If pe recruiting is done through headhunters, does networking still help?

Posted this in the PE forum but didn't get any responses. Hopefully you guys can help me.
I go to a school with alumni at almost every major PE firm.

Going to be joining a BB after graduation (not GS/MS) as a first year banking analyst. Interested in PE after banking. Does it make sense to network with alumni the same way I did for banking positions or does it not matter because the headhunters are now the gatekeepers?

There are alumni at the big search firms too. Should I network with them?

Any info on how I should approach networking to break into PE would be greatly appreaciated. Thanks.

 
Best Response

^--- I would probably disagree with that.

Networking is the key especially if you're not at GS TMT/FIG or MS M&A. The only reason networking in PE and more specifically with MFs is less effective is because their time is more valuable and the positions are more sought after than banking. What does that mean? That means that (a) they will probably be less likely to give you the time of day and (b) they probably get cold calls/emails every week or 2.

Headhunters are used out of necessity. They aren't really that effective, but they get the job done. And when you need to be at a board meeting in Corpus Christie Texas, you'd rather have some head hunter sifting through resumes and getting you the "qualified" ones for interview scheduling. Head hunters are fairly fcking stupid. You rub their belly and they roll over and melt in your hand. Rubbing their belly consists of graduating from a top 5-10 school and then going to a top 3 group on Wall Street. If however you network your way into meeting a few people at MF.. or even MM fund and they will essentially send your resume to the head hunter and the head hunter, not having any upside from pre-emptively dinging you and have no downside from sending you in to interview, will get you scheduled... which btw is the main purpose of these headhunters: logistics, scheduling and of course pre-screening. Ironically it's the most value-added part of their job that they are most underwhelming at. But to their credit they do schedule the shit out of an interview.

Network your balls off. You have a small 2 year window, exhaust every cold/warm/hot lead, leave no stone unturned, be shameless and make it happen. I would say that someone can network their way into multiple MF interviews.

 

Yeah, I would say so. I actually got invited to interview with two megafunds (one recruiting Analysts, the other didn't) because I networked with the right people. In both cases, I reached out to someone senior and it happened to be the person in charge of recruiting as well. After a meeting or two, they asked for my CV and I got a call from the headhunters they hired to recruit for that position. May be an exceptional case, but never say never and network as much as you can.

I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. See my Blog & AMA
 

I networked once with a VP at a firm that used headhunters. Basically, the guy I spoke with forwarded my resume to the headhunter and told the headhunter to add me to the "interview" stack. Guaranteed interview. So while the headhunter runs the process, the PE firm is the one calling the shots. Networking helps.

CompBanker’s Career Guidance Services: https://www.rossettiadvisors.com/
 

The PE firm vs. headhunter dynamic is such:

Headhunter works for PE fund, PE fund is the client. HH is constantly trying not to look stupid. They look stupid when they send a dumb ass candidate that doesn't know their asshole from their elbow into the interview process. They do this quite frequently and largely because the candidate rubs their HH belly as I noted above.

The other way they look stupid is when there is a sought after candidate that they somehow miss. Maybe this person is interviewing at every one of this firm's competitors and the PE firm finds out this guy is really solid and they want him in their process also. For whatever reason this kid pops up on the PE firm's radar and the PE firm calls up the head hunter and is like "Hey... wtf, this George Washington guy, why aren't we interviewing him?" and now the HH has to answer for why they aren't doing their job properly and why the HH PE firm's competitors hired are. This is less frequent, cuz no single candidate is really all that important. But it does happen.

Back to referral. PE firm passes a resume on to HH. Worse scenario for HH is that the HH decides to apply their screening methods to the referral pool and this guy doesn't get an interview. Keep in mind the HH has no idea why or how this guy was referred. So now the PE firm is like woah, what happened to Steve Schwartzman's nephew, why is he not on our fucking interview roster? HH firm fucked.

Next scenario is they include this guy on the roster and he's a complete fuckin moron. PE firm calls up HH and says, why the fuck are you wasting our time with this imbecile who doesn't know shit? HH firm replies with, oh he was an internal referral from you guys. End of story. No harm no foul.

Moral of the story... somehow get the PE firm to pass your resume onto the HH.

 

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