Unfortunately, I don’t think there is a good/simple/easy way to ask about the work-life balance without alerting them to what you’re actually asking about. One approach might be to ask more casual questions about the location (“What do you like about living in City X?”) if the interview moves in that direction because then you can make it sound like you’re curious about the region, when you’re mostly asking about the hours and if they have free time to do anything besides work.

I think a more direct question like “What do you do in your free time?” would tip them off too much and might be a bit weird to ask at the Principal level. So maybe make it about the city/region and things to do there to see if they can cite anything substantial besides working all the time.

I’m interviewing for a Principal role at a large PE fund right now. I have a decent work life balance where I currently work (usually no more than 60 hours per week) and it will be somewhat of a deciding factor if I get a job offer. In your article you talk about doing your due diligence on work life balance. What is the best way to do this outside of google (since there isn’t a whole lot about the specific group I’m joining from what I can find). If it’s via the interview process, what are the best types of questions to ask without throwing up red flags?

Not sure offhand. I would have to do more research to write about this, but will look at the topic and see what I can find.

I have noticed big 4 accounting firms now have a value creation team under deal advisory. Do you know what this team does? There seems to be lots of niches within value creations as well such as private equity value creation. Could you provide some insight into the exit opportunities from the value creation teams as well as whether it would be preferable over a “Corporate Finance”, FDD or valuations, modelling team at a big 4?

thanks

Sorry, don’t have anything on this topic.

You could do that, but the problem is that mega-fund recruiting doesn’t really work that way. Those types of funds normally *go to you* via the recruiters/headhunters, and they target Analysts in very specific groups based on lists and previous recruiting seasons. If they don’t contact you, you could get referrals to the recruiters and say something like that, but you need to act very quickly because PE recruiting starts early and the exact date seems to change each year (I no longer even try to track it).

So, if you want to do this, the chances are very dependent on your specific bank and group and how many people from there go to the mega-funds each year. Be aware that even at the “top” places, most Analysts do not get in…

They could be. I don’t know much about these roles, but I’ll see if we can cover them in the future.

Thanks! We’ll see. Probably not going to start a personal blog (I’m old and boring now), but I am interested in other writing projects.

In a previous article on private equity recruiting, you mentioned to very specific about what you want (Fund Type, Size, Strategy, Location, Industry, etc.) when it comes to Headhunter meetings,

Is it acceptable to say you are only interested in industry-agnostic Mega-funds in NYC? Or is that too generic? I’m not interested in any particular industry, but want to work at a MF for the experience/pay/resume. I understand there are only 5-10 real “megafunds” that are extremely selective, so not sure if this strategy is recommended.

Let me know what you think! Thanks.