LEK to PE, timing
Hi WSO,
I am a year 1 at LEK, looking to transition over to PE in the next year or two. I was wondering if anyone could speak to the timing of when to begin reaching out to headhunters and applying. I have not had a lot of experience yet with modeling and I am wondering if I need to wait until I have some modeling experience at LEK before reaching out to PE firms.
It was not a great move to make this topic “LEK” specific when you could have done it as “consulting” and get more traction :)
There is no issue in reaching out to headhunter already and ask their advice. They won’t put you in processes in which you are not equipped to successes. On top of that, some firms, don’t even do modelling cases (eg bain capital).
I'm not sure about the other consulting-oriented funds candidly, but Bain had a very tricky 1 hour modeling test when I interviewed. Projection model with some tricky nuances you had to back into in order to be able to build the forecast. It was oriented so that you wouldn't be able to finish and the follow up interview was to walk through how you would think about completing the third part of the test.
Thanks for the reply! If you don't mind me asking, how did you go about preparing for the interview?
Just know how P&Ls work down cold...
Yeah know how P&L works well because you will not be given a template for how you should set it up (more of a thematic case study if that makes sense). Otherwise, there is this dude on Youtube who is the god of consulting case study interview prep (Victor Chen). You will definitely get asked "framework" style case studies and probably will be a ding if you don't at least have a sense for the structure of consulting style case studies. I would say that was the most important part of the interview. Much harder to prep for than other PE interview in my opinion.. Honestly thought that MF interview were a breeze compared to Bain.
Thanks, this is very helpful!
Thanks! I appreciate the answer. I can go and re-post in a broader sense as well. I am reading through posts on WSO now about headhunters, but would you have any recommendations ones you'd reach out to?
I would reach out to ex-LEK consultants who are now in PE and try to get them on the phone for advice for the process.
My guess is you will need to self study quite a bit. I don't think LEK will have you building LBO models at any point. Luckily it's not that hard to learn.
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