you'll learn much. What I'm driving at here is this, the posts about salaries and the social acceptability of various watches are what go for success stories here. Realize this before you graduate college and you won't be so disillusioned when you make your own six-hour drive to new york in a car packed with your best two suits and all the hopes, dreams, and gumption of the whole midwestern republic.

 

Ok Ok, I get your point here, but to defend myself, I didn't make this post in complete ignorance as you seem to suggest. I realize Ibanking is an incredibly hard field to break into, but that is what makes the success stories appealing to me. Moreover, though I'm not from a major city (unless for some reason you consider Pittsburgh to be one), I take some offense to you characterizing me as backwoods or something of that nature. It's not like I've been sitting around looking at this messageboard all stary-eyed, telling myself, "Someday I'll show 'em! I'm gonna be an investment banker!" I have a very realistic view of the I-banking industry and what my chances are.

For christ sake though, I'm realizing now that I used incredibly poor wording, but I just wanted to see if there are any unique instances where someone experienced success. I'm talking like you borded a flight, sitting next to a major figure at a BB firm, and miraculously impressed him/her and got an interview/offer out of it. Maybe this is too movie-like, but it's just a discussion topic.

 

I friend of mine landed a summer analyst position (and eventually a FT offer) at GS after having sat next to a GS MD in first class from NYC to London. She thought he was just a kindly old man who wanted to talk to her about the market and The Economist. Of course, it didn't hurt that she also happened to go to an Ivy, have a pre-Med 3.9 and a couple advanced math courses under her belt. She went from saving the universe from cancer to being a master of the universe in one summer.

 
Laocoon:
I friend of mine landed a summer analyst position (and eventually a FT offer) at GS after having sat next to a GS MD in first class from NYC to London. She thought he was just a kindly old man who wanted to talk to her about the market and The Economist. Of course, it didn't hurt that she also happened to go to an Ivy, have a pre-Med 3.9 and a couple advanced math courses under her belt. She went from saving the universe from cancer to being a master of the universe in one summer.

It didn't hurt that she was also sitting in first class lol.

 

"We make the rules, pal. The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price per paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody sits out there wondering how the hell we did it. Now you're not naive enough to think we're living in a democracy, are you buddy? It's the free market. And you're a part of it."

 

I know a person who worked for the Treasury Department in DC this past year. Ended up being a paper pusher for Paulson, and he's at GS this summer. There's your feel-good story. Yey!

 

Considering I am still new to the world, I can say that I am glad to see that 95% of the information I have read on here is complete and marvelously concocted bull shit. I spent a month in the office before training too and the consensus with the veterans is the same.

That being said, it prepared me for the worst so I was 300% ready for reality.

 

College buddy of mine use have all sorts of oddball on-campus catering/waiter jobs to pay for school. He was basically one of those full tuition scholarship but family literally has no money to pay for room/board/food/etc situations.

During one of the alumni events he was working, he struck up a conversation with a random old alum about movies. (My buddy is a big movie buff and can talk your ear off about random movie stuff) Anyway, it turns out the alum was a movie studio big wig and gave him an internship. Fast forward a few years later, the guy is producing movies and the greatest wingman on the planet...apparently women love producers lol. My user name is a reference to our times together.

 

My background, without giving too much away. Non-target, well known state school, not the highest GPA in the world (below a 3.8), business major. Got a job at a MM bank in the midwest through campus recruiting, spent about a year and a half there, moved to a bulge bracket in a decently strong group (analysts going to Blackstone, Fox Paine, MDP).

 

This is actually a true story: I was at Scores during my sophomore year summer getting a lapdance from one of the strippers, there was an old Gentleman next to me also having a good time. We got to talking and he gave me his card, I called him the next week, he offered me an internship and the rest is history my friends...I'm also dating that stripper now so it all worked out in the end..she doesn't strip anymore though, she's also an I-Banker at.....YOU GUESSED IT....GOLDMAN SACHS !

 
Seanc:
This is actually a true story: I was at Scores during my sophomore year summer getting a lapdance from one of the strippers, there was an old Gentleman next to me also having a good time. We got to talking and he gave me his card, I called him the next week, he offered me an internship and the rest is history my friends...I'm also dating that stripper now so it all worked out in the end..she doesn't strip anymore though, she's also an I-Banker at.....YOU GUESSED IT....GOLDMAN SACHS !

you're not funny. you're just a gay faggot.

 

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