- Competition for buy-side jobs, including at private equity firms and hedge funds, can be fierce.
- Many shops rely on headhunting firms to help them find and hire young talent.
- Insider identified the 13 recruiting firms aspiring dealmakers and traders should know for a buy-side job.
Competition for young talent has always been fierce in the alternative investing world. Whether they are poaching from investment-banking analyst programs or recruiting MBA graduates, private-equity firms, hedge funds, and other buy-side investors will duke it over the next generation of talent to help them win over investors.
As billions in capital flock to these strategies, the recruiting gauntlet has grown even more intense. For example, the private-equity race for junior talent kicks off earlier every year, a sign of intensifying competition. This year, the recruiting frenzy came so early that first-year analysts were walking out of their investment-banking training sessions just to study up.
The hedge fund talent wars have also been fierce as billions in capital flood into multi-strategy giants like Citadel, Millennium, and dozens of their peers. These firms’ eagerness to put that capital to work has led to fat signing bonuses and a seemingly endless parade of traders and portfolio managers hopping from one fund to another.
The buy-side hiring spree is expected to continue despite a slowdown in mergers and acquisitions — a cornerstone of private equity investing.
In the webinar hosted by headhunting firm CPI in July, firm founder Brain O’Callaghan told more than 700 newbie investment bankers that they should feel free to opt out of the annual rapid-fire interview process buyout firms conduct to nab top junior banking talent, known as “on-cycle,” because there would be more plenty more opportunities to score lucrative private equity jobs over the next two years.
“Opportunities abound afterwards,” he said in the call, according to a transcript of a recording reviewed by Insider. “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.”
Standing between the institutions and the candidates are the gatekeepers: A cadre of headhunting firms specializing in the annual circus of interviewing and assessing aspiring dealmakers and traders to funnel the best of the bunch to their top buy-side clients. Knowing these gatekeepers is often key to breaking into the industry, known for paying top dollar in salary and bonuses and for offering what some say is a saner work-life balance compared to investment banking.
Insider tapped its sources— including contacts at asset managers, business schools, and executive search firms — to identify the top firms that recruit budding front-office investors to the buy side. While some of these firms recruit at senior levels and for other industries, they each have robust businesses recruiting pre-MBA, MBA, and post-MBA employees.
A few of the 13 firms identified by Insider either declined or didn’t return requests for information. But most were open about their business model, which is a specialized niche within financial recruiting, according to John Arbolino, a managing director at Boothroyd & Co., a consulting firm that recruits for Wall Street executive search firms.
“It’s very important to know the right search firm for this type of recruiting, because more than general executive search, the search firms that place PE associates have a huge amount of sway as gatekeepers and in setting up the interviews at the top PE firms,” Arbolino told Insider. “Headhunters who specialize in this type of recruiting have to employ people who will contact the candidates early in the process (sometimes too early), keep tabs on them, administer competency tests, and get them ready to go on interviews the moment the interview process with the PE firms starts.”
Here are the 13 headhunting firms to know if you want a career in alternative asset management — or if you’re an investment firm looking to connect with the most promising young standouts on Wall Street.
Editor’s note: This story was originally published in 2020. It has been updated to reflect current private-equity and hedge-fund hiring trends and the latest information on top headhunting firms for young talent.
Amity Search Partners
Locations: New York, San Francisco, Austin, Palm Beach
Staff size: 18
Amity was founded in 2009 by Pamela Esterson and Susanna Nichols after the duo broke off from their former firm, SG Partners, one of the longest-running buy-side recruiting shops.
“We believe that building the right team is critical to success for every business. Helping clients make that happen is our reason for being,” Nichols told Insider. “Our approach is to build lasting relationships with great people, establish a long-term view of each client’s goals and objectives and act with urgency and integrity in everything we do.”
Esterson and Nichols now run a staff of 16 recruiters who place candidates with alternative-investment shops across the country and some international markets with dedicated offices now in New York, San Francisco, Austin, and San Diego.
Clients include Bain Capital, Centerbridge Partners, and Trian Partners, according to the company’s website.
BellCast Partners
Locations: New York, Chicago, Charlotte
Staff size: 13
Danielle Caston Strazzini founded the firm with Alison Bellino Johnson after working together at CPI, a veteran firm in the buy-side recruiting space, in the 2000s.
“BellCast was started by two entrepreneurs whose focus was to build a service-oriented business with a hands-on and consultative approach to search,” Caston Strazzini told Insider.
BellCast Partners works with mega funds, middle market funds, infrastructure funds, impact funds, real estate private equity funds, sector-focused funds, sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and credit funds. Their placements span from analyst to partner, and the majority of the team previously worked in banking or consulting themselves before becoming recruiters.
“BellCast is often considered the firm of choice for many inaugural funds looking to assemble their initial team,” Caston Strazzini added. “We also actively place into Investor Relations/Fundraising, Co-investing and Corporate Development roles.”
CarterPierce
Locations: Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, Nashville
Staff Size: 22
The firm was founded in 2005 by Jill Pierce, previously a recruiter for Spencer Stuart and SG Partners. The early days of CarterPierce were focused on recruiting candidates to the West Coast, she told Insider.
“When I moved to Los Angeles in 2005, I saw a gap in the market. My peers focused on placements in NYC,” Pierce said. “The West Coast, among other geographies, often came up short and was never given dedicated time and attention. There is a different level of attention and time that is required to run a search outside of NYC.”
But they’re no longer the California-focused boutique they used to be, she added. CarterPierce staffs funds across the United States in cities like NYC, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. And they place people in all career levels — from associates to partners — primarily for private equity, growth equity, venture capital, and credit funds.
Their website says they have a 94% acceptance rate and a 96% client retention rate and that they “personally meet with and screen more than 5,000 candidates annually.”
CPI
Locations: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco
Staff Size: 53, per its website
CPI sources talent across the spectrum, but it specializes in shepherding the pre-MBA and post-MBA crowd into an array of investment management firms, from private equity and credit funds to hedge funds and VC firms. Founded in 1996 by CEO Brian O’Callaghan, it’s one of the longest-tenured players in the field.
“CPI has been a leader and pioneer in the recruiting industry for 26+ years,” CPI recruiter Renee Hylton told Insider.
According to its website, the firm assesses 3,000 candidates annually, sourcing from analyst programs at more than 50 investment banks and consulting firms, as well as top business schools like Wharton, Harvard, Stanford, and Columbia. CPI also has clients in Latin America, Asia, and Europe.
Dynamic Search Partners
Locations: New York
Staff size: 18
Dynamics Search Partners is a top recruiter for alternative-investment shops. While 65% of its candidates end up in hedge funds and private-equity firms, according to its website, partners Keith Mann and Josh Grauer also have inroads in many other areas.
“We work with all types of investment firms, including hedge funds, private equity, growth, venture, public and private credit funds, endowments, foundations,” said Grauer, who is in charge of their PE practice.
Mann has been recruiting on Wall Street since the early 2000s, launching DSP in 2008 to focus exclusively on the buy side.
“Our team was small, but our drive and motivation was huge. There were many late nights and sacrifices made by my staff, but with persistence and hard work, we were able to break into the alternative investments recruiting space,” Mann writes in a letter on the firm’s website. “Our end goal was always to be an all-encompassing buy-side recruiting firm, by expanding slowly and steadily.”
Glocap Search
Locations: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco
Staff size: 55
Glocap, founded in 1997 by Adam Zoia and now run by CEO Annette Krassner, has a diversified recruitment operation — they handle Wall Street investment searches across the board, but also media, technology, and entertainment mandates.
Its longest-running and largest practice places young analysts and MBA graduates at hedge funds and private-equity firms.
That business is run by managing directors Katie Cunningham and Sarah Armstrong. While most of their work focuses on the buy side, they collaborate with teammates on investment banking, corporate development, or real estate to ensure candidates can find the right fit.
“As a firm we offer the widest variety of exit opportunities,” Cunningham told Insider. “Everyone on our team has spent time at an alternative investment firm or investment bank, so we have a good understanding of how the ecosystem works.”
While the firm excels in placing junior and midlevel talent, it also handles mandates at the senior levels.
“Many of the candidates who were candidates as young bankers are now really important clients and relationships,” Armstrong said. “It’s a very natural, organic way in which we built the firm.”
Their remarks are from a previous version of this story. The firm did not respond to a request for comment for the 2023 update.
Gold Coast Search Partners
Locations: San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles
Staff size: 11
Gold Coast was founded in 2009 by a trio of recruiters who left CPI — Anna Brady, Janelle Matthews, and Beth Grossman.
Like their previous shop, Gold Coast specializes in placing junior, midlevel, and senior talent in buy-side investment roles, including private equity, venture, and growth equity.
When the firm launched, TPG and Thoma Bravo were their main clients, making their focus (as their name suggests) placements in the Bay Area. But since then, Gold Coast has “grown significantly” to work with firms with large presences across the country, too, Brady told Insider.
In the last year, she said, they’ve placed investment professionals from pre-MBA to senior levels at firms such as Advent, Bessemer Venture Partners, EQT, Elliott Private Equity Arm, KKR, ICONIQ, and Spectrum Equity.
Henkel Search Partners
Locations: New York
Staff size: 27
Former managing director in investment banking at Morgan Stanley Eleni Henkel now runs Henkel Search Partners, which helps place pre- and post-MBA candidates and more senior-level principals.
Henkel and founding partner Leah Trabich started HSP in 2011 after working together at SG Partners, one of the longest-running competitors in the space.
HSP has worked on “hundreds of searches and placed thousands of candidates at buy-side and advisory firms,” its website says, and clients include Carlyle, KKR, TPG, and Warburg Pincus.
The firm did not respond to a request for comment.
Odyssey Search Partners
Locations: New York
Staff Size: 19
Odyssey Search Partners specializes in private equity and hedge fund searches running the gamut from pre-MBA candidates up through the most senior levels of the corporate hierarchy. The firm was founded by Adam Kahn in 2010. Kahn and Anthony Keizner are Odyssey’s managing partners.
“We narrowly focus on front-office professionals or investment professionals, with a big eye towards helping hedge fund and private-equity firms identify more diverse talent pools,” Keizner told Insider. “These professionals range from partners and portfolio managers at the top of the organizations through associates and analysts at the start of their careers.”
On its website, Odyssey reports having completed searches in 16 cities across the US, with more than 550 searches resulting in a filled position.
Oxbridge Group
Locations: New York, Los Angeles, Greenwich, Nashville
Staff size: 27
When it was founded in 1988, the Oxbridge Group originally focused its recruiting efforts on investment banking professionals. Subsequently, as private-equity investing gained momentum in the 1990s, the firm pivoted to more intensive PE recruiting and added hedge fund recruiting in 2011. Today it does searches in private equity, growth equity, distressed, credit, venture capital, hedge funds, family offices, and select investment banks.
Nina Swift founded the firm, but veteran recruiter Marty Brady joined her six years later and has been helping run the firm since. Their current team of 12 Managing Directors has been working together for 12 years, she told Insider.
“At Oxbridge, Managing Directors and Vice Presidents are hands-on throughout all aspects of the search process,” said Brady. “We interview all candidates prior to presenting to our clients.”
The company explains on its website that Oxbridge is “one of the few boutique search firms that has a flat structure, and our managing directors are the primary interface for both clients and candidates throughout the entire search process.”
Their website says they have placed over 1,500 candidates in 23 states in the last five years.
Ratio Advisors
Locations: New York, Boston, San Francisco
Staff size: 19
Ratio Advisors recruits pre-MBA and post-MBA talent, as well as students currently enrolled in MBA programs, for jobs at private-equity firms, hedge funds, and alternative asset managers. The firm is led by Vedica Qalbani, Ratio’s CEO and a managing partner, formerly a director in mergers and acquisitions at Time Warner.
Qalbani and fellow managing partners Lindsey Mead and Jessica Wu worked together at Amity Search Partners for several years before breaking off to found Ratio in 2017.
“We function as our clients’ outsourced marketing arm” in pitching clients to pre-MBA hopefuls looking to land their first bulge bracket jobs, Ratio says on its website, and notes that it is also active in “a wide range of VP and principal searches.”
Search One Advisors
Locations: New York
Staff size: 17
Michael Garmisa founded SearchOne in 1998, two years after graduating from Indiana University, and has maintained an exclusive focus on recruiting investment professionals for hedge funds, private equity, and other alternative asset managers.
The firm excels at matching younger candidates with buy-side opportunities, but, like others on this list who have been at it for a couple of decades, long-standing relationships mean they handle ample mandates for senior roles as well.
SearchOne says on its website that 80% “of mid-to senior-level candidates placed have been in touch with SearchOne throughout their careers.”
The firm did not respond to a request for further comment.
SG Partners
Locations: New York, South Florida, San Francisco
Staff size: 32
Sheri Gellman, the founder of SG Partners, is one of the original gatekeepers of the private-equity industry — she helped popularize the investment-banking-to-PE pipeline in the early 1990s, long before private equity exploded into one of the largest investment asset classes on the planet.
SG Partners, founded in 1991, remains a top player in that realm today, though Gellman has expanded the remit to include hedge funds, real estate, and investment banking, among other specialties. The firm places candidates across the US and in select international markets as well. SG Partners has placed about 3,000 candidates since its founding, its website says.
The company’s enduring presence and success has spawned offshoots: Several competing firms cut their teeth at SG Partners before leaving to hang out their own shingle.
The firm did not respond to a request for further comment.
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