Online Resources for Private Equity

Interested in learning more about private equity? Many resources for investment banking pertain to private equity as well. Here's a list of more PE-focused resources to help you get more acquainted with the industry in time for recruiting season!

• Vault Career Guide to Private Equity, free for Harvard students

• Vault Guide to Private Equity Jobs, free for Harvard students

• Wall Street Oasis' Private Equity Forum

• High Finance Graduate's Introduction to Private Equity PE

Many of the guides we recommended in the investment banking section are relevant to preparation for private equity interviews. These interviews tend to be highly technical and case-study based. This means that both the “basic” and “advanced” sections of these guides must be mastered. In addition, the most common type of case-study is in relation to an LBO model. You will most likely be asked to create a “Paper LBO” model. Different firms will allot different amounts of time to complete these models. They can range from 30-minutes, an hour, two hours, or even send you materials for you to complete a week before or after your interview.

• LBO Model Interview Questions: What to Expect

• Private Equity Interview Questions and Answers

There are many resources regarding this topic in PE-focused guides as a part of Wall Street Oasis and Breaking into Wall Street.

Succeeding in Private Equity

The following is a list we compiled of the skills you need in order to succeed in private equity:

Quantitative Skills

Private equity is all about valuing companies and seeing if they would get a good return if you buy this company. As you might imagine, that requires a lot of quantitative skills, which is where Investment Banking prepares you very well, as you are doing a lot of modeling as an analyst.

Critical Thinking Skills

Private equity is also very strategic. Once you buy the company, you have to think about how to make it more profitable. This requires a lot of critical thinking and many of the skills you would get from Consulting and the advisory side of Investment Banking. Even as an analyst, you are encouraged to provide insights on why this may be a good/bad investment, how to make the portfolio company more profitable, etc.

Communication and Presentation Skills

At the end of the day, like any other job in finance/business, Private Equity is people-driven. If you cannot communicate or present well to your client, they will not trust you to buy their company and you will not be able to lead them effectively. These are also skills gained from working in another industry first.

Private Equity Recruiting Timeline

Private equity is incredibly hard to go into straight from college. The usual path is to first go into an industry like Investment Banking or Consulting, and then switching into Private Equity.

Usually PE firms will start recruiting in the fall of your first year as an analyst. Yes, this means two years in advance of when you would actually start. Like for Investment Banking, these interviews will be a mix of both behavioral and technical. It is less important to network for Private Equity when you are already working full-time, because if you are at a prestigious firm, many Private Equity firms and headhunters will come to you. However, that does not mean it is easy to get the job. In fact, it is even harder to get a Private Equity job than an Investment Banking job.

In fact, it is even harder to get a Private Equity job than an Investment Banking job.

However, some firms do recruit undergraduates, though most of these opportunities are through Diversity Programs. Some notable firms that recruit undergraduates from Harvard include KKR, Blackstone, Bain Capital, Alpine Investors, Silver Lake Partners, and Audax. Like almost all of the other industries, these firms offer some Sophomore or Junior internships to a few select students, who then have the opportunity to receive a Full-Time return offer. However, more firms are offering less and less summer internships and are now moving to recruiting mostly Full-Time. Unlike in Investment Banking, most students do go through the Full-Time recruiting process during their Junior summer internship in another industry like Investment Banking or Consulting. 

Like almost all of the other industries, these firms offer some Sophomore or Junior internships to a few select students