Private Equity/ VC jobs

Question

Does anyone happen to know which school has the highest placement for Private Equity/ VC jobs.. 

I think I read somewhere that Harvard places 10 percent of its incoming class in PE.. Doesn't seem right for some reason.

gmatclb · Answer

It does if 10% come from PE before school.

bewakoof · Answer

Is it really hard to get into PE/VC if you have no background? From what I have read it is almost impossible to get into these fields.. A 2 yr stint as an IB is a must..

riverripper · Answer

The only way to get into a HF/VC/PE if you weren't in it before or in a bulge bracket bank excelling in that position is to have some expertise in some very odd field or have experience in something that is rapidly growing. You would need to be an expert of something they really want to invest in.

kidderek · Answer

or be able to schmooze like a pimp

bewakoof · Answer

so schmoozing like a pimp is the only option i have left

dosa_don · Answer

Interesting-I was just talking to a friend of mine who is in H and who is trying to land a PE/VC gig. Right after he was admitted this Jan, he quit his job in Corporate strategy and went to work for a Social PE/VC firm that was glad to have a guy who is going to join a top b school work for them . He worked there for around 7-8 months and he feels that experience has given him a small but necessary edge in the recruiting process. So...you can still do something like that

riverripper · Answer

Or find and marry the girl in your class whose father is the founder of a firm.

bewakoof · Answer

i need to find myself a hot chick to marry.. 

but yeah.. what dosa suggested seems a very smart move..I FIRST need an acceptance letter from a top school..

but again going back to original question. Any other school besides H that strikes out?

dosa_don · Answer

Now you want a HOT chick who happens to be the daughter of a guy who owns a PE firm...now now....choose 1 or the other :lol:

mNeo · Answer

What I've found is that H and S are the only schools that have significant number of people going to the VC firms. Maybe this is because most of the PE/VC people go to H/S anyway? And like everybody else said, landing a PE/VC job has more to do with your previous experience than your school.

riverripper · Answer

Honestly talking to alums of schools. I think that the smaller top schools might give you better chances if you don't come from the field. Talking with some of the people from Tuck who have gone into it with no background and they all said they only got their jobs because of other Tuck Alums. Same held true with a a Sloan grad, who went into a VC...he said he was basically brought in because of he was from MIT and a lot of the companies they look at are founded by engineering or comp sci students from MIT.

aceman626 · Answer

Not surprising at all, since over 10%+ of the HBS incoming class already have PE experience. It's public info, 100+ out of the 800 or so incoming students have PE experience. Possibly more if you include VC. 

In fact, I would say that I am surprised that HBS's placement in PE/VC is so BAD! Since from your stats that means that you CANNOT get a PE job unless you have previous PE experience, even if you go to HBS. 10% in, 10% out. I thought HBS is supposed to give you the edge when it comes to people who want to switch careers from something else into PE. Like I thought if you do not have PE experience, you can still get into PE via HBS. But apparently not.

pelihu · Answer

One of the big challenges of going for a PE/VC job is the timing. Most firms do not recruit regularly and few hire summer associates. Those that do hire summer associates generally don't know their needs until late in the spring. This means that if you want to pursue PE/VC, you need to forgo the chance to at most traditional MBA jobs. You have to be really confident in your chances, or perhaps rich enough so you don't care, to do this. It makes sense that people that have experience in the industry are the ones confident enough to know whether they should take the chance.

The comment about marrying a girl who's father runs a PE fund made me chuckle. A girl in my learning team's father is a partner at a big name fund. She volunteered to get us together for dinner or something (definitely taking advantage of that), but I didn't know I had to marry her. :lol:

Actually, I do think it's true that personal contact is really the only good way to break into this industry.

Actually, I do think it's true that personal contact is really the only good way to break into this industry.

rhyme · Answer

Bolded it again, because this is of critical importance. If you go for PE, you go for broke.

lepium · Answer

Technical question: what if some of the P/E guys don't go into P/E after B-school? That would mean that some without the experience went into P/E, wouldn't it? As striking as it may sound, I know a few people with P/E experience who are thinking of doing something else after B-school.

Can you link to the data?

L.

aceman626 · Answer

Well I'm not an expert on this, but I would think that's only a handful of people...some PE folks might go start their own funds after HBS...so its entrepreneurship, but still PE, so not many, maybe 90/100 of the incoming stay in PE i would think......also, as for incoming folks from other top level jobs like VC/HF, etc and they might switch to PE, but I'm not sure if that would be considered career-switching since those are all highly-related top level jobs....also, there are folks who are technically consultants or bankers, but they are superstars with PE practice in their firm like Bain PE or Goldman PE group, so I don't think they can be considered career switchers either.....

actually i'm just rambling on LOL...i guess what i'm trying to say is, based on the original poster said about number of people post-HBS going into PE, I am surprised that HBS doesn't help all that much.

Becuase you have a few leaving PE and going into maybe VC ,a few going going from VC going into PE, a few going from Goldman PE into KKR, etc, a few going from HF into PE maybe? So its like an incestuous cycle of the top level finance jobs. In the end for regular engineers, marketing guys, low level finance guys, biz dev guys, non profit guys, etc, they still can't get a PE job thru HBS. 

This is all based on 10% in and 10% out....now if its 10% in and 20% out, then its a different story.

bewakoof · Answer

I went to Columbia Enterpreneurship panel yesterday and everyone seems to be in agreement that PE/VC jobs out of BSchool are HARDDDD to come by..

So, starting your own business is the only alternative left for students who want to major in Enterpreneurship/International Business..

kryzak · Answer

talking to a UCLA and Stanford alum who are both in VC's now, they both told me how difficult it is to get into the VC world. At UCLA, out of a class of 350, I think 5 made it into VC's last year (of course, not all of them were gunning for VCs, probably 40-50 of them were). At Stanford, the alum found the VC through a lot of networking and searching "off the grid" to find it, but she thinks it's perfect for her.

So yeah, you go for broke if you want to get into VC, and do a lot of networking.

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Private Equity/ VC jobs

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