The War For Talent - Look After your Analysts: They’re in Demand

We recently launched our crystal ball quiz where you have the chance to make some predictions about 2010 and donate to the PEF - a super cause.  Well, I’m going to make my own prediction for the private equity recruitment market for the rest of this year.  The war for talent is truly underway.  Private equity experience is now the most sought after skill set even for junior hires.

When we first started this blog I spent a lot of time thinking about spotting and keeping star performers.  Then the world changed and it didn’t seem so urgent.   I would never have thought it would change back so quickly. I cannot stress enough how important it is at the moment to look at your star juniors and understand what motivates and drives them in order to retain them in your business.  Why?   Well we have seen not just a significant uplift in the volume of recruitment but also uplift in the requirement for experience.  The 2007/8 hiring days of ‘find us an extra pair of hands to do the modelling’ are gone.   An increasing emphasis in the majority of mandates is for private equity experience. And at the junior level this means someone who has not only got the skills but has also had the edges taken off, learned the ropes, seen some action.  Investment banking boot camp is no longer enough.  Now investment banking boot camp followed by private equity boot camp is going to be the popular request.

  
So if you run an analyst programme where you expect your juniors to leave you after a couple of years – then send them my way as we’ll have no trouble finding them a home.  But if you’ve got some stars in there and want to keep them then really think about how to do that.

We used to look for experience of completed deals on CVs but that’s no longer realistic – your analysts who joined in 2008 may never have experienced one: your firm may not have completed one since they joined. But they’ve probably worked in the portfolio, they’ve got a sense of what private equity really is, they’ve learned the model, they’ve started to talk the talk and walk the walk.  And someone else will be prepared to pay for that.

So look out: if you can’t give your juniors some challenge, some interest and some excitement – they’re not going to have too much trouble finding a new home.  Make sure that’s your choice – not theirs.

Gail McManus - PER