Since on-cycle recruiting never happened last year, many analysts that hit the desk in 2020 have all been asking the same question: when is on-cycle PE recruiting going to start?
The answer to the $250K-$400K question (depending on where you land a gig) may finally be here, with CarterPierce sending an email blast to a number of our bulge bracket mentees earlier today.
Are you ready for headhunter interviews? Did you update your resume to include all your latest deals? Have you developed a framework for walking through your transactions with an investor mindset? Have you practiced your story and done your research to clearly answer, “Why PE?”
If you’ve been following OfficeHours over the past few months, you know that we’ve been working closely with a number of investment banking analysts during recruiting pre-season since the summer of 2020. It’s finally game day.
To those who have been putting off recruiting prep, not to fear. We’re finally unveiling our crash course curriculum to the public:
50 hours
That’s the minimum time we recommend allocating to PE prep to be competitive for a megafund or upper middle market placement during on-cycle. We know how busy you are (especially you all at Moelis) and so have carefully designed a curriculum and supporting set of study materials to keep you on track with prep.
50 hours: if you allocate 5 hours a week to recruiting prep, you’ll be done in 10 weeks, which as of today is the end of August. The last pre-COVID recruiting cycle kicked off on September 12, 2019. Interviews were completed and offers were signed, sealed, and delivered a few days after that.
We live in unprecedented times and can’t be sure how recruiting will play out this year.
One scenario is that Analysts from the class of 2020 and 2021 will have a mega recruiting cycle that occurs simultaneously. Headhunters, who are already pressed for time managing a single class of analysts, will be stretched even thinner if they have to handle two.
Even worse would be if Analyst 1 and Analyst 2 candidates have to compete for the same jobs (though we’d imagine that Analyst 2’s will compete for 2022 starts whereas incoming Analyst 1’s will complete for 2023 start dates).
Another scenario is that firms will decide to stagger recruiting, first completing the 2022 start date processes and then move onto 2023.
Whatever the case, the messaging is clear: it’s about that time for us to get back to it. A number of people we work with have already scheduled calls with CarterPierce. We expect the rest of the headhunters to follow suit in the coming days and weeks.
The Takeaway
Unlike previous years, where analysts only had 2-3 months to prep for PE recruiting, this year analysts have been prepping for almost a full year. This recruiting cycle is going to be one of the most competitive of all time.
If you haven’t started prepping yet, we highly recommend you do so. Ask older analysts for advice, look on your shared drives for practice models, and start studying your deals. When you’ve gotten as far as you can and need some extra help getting into the top 1% of candidates that convert offers, we’re here to help.
We provide bespoke, highly personalized coaching to help set you apart from the pack and have placed several candidates into top lateral IBD positions and PE firms continuously over the past few months (including Blackstone, KKR, and Evercore).
Interested in learning more about OfficeHours and how a Career Coach can help you? Schedule a time to connect with a Coach here or Submit your Application directly here and we’ll be in touch!