PE recruiting from IB- play it safe or reach for best fund possible?
Incoming FT analyst at one of the better MM banks (Jefferies/Blair/Rothschild). Looking at my groups exits, nearly all exits are to MMPE, with maybe a handful of UMM and one MF exit in the past couple years.
I'm trying to plan out my PE recruiting strategy because I know things are going to get very hectic once I hit the desk and wondering how people from similar groups weigh the risk of going for a better fund vs just playing it safe and landing a solid MMPE gig.
From reading on here, it sounds like you really get one shot with headhunters, and if you say you're interested in UMM/MF and you strike out on-cycle, you can be pretty screwed.
My profile is pretty competitive (target school, GPA + test scores are good), but I just don't work at a bank/group with many large-cap PE exits. It's been done before so clearly it's possible, but I'm terrified of trying to go on-cycle, striking out because I will likely never win when I'm interviewing against a GSTMT kid, and then getting passed up by headhunters because they think I'm damaged goods. That being said, I'm really interested in working at a larger fund, and would feel a little bit disappointed if I didn't give it a fair shot. On the other hand, I can definitely see a scenario where I strike out on cycle and am forced to either stay in banking or take some no-name LMM fund because I blew my shot with HHs by telling them all I want to work at a bigger fund.
The other alternative would be to target exclusively MMPE, and, looking at my groups exits, I am confident I could land a really solid gig at a good firm. I spoke to a few analysts that just left for PE and all of them said they thought they had no shot at MF so recruited exclusively for MMPE, and all had a pretty smooth recruiting process and landed jobs they are excited about.
I know there isn't a clear yes/no answer here, but I'm curious how others have navigated this decision of what you actually want to do vs being pragmatic and trying to target the best of the most feasible options available.
do you have a location preference?
Following, in similar shoes
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I went through the on-cycle and off-cycle process last year. My advice is to start with your top goals and clearly/firmly communicate that to headhunters, then keep an open dialogue with them. I started off with a MF or bust attitude, then got wrecked in on-cycle. I went back to the HH and said that I'd be open to UMM and MM opps for XYZ reasons. They then went ahead and sent me MM, LMM, UMM, and MF opps as they came up. HH are really mercenaries - which is good and bad. They see you as a dollar sign, so there's little to nothing you can do get written off completely. That said they'll try to pigeon hole you - I'll bet regardless of what you tell them they'll send over a lot of MM opps your way. I'd recommend doing some outreach on your own to MF's then talk to the headhunters and say "I'm interested in KKR, I talked to 2 VP's and an associate there" - the self interested HH will take your MF interest a lot more seriously cause you already got tacit buy-in from a MF.
Did you find that you got worse HH looks after you didn't land something on cycle? From reading on here it sounds like HHs are just trying to place as many people as possible, and failing on cycle just signals to them that you might not be the best candidate for whatever reason and thus their time may be better spent elsewhere.
Nah - I still got solid opps sent my way and also some shit opps sent over to me. Again they're trying to place people and realize that on-cycle is a pain. They'll keep forwarding your resume. Additionally - each HH is not a monolith. For instance, let's say you interview at Bain cap via a set up by CPI (for example). The person who manages the CPI relationship for Bain is different than the one who manages the relationship for H&F and is different from then one who manages for Advent etc. They also tend to work in silo's. No one is going to reference your past interview performance in determining whether to send your resume. They'll look at your resume and your story then decide to pass you on for that opp or not.
I recommend you be pretty realistic with yourself. Coming out of banking, it’s difficult to get a MF PE spot unless you’re from a BB or EB. The MM banks simply do not feed into any of the MF PE firms. As you said, if you do a quick LinkedIn search, there are so few people straight from MM banks into the top MFs (KKR, BX, WP, APO, Carlyle, TPG, Bain, etc.). That being said, many of these firms are hiring laterals from MM PE firms so that may be an easier way to eventually land at a MF PE role down the line.
The best tip is to tell different headhunters different things. They don’t all talk to eachother. Shoot your MFPE shot with some of them and then tell others you want MM or UMM
Hmm, this seems to make sense. But is it normal to work with more than one headhunter? For instance, I know that real estate agents make you be exclusive to them because they don't want to put all the work in and then get no commission bc you were also working with someone else.
Yes you don’t hire the headhunter, the company does. Talk to as many as are willing to talk to you
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