Private Equity Resumes
NOTE: While this article is still relevant and has great information, if you’re interested in private equity resumes you should review the following template and video tutorial to see exactly how to write one:
“I really enjoy it,” he says, folding his arms and lying back in his chair with a contented grin. “I’m in [private equity] because I like to be excellent and to win.”
-Steve Schwarzman, Fortune Magazine Interview (March 5, 2007)
If you want to be like Steve here and become King Of Wall Street, your first step will be tailoring your resume to get those private equity interviews and break into the industry.
Sure, you did a great job with your investment banking resume. You got into a top group on Wall Street, or even if you didn’t, you at least managed to land a job at a boutique investment bank.
But if you want to be King, you have to think about your resume once again.
And with private equity recruiting season having just started, I figured a discussion of private equity resumes would be a good way to start the week.
In many ways tailoring your resume for buyside jobs is similar to crafting the perfect investment banking resume.
But it’s different in one critical aspect: you have to focus entirely on your investment banking experience rather than trying to be inclusive of everything else you’ve done.
Sure, for MBA admissions or jobs outside finance, show the whole picture. But for private equity jobs, your investment banking and deal experience are all that matter.
Private Equity Resume Structure
About half your resume should be comprised of your current investment banking job. Minimize your pre-banking experience. Yes, they will cover this during interviews, but the purpose of a resume is to get your foot in the door.
Education should be at the bottom of your resume now (unlike with investment banking analyst resumes), and the top of your resume should start with your contact information and then immediately jump into your Work Experience, starting with your investment banking job.
Writing About Your Investment Banking Job
Start this section with one or two brief sentences about your overall responsibilities and the types of deals you’ve worked on thus far. You could also include information on any special projects that were not deal-related but nevertheless contributed to the firm in some way.
There should be three key pieces of information you relay in this introductory sentence:
- Number of deals worked on
- Types of deals worked on – M&A (sellside and buyside), IPOs, Follow-Ons, Convertibles, Debt
- Skills gained – LBO modeling, accretion/dilution modeling, DCF skills, valuation
Once you’ve picked this as your summary, you need to decide on deals to write about and then go into detail on your transaction experience – this is the heart of your private equity resume.
Choosing Your Deals
A VP-level banker once told me that “it would be difficult to get a private equity job without closed deals on your resume.”
Nothing could be farther from the truth. When private equity firms recruit in between the middle of your first year and beginning of your second year, they don’t expect that everyone will have closed deals by then. Some analysts never even close deals at all!
When picking deals to write about, what you personally contributed to the deal is more important than the size or “prestige” of the deal. Yes, it’s nice to have $50 billion M&A deals under your name, but if all you did was a simple valuation or basic research for the other team members, don’t make it a focal point of your resume.
Always lean toward picking the deals where you learned the most and were the most unusual vs. choosing larger deals that were pretty standard and didn’t give you much unique experience.
For private equity jobs, also try to write about M&A deals rather than capital markets transactions – what you do on a daily basis is much closer to M&A than anything else. Debt might be ok to write about as well, but avoid IPOs and Fairness Opinions (FOs) if at all possible.
Writing About Your Deals
Let’s start with how you should not write about a deal:
How NOT To Write About A Deal
- $5B Sale Of Company Y To Company X
- Drafted Offering Memorandum and Management Presentation and tracked status of deal with potential buyers
- Managed due diligence process between Company Y and different buyers and responded to all inquiries
The two items listed here would be expected of any investment banking analyst working on a sellside M&A deal. That’s what you as an Investment Banking Analyst do – you write the sales documents, maintain buyer logs, and send documents to interested parties.
There’s nothing here that makes me think, “This deal looks like a great experience!” And it commits the cardinal sin of not being results-oriented and specific.
The Right Way To Write About A Deal
You need to focus on what was unique about the deal. Did you influence the negotiation process somehow? Did an analysis you created result in a lower/higher price or get new buyers interested? Did you analyze the market in a way that led to more interest or a better price?
If you can’t think of anything unique to write about, pick a different deal. Sometimes it just isn’t possible, and there are many generic deals that are not good material to talk or write about.
Here’s how I would re-write the example above:
- $5B Sale Of Company Y To Company X
- Worked directly with CFO to build complex operating model of company involving 40 different properties across multiple states
- Created market analysis showing favorable trends in casino construction despite subprime-related problems; led to 2 private equity buyers remaining in the auction process until the final round
It is still the same length as the previous attempt, but this one is about 500 times better. It shows what you did that was specific to the deal, and what the results of your work were. And it skips the generic points that are part of any sell-side M&A process.
Writing About Unannounced Or Dead Deals
This is fine. Just don’t mention any names or anything that could be tied directly to the specific deal. You’ll more than likely have to do this anyway when applying for private equity jobs.
Sometimes this can be tricky if it’s a very large or well-known deal that everyone has speculated on but has not been announced yet (e.g. Yahoo / Microsoft before the bid became official). In these cases, avoid mentioning specific numbers or dollar amounts and instead use percentages to make sure you’re not disclosing anything confidential.
Parting Thoughts
Successfully tailoring your resume for private equity jobs is similar to creating a successful investment banking resume. Be specific, quantify, and focus on results. Focus on deals, whether announced or unannounced, and what you contributed that was unique to each deal.
And for even more details and the actual Word document template, see the article and video tutorial below:
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Tags: investment banking, investment banking analyst, investment banking jobs, investment banking resume, M&A deals, M&A resumes, Private Equity, private equity jobs, private equity resumes
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This a great post and will certainly be helpful to be in the future. I had always wondered how to write and structure deal experience on resumes. Thanks a lot.
Thanks Prince, glad you found it helpful. My first few resume drafts were terrible until some other friends reviewed them and made the appropriate changes.
Private Equity eh….guess I should probably get through my summer analyst internship first = P btw, what kind of hours do typical SA’s work?
Justin: Typically SAs have it a bit easier than full-time employees, but not by much. Also as a summer you will be “leveraged” a lot more to do tasks the Analysts don’t want to do, e.g. spreading comps. So expect a lot of work, but hey you only have to last for 10 weeks and it’s over.
I spent three summers as a summer analysts and one of those summers in financial sponsors at a BB.
I rarely had to spread comps since we normally relied on the industry groups to do that and then we spot checked it. I did occasionally get work put on my plate by other analysts that was considered mindless but how frequently this happens will all depend on how much your staffer exerts his influence. If the staffer makes it clear that only he can assign you to projects then you shouldn’t end up doing much BS work. My situation may have been unusual since we were very understaffed for analysts and for part of my summer the LBO game was still red hot. They may have needed me to do more modeling, etc. than a normal summer analyst.
Most weeks averaged about 80-90 hours a week. I did have one week which was my last week were I took two red-eye flights and worked about 130 hours working on a bid for a sponsor bidding in a sell-side auction.
In the two summers I worked in Prime Brokerage sales I worked between 65 and 80 hours a week.
I will be applying for an internship/job in London for a Private Equity venture capitalist position. I have 3 good letters of recommendation: One from Smith Barney, One from the Dean of Finance at my school, and One from a friend of mine who works for a Apollo Investments (venture capitalist firm).
I would like to include a video resume, where I will elaborate my strong points as well as specific examples where I believe I can add value to the firm. These will include past experiences where I used my resources effectively and ultimately evaluated the outcome correctly. I will also articulate a few other specific points in my resume as to why I will be the best match for their firm and how previous experience will give me the advantage over other candidates.
I would like to start applying immediately, but I would like to know if supplying a video interview would give me a technological advantage on my side or just waste my time.
DO NOT DO A VIDEO RESUME.
It will be forwarded around and you will be black-listed forever, this is a really, really bad idea.
Please Please Please do not do a video resume!!!! If i were on the other side of the table I will surely kick you out of the process..
M&I, seriously great job! the part of writing job responsibilities is very very good! I appreciate your effort
With the obvious difficulty of getting BB IB offers as a summer analyst for 2009, will there be a large benefit to these people when compared to historical years when PE recruiting comes along in Jan. 2011?
I keep on hearing that reputation at this point is thrown out the door for all BB firms. As a result, do you think that PE firms will care less about which firm and group analysts go to prior to PE whereas before there was a large emphasis on those factors?
Hmm, hard to say on what the benefit will be… on the reputation issues, keep in mind that PE is a really small industry to begin with. So they can afford to be hyper-selective and carefully choose who they want – most BB analysts don’t even go to large firms because there are far more of them than there are openings.
Drexel – are you f’ing serious ??? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Haha I don’t think so
[...] Private Equity Resumes | Mergers & InquisitionsPrivate Equity eh….guess I should probably get through my summer analyst internship first = P btw, what kind of hours do typical SA’s work? [...]
[...] Private Equity Resumes | Mergers & InquisitionsPrivate Equity eh….guess I should probably get through my summer analyst internship first = P btw, what kind of hours do typical SA’s work? [...]
This is a very informative and useful post… keep it up!
Great post. Many thanks!
Dear,
actually working for a big four (3 years), and graduating from an excellent australian university, I am wondering about my chances to get into investment banking.
Could someone give me hints, and advices?
Regards,
If you’ve already been working full-time for several years it’s more difficult to break in. I would do some networking first with alumni and perhaps some cold-calling to gauge the response, and if no one seems open to it then you may want to consider a top business school instead.
Hey Brian,
Just had a quick question about exit opps. I know you mentioned in the past that doing M&A was the best way to get into PE. However, I know some BBs don’t have a separate M&A group but rather have M&A analysts within the industry coverage verticals. If I was unable to get the M&A analyst role within the coverage group, would my PE chances be diminished? Thanks in advance
James
You should be fine, M&A helps but it is not “required” to do PE or anything. You just need access to headhunters and good interview skills.
Okay that makes sense. Also, during my SA stint and from doing some reading, I keep coming across the myth that working in more specialized groups like FIG or Nat Res can limit a person somewhat in terms of access to the buy-side. Could you provide any insight on this? Thanks again.
There is some truth to that. You get more specialized as you move up, and it can be difficult to move elsewhere once you’re already on the buy-side. In those types of groups you’re more likely to head to FIG or Natural Resource-focused hedge funds / PEs, etc. rather than having great access to a wide range of different funds.
Hey Brian,
I’m doing some additional research on PE firms and it seems that most of the associates at the larger funds come from the “better” brand name bulge bracket firms (GS/MS/JPM etc). How is it possible for an analyst at other bulge brackets to overcome this or is it better to shoot for smaller firms out of the 2-year analyst program, go to b-school, and aim for the Blackstones, Apollos, and TPGs of the world? Thanks in advance
You have to network aggressively and get referrals to headhunters from your friends at those places… honestly a lot of the time you can’t do that much, but its also almost irrelevant because no one in the real world even knows what private equity is so “prestige” is a joke compared to banking.
Hey just out of curiosity,
For people who work in private equity or hedge funds what are you referred to as? Like an investment banker is a banker but the lingo (or nick name) you give to someone in private equity or a hedge fund is what?
Thanks
No name as far as I know, usually you just say “I work in PE” or “I work at a hedge fund”
Brian,
Thanks a lot for the help on top. Much appreciated.
I’m going back full-time into a BB’s Real Estate, Lodging & Leisure group after interning there for the summer, and have been thinking a lot lately about the decision I’ve made from the point of view of exit opps. The group’s awesome but I’m not sure how open PE shops (diversified) are to taking analysts from specific industry groups. Have I limited myself already? You can be completely honest.
-John
You will probably be more limited to REITs / RE-focused PE firms in terms of exit opps. You can move elsewhere, but it will be much easier to continue along the RE path because firms like to pigeonhole you as you move up.
Thanks. It was very usefull.
Arseny/Russia.