I'm wondering if it is at all possible to recruit for the London/Europe offices of the major European players in PE (CVC, Permira, Cinven, EQT, BC Partners, Bridgepoint, PAI etc.) as an NYC IB analyst. Also curious if anyone has crossed the pond and stayed on the sell side.
Would be interesting to hear if people have started out in PE in NYC and worked on European buyouts, or worked a few years in a European office for the same firm.
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European funds are nowhere near as structured with their recruiting so there's no "formal" recruiting period like in the US which makes the logistics extremely challenging. Apart from the logistics, European funds tend to recruit more experienced people (3rd year analyst and even 1st and 2nd year associate) so that can also cause a misalignment. Being fluent in a European language (with German, French and Italian being the most important) is a MUST. Honestly, unless you worked on some European deals and have spent a lot of time in London (so you can network and meet headhunters), I would try to target the US office of these funds and request a move after a year or two.
Thanks for the insight man. I'm wondering how fluent we're talking here, would it be possible for a non-native speaker with passable proficiency to work in London at least?
I think it depends on the funds. European funds typically prefer native speakers and for other funds, it's really dependent on the fund / group and their strategy, but a business / working proficiency is the bare minimum (ie. you need to be able to conduct business in that language). To be honest though, if you haven't lived in Europe nor speak fluently any European language, it will be hard to compare favorably to the Euro candidates and the rest of your resume will have to be pretty stellar in order to get attention.
Can only agreeing with you. I'm European. Last advice: stay in US - EU isn't so competitive on this field
What do you mean with "competitive"?
Looks like a few of the major European players have opened NYC offices within the past year or so. Thoughts on what it would be like working for them, or if they're looking for any specific European lenses? It looks like there is a rotational aspect with the European offices, but you are based out of NYC.
Agreed, heard their starting associates basically all have masters or phds. It's not an apples to apples comparison in tenure.
PhDs aren't common, but masters certainly are. Continental Europeans typically study a 3 year bachelors and 2 year masters.
Also I think from a recruiting standpoint you'd have to prove why you want to change location so significantly. unless you have a compelling reason (e.g. family/SO) , it might make you seem flighty (like you'll want to come back home to murica in 6 months)
I had friends who did this. A lot of the 'Section X' kids at HBS have this sort of profile too. Here's what I noticed.
Academics. The common European education model is a three-year undergraduate degree followed by a one or two-year master's program. Sometimes a second graduate degree is in there, depending on the family background (e.g. if they're wealthy or there's a family-owned business as an ongoing source of wealth, there's no calendar pressure to start working; a decade as a perpetual student is nothing amiss).
Fluency. Kids who go to any of the expensive continental boarding schools (not just the elite ones like Le Rosey, Brillantmont, Leysin) often speak 3-5 languages fluently by their teenage years. This means that when they go to one of the prestigious English-speaking universities (which almost everyone pursues, knowing that an Oxbridge or Russell Group degree carries more weight in the international business community than that of a continental institution), they're speaking English as a third/fourth/fifth language.
Network. From the two points above you can see how kids with the best resumes for undergraduate recruiting are going to have a strong international network. In that community it's then easy to reach any senior political or business figure you need to, because chances are you went to school with their kid or nephew or goddaughter or whatever.
The European buy-side recruiting scheme works very differently than here in the States. Where here you have a gun go off seven months into the analyst stint, there it's a slow drip. Priority is given to deal experience, so people often wait to progress to conversations with headhunters until the end of their second or third analyst year. Unlike in the U.S., that doesn't bar you from interviewing with the megafunds. It's all rolling.
The kids who had the best placements had a combination of (a) strong educational pedigree [think lots of firsts from Oxbridge / St. Andrews / LSE followed by a master's], (b) great bank placement localized for the EU market [e.g. Rothschild is a superb name in London while it isn't so much here], (c) deal experience in the market they wanted to focus on [e.g. some funds will literally silo the Benelux team] paired with fluency in that region's language(s).
I haven't ever seen an American-born analyst place into an EU-focused PE fund. I've seen it happen three times into a UK-only (or UK-heavy) fund. I've seen it happen where an international analyst who got a New York banking role 'returned' to an EU PE shop.
Good luck. Your mileage may vary, but this is my experience.
Well, only the Swiss people are speaking 3/4 languages as they are living in such environment (French, Italy, Germany, Swiss German). This has nothing to do with elite schools. Plus, there are very few people in Continental Europe speaking (more) than 2 languages fluent (excl. English). But in most jobs, it is required or rather preferred to speak an additional language such as German or French.
We're saying the same thing.
I said: "Kids who go to any of the expensive continental boarding schools ... often speak 3-5 languages fluently by their teenage years."
What I'm saying is that a kid from a family background where CHF 50,000+ annually for education isn't a problem gains fluency in both their native tongue and English during their early years, then will often pursue another continental tongue during secondary education.
I also said: "(not just the elite ones like Le Rosey, Brillantmont, Leysin)" -- where I'm stating that this phenomenon holds true even beyond the most well-known, 'brand name' institutions.
You said: "Plus, there are very few people in Continental Europe speaking (more) than 2 languages fluent (excl. English). But in most jobs, it is required or rather preferred to speak an additional language such as German or French."
I agree, and I said: "This means that when they go to one of the prestigious English-speaking universities ... they're speaking English as a third/fourth/fifth language." -- where English being their third tongue is common.
Being able to speak more than one language it's not extremely common across Western Europe - except for Switzerland - but at the "elite level" (let me say so) it tends to be more frequent as you may have for instance French dad and German mom (this is the case most of the time also in Switzerland, where the chances your parents speaks different native languages is way higher). Re Central/Eastern Europe origin, nearly all the people I've met here in Switzerland can easily handle 3/4 languages (e.g. Ukrainian, Russian, English/German/French). This is of course the legacy of former soviet countries, where Russian was the common language combined with the necessity to learn the language of the country you want to relocate to. As for the education, despite there are some extremely expensive schools and except for education at the MBA level, you can easily get a very good level of instruction (without giving up the pedigree) without budgeting CHF 50k+ per year as other renowned schools costs like CHF 15k (Switzerland) or EUR 10k (Italy). Anyway, the language is absolutely the biggest issue - if you take a look at the websites of European PE firms, most of the time you can find mentioned all the languages spoken by the various IPs.
Thanks for the response, your posts are always really detailed and informative. Do you think moving to London after the NYC analyst stint would help in a transition to a UK fund? Or would they see an NYC analyst as equal? I'm curious if the lack of Americans at London funds may be due to lack of trying as well, as most top performers probably want to stay in NYC.
Iusto deleniti qui vel quaerat. Corrupti optio maiores praesentium.
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