Life Crossroads: Accepting PE Offer or Accepting CD Offer
Hey guys,
Long story short, I am currently a burnt-out 2nd year analyst in an absolute sweatshop. I have grown to strongly dislike this place and most of the senior people in my group. However, I can't deny that it's been solid for getting M&A experience / modeling reps. I was fortunate to get an offer from a LMM / MM PE firm, in the same industry / sub-sector as my banking group. They gave me 24 hours to accept, and having nothing else in hand, I did. That was about 4 months ago. Since then, after continuing to get slammed at my IB job, I have serious reservations about signing the offer and potentially signing up for "IB 2.0". A couple weeks ago, a Corp Dev opportunity at a public F100 company in this space opened up, and I jumped on it. The team seems excited to bring me on board and the lifestyle seems like a huge improvement. Obviously there would be a large pay cut, but objectively I think it's enough money to make me happy. Now that I am close to getting the CD offer, I am starting to have doubts in the other direction (i.e., am I selling myself short by ditching PE for something less stressful). Ultimately, I don't see myself sticking around in high finance for the long term. I think I would probably end up in industry either way. But am I making the wrong decision by reneging a PE offer? By the way, the PE role is in [City A] and the CD role is in [City B]. I don't know a single soul in [City A] and my family and friends are all based in [City B].
Thanks all -- obligatory shout out to WSO for playing a huge role in my career, and of course for being the place where we can all moan and groan while making more money than 99% of the population.
Best,
Rumpleforeskin
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For what it's worth I went into CD for a couple years because I'd burnt myself out a bit during school and just wanted a steady paycheck where I could learn while having low stress. I was still able to transition to $1B+ PE fund pretty smoothly with relevant industry coverage. Maybe not the norm but honestly, I think the IB folk on this site overemphasize just how much of a roadblock CD is if you want to go into PE. I got plenty of interviews and the fact that it was somewhat a less "intense" experience than a brutal IB almost never came up unless the interviewers had spent significant time at one of the known sweatshops themselves. If you've got a compelling story and can sell it there's no reason to assume you'll miss out in the long-term. If you need some time to decompress and will have a good community structure available due to location I can't think of a reason to not to go CD if you really feel strongly.
Eventually it did get boring though and when an opportunity opens up to snag a good spot at a PE firm with a track record and/or pedigree, it's usually a good idea to take it if it represents a step upward professionally. If the money isn't the end all be all driver for you, go CD. But I do think if you're looking to maximize earnings over time, the sooner you can get into PE and start building reps the better.
Thank you, that's a very helpful point. While I think it's unlikely that I fall back in love with the PE industry and try to recruit again, I do worry about the consequences of reneging on the PE offer that I already signed. PE is a small world and I would imagine people do not reneg very often.
Hey - could you expand more on how you were able to move to PE from CD? I recently graduated, was unsuccessful in IB recruiting and ended up at a f500 fldp. I really want to end up in MM buyout PE as that's where my interest lies (and I don't care much about prestige). Happy to move to pm if that works better for you.
Not really interested in PMing sorry, but happy to opine a bit here. I wasn't at a F500 FLDP or anything like that. I graduated from a non-target with a sub 3.5 and ended up working for a non-American company that's an active strategic acquirer in their industry. I probably went through a dozen different processes with funds in both PE and VC purely focused on or with one of their silos focused on my coverage, got to final rounds for 3-4 of those, and got the one offer. Turns out the people backing my fund are some of the biggest names in the industry which is super exciting. It was through cold applying on LinkedIn that I got most of my opportunities. I stood out somewhat because I have a bit of a weird resume formatting style, experiences, and a unique story. Just make sure you know your shit cold, keep trying to find out what made you fail a previous process, and apply your learning to the next one.
The reality is you don't have an offer at all from either. That being said, you are going to be better served having a more targeted approach given that fetching offers in PE vs CS will be different because of how different the two industries are. You're obviously capable of fetching an offer so the onus right now is really more on you to decide what you're looking for
Not sure if my post was unclear; to clarify I have signed with the PE firm and am currently in the late stages of a process for a CD role. I understand that the onus is on me to decide which one I want. What I was hoping to get out of this post was more perspectives to help me consider this from all angles.
Ah I missed that, my bad. Then it comes down to whether you're down to grind even more since PE will be a lift workwise with an end-date given associate programs / structural ceilings in progression whereas the CS job will be more long-term and likely better hours with the comp sacrifice and bureaucracy which comes with working at a "traditional" corporate.
CD honestly sounds like a really good gig.
I would do the PE gig. LMM/MM PE is different animal than IB. I would not expect for sure to be working in an absolute sweatshop, unless of course that’s what you know it will be. I’ve seen a lot of the LMM/MM funds actually have pretty good lifestyles. Also, if you can do another couple years on buyside, you can go back to the CD gig probably one level above where you’d be if you went now, which may shave a few years off of your long term track. DONT give up on the path because you had a bad experience at one place. You may find that you really like PE and your poor IB experience was group related. Give the PE gig 6 months and after that I think you’ll know. At month 6 you can decide if you want to finish the program or move into CD. Buyside experience will help in CD
Thanks man, appreciate your thoughts here. After speaking with all of the current associates at the fund and one associate who left for business school, I am not too optimistic that the lifestyle will be better. For context, once the outgoing associates leave for business school, there will be two associates (including myself) responsible for >10 portfolio companies. Add evaluating new investments / developing themes, and it seems like a pretty massive workload spread across two people.
For what its worth, I cover more than that many portcos at my shop and it is not always super grueling. It would depend on the strategy. Feel free to PM me if you want to exchange thoughts in more detail.
PE
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