- Private-equity recruiting for 2025 roles officially kicked off Friday, including at Apollo and TPG.
- The frenzied, pressure-filled cycle started earlier than ever, catching some bankers unprepared.
- “I’m not doing private equity anymore. It’s not worth it. It’s not worth my life,” one analyst said.
In a whirlwind of a weekend, the annual private-equity recruitment process known as “on-cycle” officially kicked off for junior investment bankers earlier than ever before — and the frenzy has left some bankers disillusioned with the whole industry.
Late last week, rumors were swirling about the potential that on-cycle — the annual rapid-fire interview process buyout firms conduct to nab top junior banking talent — would start any day. Many of those bankers had barely started their current investment-banking jobs, and others were still in training sessions for them.
Analysts were “freaking out,” as Insider reported, and many were skipping their work training, offsite events, and social plans to haphazardly prepare for the buyout industry’s annual hiring frenzy.
Sure enough, first-year bankers began getting emails and calls from headhunters by Friday afternoon to schedule official interviews ASAP, according to bankers and other people who participated in the process.
Some of the firms that conducted interviews this past weekend include Apax, Apollo, Carlyle, CD&R, General Atlantic New York, KKR, Permira, TPG Capital, and Warburg Pincus, these sources said. As always, the firms were recruiting first-year investment banking analysts for jobs that won’t start until 2025. (Apax, Warburg Pincus, and CD&R declined to comment, while the other firms did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.)
By Sunday, the bulk of the chaos was over — just in time for work the next day, the people added.
Private-equity recruiting is always frenzied, chaotic, and mysterious — at least from the perspective of the recruits, who are often kept in the dark about the interviews they are expected to attend until the very last second. But this year, it started earlier than ever, resulting in some disillusionment among young bankers — many of whom were unprepared or turned off by the industry’s pressure-cooker tactics.
Insider spoke to half a dozen people who participated in the process, including junior bankers, to give readers a look at what happened, which firms participated, and where things went wrong. They requested anonymity to protect their current and future jobs because they were not authorized to speak on the record.
Pressure tactics
Friday interviews went late into the night and lasted into the early morning and afternoon hours of Saturday, these people said. Midnight interviews are not uncommon in private-equity recruiting, nor are “exploding offers,” which demand that candidates make a decision before leaving the interview room to prevent them from shopping around.
This year, there was added anxiety around the process because so many of the analysts who were targeted for interviews are still in training for their investment-banking jobs — or had not yet started. Without deal experience, it can be hard to level up in an industry that revolves around corporate dealmaking.
One investment-banking analyst still in training decided not to participate because they didn’t feel ready for interviews, which typically include technical and financial modeling questions. The pressure tactics used to get this banker and others to join in the frenzy were intense, this person said — so much so that they are no longer interested in a job in private equity.
“It was like an epiphany for me,” the young banker said. “I haven’t even started my banking job. I haven’t even touched a private-equity job. But this is how crazy it is. This is a very early indication, but strong indication, of how the culture at private equity firms work. Because they enable this behavior to go on. Well they don’t enable it, this is their behavior.”
As an example, they pointed to messages from headhunters saying classes at top firms were filling up quickly. Looking back now, the analyst thinks it was a scare tactic and that seats are still open.
“Honestly, it has been making me think that private equity especially is just such an abusive industry,” they said. “Their expectation is that you shut your mouth, give up all your free time, have no personal life, have no relationship time, have no family time, and get barely any sleep — all because they just shove $350,000 down your throat.”
$300,000 offers
Over the years, on-cycle recruiting has crept up on candidates earlier and earlier. Last year, as Insider previously reported, it was the earliest ever when it kicked off the week before Labor Day. But 2023 blew that record out of the water, pushing it up by nearly a month.
Earlier this year, the private-equity industry went through a second wave of recruiting that was widely believed to be the result of 2022’s early on-cycle kick off — candidates weren’t ready, firms didn’t fill their classes, so there were more open seats. Industry experts thought firms would therefore avoid repeating the cycle this year. But that was not the case.
The result has been a batch of candidates eager for the jobs but surprised and largely unprepared.
A private-equity employee who often mentors junior bankers told Insider they were working with 10 candidates this year, and of those, only two received offers.
This person said that those two juniors were prepared for modeling exams and got offers topping $300,000 all-in comp, while the other eight mentees felt unprepared and didn’t receive offers.
Another banker, who participated in on-cycle last year and accepted an offer at a megafund, called the process “ridiculous,” adding that the first-years at their firm were “upset.”
“PE firms need to make a pact to stop this or else they’re going to screw themselves — not even with lower quality candidates necessarily, but with people who aren’t even sure what they want to do,” this person said.
In an “Educational Zoom” webinar hosted by headhunting firm CPI on Thursday night, headhunters warned the more than 700 bankers on the call about the risks of participating.
“If I had a child who was going to decide between on and off cycle, I would advise them to do off cycle,” the firm’s founder, Brian O’Callghan, said in the call, according to a transcript of a recording reviewed by Insider.
“I would warn you to be careful about going ‘wave one’ because you might embarrass yourself. And if you embarrass yourself, the only bummer is, we’ll have seen you not do great. We’ll understand, and that firm will say, ‘eh, they weren’t prepared, they weren’t good enough.’ So I would be careful about that.”
O’Callaghan also told the bankers on the call that there would be more placements made in the off-cycle recruiting process than in on-cycle, which he said would continue for the next 24 months.
“I don’t think anyone’s going to try to fill their class, and I think firms are reticent in talking to people who haven’t done deals yet,” he said. “There will be more placements made off cycle than on cycle. Most of our clients last year hired less than half of their analyst class in wave one.”
O’Callaghan did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
The investment-banking analyst still in training for their job has decided to explore careers in other areas of finance after witnessing the buyout industry chaos.
“I’m not doing private equity anymore,” this person said. “It’s not worth it. It’s not worth my life.”
Are you a junior banker at a Wall Street firm? Contact this reporter to share your experience. Emmalyse Brownstein can be reached via email at [email protected], or the encrypted app Signal at (305) 857-5516.
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