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Hey NNN, sorry about the delay, but are any of these useful:
No promises, but thought I'd mention a few relevant users that work in the industry: Double Doubler friedbryce901 Aris-Routis
Hope that helps.
Competitive. It's a grind. Lots of folks want in, most people who were in want to stay in. MM means a lot of things...name recognition is going to matter. I saw only a few people break in or trade up in terms of fund size, either women going to large cap funds from smaller ones where there was specific diversity initiatives (i.e. headhunters only reached out to women + minorities in the first round of recruiting), joining lower MM funds, or going into industry-specific situations where their prior work was relevant.
thanks! very helpful.
To clarify "I saw only a few people break in..." - do you mean to say that someone with three years of pre-MBA PE experience, who also attends one of HBS/GSB/Wharton, will have less than even odds to return to PE post-MBA? In your experience, how receptive are firms to bringing back their pre-MBA employees if the individual has performed and is well liked? Is this a handshake agreement prior to departure for those candidates, or is it a "check back in and we'll see" type deal? Thanks a lot.
Agree with petergibbons re: the competitive nature of the process. It really is a grind. Way more people want jobs than there are spots available. I know several folks who had solid PE jobs prior to business school and are struggling to find something post-MBA.
Note that full time recruiting is much more important than summer internship recruiting at the MBA level. Most people who did PE prior to MBA will do something different during the summer. A lot do public markets investing or some type of operating role. There just aren't a ton of MBA level internship programs in private equity, and many (but not all) of the programs that are in place are geared towards non-traditional applicants.
Full-time recruiting will start up late in the summer prior to your second year. Recruiting happens through headhunters, on-campus recruiting, and networking. For people with prior PE experience, headhunters and on-campus recruiting will be the highest yield channels. At the schools you mentioned, you'll have tons of outreach from firms directly or headhunters on behalf of firms. It's relatively easy to get an interview at most places if you have a good background, but the funnel from interview --> offer is extremely narrow. For example, a lot of the big firms will interview ~40-50 kids from 1 school in the first round for ~1-3 spots. Final rounds will frequently have ~5-10 people for ~1 spot.
In addition to the brand name aspect petergibbons mentioned above, the other thing that will be critical is how you left things with your prior firm. New firms would ideally like to see that you have some type of return offer in place, and absent that, they'd like to see both 1) a solid and sensible reason why you aren't going back (e.g. you're shifting investment style, want to change geographies, firm went through restructuring and there's no space, etc.); and 2) extremely positive references from your prior employer. Without both of those, it's going to be really tough to convince a firm that you aren't just a bad employee. That said, it still may be possible to move downmarket, meaning going to a fund that's "worse" than your current fund.
The other thing to note is that recruiting seems to be slightly better at HBS and GBS than it is at Wharton. I only have direct experience recruiting at one of the schools, but this seems to be true from conversations with friends at other schools, the people I met at final rounds when going through the recruiting process, and the recruiting process at my pre-MBA firm. Outside of those three schools, it's VERY difficult to land a spot.
Thank you so much! this is really really helpful. I am a minority female looking to hopefully trade up in terms of fund size/prestige. Very strong recs from employer and return offer in place. current fund is $1bn fund size. I just want to make sure going to school is a sensible choice if recruiting is super competitive.
This is a really great write-up, thank you. Just want to ask a clarifying question. You mention that firms would like to see that candidates have return offers in place. If there are so few spots for post-MBA candidates with previous PE experience, and the prospective candidates knows this, what is the reasoning behind which one would recruit with new firms while already having an offer in hand? This seems to make little sense. The only logical conclusion I can draw is that post-MBA return offers for pre-MBA candidates are extremely rare?
This is an incredible source of info. I'm curious as to what separates the best post-MBA candidates from the rest of the pack - is it deal experience, mastery of finance, having some operating background, something else?
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