MBA -> PE without prior PE experience?
I'm starting at a top MBA program this year. Before business school, I did IB and public equity investing. I'm interested in PE / growth equity, but I've heard that this isn't an easy transition to make without pre-MBA PE experience. That said, is it possible? I am not looking to do megafund PE.
If it is possible, does anyone have specific advice on how to go about this? I was thinking of doing a school year internship + taking the right classes, joining relevant clubs & networking, and participating in case competitions. Is that too naive?
It will be a long putt -- not impossible but pretty rare. A school year PE internship will be helpful. A PE internship between first and second year will be borderline mandatory. Clubs and networking should help. I think the classes and case competitions may be helpful on the margin but the other stuff should take precedence.
The main hurdle is that there are many candidates with pre-MBA experience for few post-MBA PE spots, so firms are quite reticent to hire someone without meaningful PE experience (they just don't need to). That's why it's so important to have real deal experience on your resume heading in to full-time recruiting.
The advice above details the right approach. Let’s focus on the positives though - you’re at a top business school program and have investing experience. That’s more than a lot of folks can say. As you’re going through the process, I would lean heavily on trying to advertise your investing acumen, which is a transferable skillset across most kinds of equity investing. The processes by which you diligence companies and execute transactions is different between the public and private markets, but being able to formulate an investment thesis, identify potential risks, and weigh those considerations appropriately to come to a decision on whether to invest or not is the same.
From this logic, I would suggest targeting firms that advertise the post-MBA role as a “senior associate” vs. landing directly as a VP. Senior associate roles typically come with the expectation that there will be a timely transition to VP, within a year or so, which means that the tasks you’ll be responsible for at first will be a hybrid of associate/VP. This will give you the opportunity to learn how to run processes in the private markets without necessarily being responsible for them, which is what will be expected of you in a VP role (thus making that transition easier).
Agree with the above and would add if you have sector knowledge this can help as well with recruiting for the related sector-focused funds.
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