Protected Saturdays

As we enter into Week 15 of 52 in the Year 2024 (crazy how time is already flying this year), I think it’s a great check-in time to ask yourself two key questions:

• What were your career goals going into the year?

• Where do you stand on them?

It’s a great time to check into your goals overall i.e. fitness goals, budgeting goals, how your investments are doing, etc. — but we provide a career coaching service, so let’s start off focusing there…

A rather free Saturday (especially one with not so great weather on the east coast) is a good time to evaluate where you stand on a few different things… see below for polls (live updating has been enabled so you can see how readers are faring in real time).

Results stay Anonymous, of course.

I’m curious to see the above polls and what comes back — we’ll report on it on our Socials i.e. https://www.instagram.com/getofficehours and https://www.linkedin.com/company/getofficehours.

As I go through our team’s notes over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been hearing more and more from folks that our team has already spoken with in the past. For those that don’t know, OfficeHours started amongst the Pandemic in July of 2020 which makes us four years old this summer! Mentees are coming back to us finally looking to double down on their career transition!

We ask the question often — what took you so long to get started?!

In many situations, the Mentees that come back for an intro call — had they started the first time — they likely would have already placed and been on their way to making more money on the Buyside!

To the ones that come back and have price issues — to that I ask two questions:

• What was the last purchase you made with your discretionary income and how much was it for?

• When was the last vacation you took and how much was it for?

We’ve heard from folks that spending on a vacation or a retail item is much easier than spending on something where you have to commit time and attention i.e. coaching for a career transition…

I know there are various ways to increase your Net Worth as a Finance Professional — however two come to mind when it comes to working in IB/PE:

• Save a LOT

• Make a LOT (aka move into a higher paying role with a faster trajectory to equity)

Topics that have been brought up in the last couple of weeks:

• We’ve been hearing that layoffs are up and bonuses are down across the street (nothing new here unfortunately)

• Headhunters are reaching out to the folks that they either know are good/prepared or the ones that are swift in responding and know what they want — there’s less leniency now for “figuring things out” or “I’m still preparing”

• Best Place to a Private Equity Job (Off-Cycle): 2nd Year Analysts with experience who can speak about their deals and know what they want for more immediate start roles

• Worst Place to be recruiting right now: 2nd/3Y Associates who have waited too long that are going to be up for VP Promo soon

Compensation

Good news is that those that are making it to Private Equity Associate Roles are still seeing compensation rise from ~$150-200k in Investment Banking to ~$300-375k for All-in Compensation as PE Associate 1s through A Signing Bonus + Base Salary + Full year Bonus.

Not sure where to start? Our Platform Access is a great place to see where you stand on your prep! Only $250 now for a limited time here with the code APRIL.

Our flagship program has placed mentees into most major private equity firms since launching in 2020. We have an intimate understanding of both on-cycle and off-cycle recruiting and have a track record of placing candidates from all backgrounds (both non-target and target). We help you become the most competitive candidate you can be.

This PE Crash Course’s intended audience is current investment banking analysts and consultants.

• We assume you have a baseline knowledge of excel and powerpoint given your day job

• We also assume you have a high level understanding of what PE is and why you want to pursue it

• The goal of this course is to help you drill down on specific interview prep in the most efficient way possible and ultimately secure a job offer

• We developed a customized set of training materials that we pair alongside 1:1 coaching with real buyside professionals to help differentiate yourself from the competition

Module 1 - Buyside Recruiting 101

Lessons: Introduction to OfficeHours (start here!), Private Equity 101, Headhunter 101, Resume Review, Module 1 Conclusion and Next Steps

The More You Know The Better You’ll Be Prepared