While no one can be sure when on-cycle PE recruiting kicks off, most recent historical data shows recruiting kicked off 1-2 months after first year analysts hit the desk pre-COVID.In 2020, recruiting was delayed by 14 months due to COVID.
In 2021, recruiting was delayed by only 8 months.
This downward trendline indicates recruiting timeline may normalize this year and kick off 1-3 months after first years hit the desk, so as early as September or October 2022.
My advice remains the same: if you’re serious about PE, it’s best to knock out prep that is in your control (LBO Modeling, Business Intuition Guide, and Written Cases you can master without any meaningful banking experience) before you get swamped with work.
Use your day job to get up to speed on how M&A transactions work in the real world, which is the last part of job interviews and partially out of your control (Deal Walkthroughs).
Guides for all of the above are on our platform.
Both me and Rohit are in New York this week, so drop us a line if you want to catch up on all things recruiting in person.
By the way, if you’re an OfficeHours fan from a non-traditional background but haven’t pulled trigger on platform access yet, shoot me an email with your resume and a brief note on why you could benefit from OfficeHours, and I’ll select a few of you to get free access and/or coaching.