How to Get a Job in Private Equity

0:00 all right team so super excited to be introducing brett on the topic of how to get a job in private equity brett actually taught a course on this at columbia university uh which he attended where he got his mba and he and i met i think about six to eight years ago at a private equity conference where i think our conversation topic was actually asm and other entrepreneurial ventures so known each other for a while really

0:20 excited to be doing the interview um he has some materials we'll be referencing you'll see them in the video when we speak but otherwise thanks for coming on oh thanks for inviting me to talk about this topic here today absolutely maybe a little bit of your background sure uh so how many times have you secured a private equity job unfortunately too many i guess is the answer uh i started my career like many others investment banking up in bank of

0:45 america i was in their financial sponsors group and so that got me a early taste in working with private equity sponsors and then uh from there i worked for court square capital partners they are middle market private equity shop based in new york city after that i worked for inside equity a lower mill market industrial focused private equity firm based outside dallas texas after my mba i went and worked for sawmill capital a general slower mill market uh pe shop

1:17 and then most recently i was in new york that was yeah that was in new york correct and uh most recently our family moved back to texas due to covid you know we're part of that great reshuffling i call it and um we as part of that move i found an opportunity locally here in dallas with a healthcare focused private equity firm called uh last work capital and what are they focused on they uh so we uh are focused on lower

1:44 end of the market typically deals are kind of one to ten million ebitda across uh several different healthcare sectors so very very sector specific fund and it's their first fund yeah first fund we did two uh kind of you call it independent sponsored deals to kind of get the uh start building the track record and in 2018 we raised our first fund that we're investing at today and knock it would hopefully gonna be closing that out in the next year or so

2:09 absolutely and that gives you the opportunity to potentially move up when they raise another fund and it's kind of a more accelerated timeline sometimes yeah no that that's what's exciting is that we're hopefully gonna be raising our next fund here soon and that's provide more more uh room way to kind of more uh leg room to grow and we'll probably talk about that later just as you think about firms just you know you want you want to join firms

2:30 that are growing raising new funds because that just creates more momentum that creates more opportunity for the folks within the firm certainly so on the subject of interviews there's two topics we wanted to hit before we go into kind of the more mechanical approach that you go to and uh it's really the objective of the interview which sounds like very simple and maybe too basic but i think a lot of people miss this and then really that

2:53 creating agency in this industry is really what leads to promotion so starting with the first one i've just always found it interesting that i think a lot of people come into an interview and they're sometimes a little bit too honest about where they want to be in five years or um kind of don't really try and convince the people that they absolutely certainly want to be there and i always think about it is your objective in any interview is to

3:13 secure the offer you want to make the decision yours this is the best practice you will get and iterations help i have interviewed countless people and i'm always surprised when i hear things like i think this is something i would like to do for the next two years or i'm not sure this is the industry i want to be in etc interviews are practiced at selling yourself secure the job offer and then make the decision to accept or pass

3:37 it's a it's a competitive industry right it very much mirrors and i think we'll be talking about this a lot through the interview today uh the interview process that you go through to get private equity get private equity jobs excuse me is very similar to the competitive processes that private equity firms go through to get a a deal done in today's today's competitive hyper-competitive world and so um you got you got to be prepared you got to be ready you have to really sell

4:03 yourself because it's also you know this business is about selling themselves uh selling themselves and their their philosophy and everything else to the market to entrepreneurs and so if you can't sell yourself in an interview how are you able to sell uh your pe firm to a potential target that you're trying to acquire no that's right i think in this process we're going to go through pretty detailed examples of how to network how to get in touch with people

4:26 how to really track them down and get in front of them and i think what's interesting about it is there are a lot of interview processes where that parallel doesn't really exist with the job later and this one it's almost precisely exactly what you end up doing for a profession you have the first few years which are probably more technical more behind screens and eventually you're the guy making deals happen you're sourcing them you're in front of people and so there are a lot

4:51 of parallels between really securing a job and finding a transaction that you find interesting in this market and um the better you are at it the more likely you are to find kind of a proprietary deal or something that's more attractive which i think goes back to this process and finding um a private equity job you really want it's i think private equity gets painted as sort of one bucket there's uh people just want to be

5:16 blindly in private equity i feel and there's so many different options within that which we'll also get to um here in a little bit but well i think i think that's a great point because i think what i found kind of as i've progressed through my career is that you know when i was younger you maybe get frustrated that you know one firm didn't work out or another but as as private equity has proliferated you know in the market and there's so

5:39 many different firms out there with different personalities with different approaches to how they invest and everything else in between it really is at the end of the day a fit uh because you know so many especially lower mill market firms you're talking about firm sizes where the investment professional side of the business might be only eight to ten people right and it's incredibly critical that you get the higher right that they're gonna fit within your organization they're gonna

6:02 fit with the strategy you're trying to go out to the market with and so you really got you really got to make sure that that fit aligns right there and so i find a lot of times when you're interviewing you're you're also trying to figure out are they a fit with you just like they're trying to fit bit with uh you know are they a fit for me and so you know so so often i feel like when things

6:24 haven't worked out it's actually it's actually not a bad thing it doesn't mean i'm i wasn't capable doesn't mean i didn't have the right skill set it's more that i probably wasn't the right fit and that's and that's good to recognize up front than getting into a private equity firm and then realizing you don't have that fit right there's so many reasons that they could potentially say no that don't really have to do with your skill set yeah and you have to be

6:45 so comfortable hearing now because you're just going to hear it so many times yeah in the interview process and on the job and that's just kind of how it works that is a great point i mean we'll talk more through that later but i mean rejection is such a big part of the interviewing process and probably much more so than a lot of other jobs out there i mean i i've had the fortune of working now for

7:05 uh you know i guess four four private equity firms and i've probably been rejected by at least 10 times the amount of acceptances i've gotten so it's a very big part of the whole interviewing process i could i could easily echo that probably more rejections but yes always works that way um so transitioning let's talk a little bit about how the skill set varies when you want to have the job maybe from analyst associate vp level what people are

7:30 looking for um now that you've kind of transitioned it's been interesting you've interviewed at sort of all of those stages right yeah um so you kind of have a pretty good grasp on what that process was as you were applying for these different roles yeah no because when i teach the class this is for business school so these are folks who traditionally have done two years of banking or consulting they've done two or three years in a associate kind

7:55 of pre-mba type program gone to get their mba and now they're looking for i call it the partnership track position right so it's going to be kind of a senior associate vp type role but more importantly they're coming into a role where there's no end gate end date to it right and it's it's about can you one day get to be a partner and that's what they're hiring for and that's completely different conversation than the associate level and so we can we can

8:18 focus on both today you know i i guess you know what i'd say firstly is on the associate side it's it's much more of a probably a technical game right because we pe firms are small and they don't have the training programs that banks and consultants have or you know i remember banking you probably the same thing too i had six weeks of training right and it's just it's just a boot camp that just you learn everything um

8:44 and but when you're and so when you're being hired in the associate role they're looking for folks who can hit the ground running can do the modeling can build the slides you know you they want you to be able to think but also they want to be able to execute at the end of the day and get through a lot of the analytics it takes uh to get a deal transacted right whereas on the post nba hire

9:07 or i'll call it partnership track higher because not everyone goes to get an mba these days um it's a much different skill set you're looking for and that's what i'm always pushing the students when i talk to them in class about it is you know they're looking for people who can think right people who can who can sell themselves sell themselves to entrepreneurs to businesses people who know how to it's really a project management job which is interesting it's

9:28 completely different than when you're associated and that i think a lot of people get in trouble by that i think that's a great point i mean i think one of the ways i see people transition um and kind of get onto that track is you start with this very technical skill set that you've discussed and then the due diligence process and working with third parties is chaos you have to work with so many people and it's all

9:48 about getting the information together on a timeline and you're interfacing with people all the time and i think everyone within the firm is watching the degree to which you do that with grace and confidence and how well you manage a process in other people because ultimately you need to be able to walk into a room and convince majority shareholders that you're the right partner that they should be partnering with you and i think that's one of the things

10:11 that's that's frequently overlooked at the junior level um i i judge an lbo competition and what i find really interesting i've judged it for a few years now and what i find really interesting is the the pitch always starts with kind of the investment thesis and there's never really a discussion about how they got to the point where the seller's ready to transact and that's such a huge part of this so i think in that transition from

10:33 analyst associate vp it's really kind of that um transition from technical skill set managing people and then being able to kind of transact and get the deal done that's great and that's a good point because when i when i'm talking to the folks about like how you get a job and i think i'll tailor most of this guy to the vp kind of post mba level you know how you tell your story yeah i see a lot of kids fall into a

10:58 trap where they say okay like i built the model for a deal and you know what i tell folks is like okay pick a deal you got to tell the story about the deal right show that that higher level you know intellectual curiosity about like how a deal is done how it's marketed how do you convince someone uh the merits of it how you get people comfortable around the risk right and so a model is the base requirement yeah

11:19 right and if you're just getting started exactly and if you are interviewing for these jobs you should everyone assumes you know how i do the model so don't tell me how to do a model tell me hey you know we have this interesting deal you know here is the angle we approached to deal with which allowed us to ultimately prevail here's why we thought it was interesting here at the merits here were some of our key risks that we

11:40 had to get comfort around here's how he got comfortable around them right and then at the very end of the story do you say yeah i built the model right yeah but i want to see that i want to see that that thoughtfulness like you're thinking like a part how a partner would think the partners don't think about the model they're thinking about how do i win this deal and convince others to do it yeah and thinking about the capital

11:58 they're getting let's should be thinking of it as your money right sure yeah exactly and and we don't expect that you know when you're getting a role as like a as a vp or senior associate it's not like we expect that you were actually pounding the table at the ic we don't think you actually sourced it so it's not like we're asking you to pretend you weren't you know you were something that you were not but it's more about can you act

12:21 in that role and show that you are thinking along those lines that this role requires you to do which is much different from what you're doing before you're an associate absolutely so i think in this video we're not going to talk too much about that technical skill set we have a bunch of content on asm that really covers that we're going to be talking more about the process uh managing you know whether it's headhunters firms and how you manage that data yourself

12:46 the outreach the cold emailing etc and so with that i thought we'd just start jumping into landing the job and and the personal preparation required um which i'd turn over to you and i think one thing that'd be interesting is just sort of how it's evolved as you've as you've gone through three iterations of this process how it's improved for you yeah it's interesting i i feel like um it's become more and more like how my

13:11 day-to-day job is in private equity i mean it's it's be it's become very processed in terms of how i've approached my uh getting jobs and private equity and it requires a lot of upfront work to get to a final outcome of a job offer right and so you know typically what i'm doing is first off i'm creating a um kind of i call it like my background story my background sheet and i have a template that i could share with folks and so i

13:36 am you know writing down every every job i've had before i'm highlighting kind of the transactions i've worked on and as we were talking about earlier i'm developing the story for each transaction right you know what what was what's the company do what was our angle where the pros what were the cons and then what did i do for that transaction right and then i am and for your first iteration where you don't have transaction history but what what does

14:02 that personal narrative look like what are you putting on that sheet yeah that's a that's a really good question i mean you know first off uh you know most folks are still doing banking or consulting before so you will have some transactions you can talk about right uh when you go to hire but then also it's telling that story about your interest why why pe you know it's amazing how often folks don't have a really buttoned

14:26 up answer and why they want to do private equity and you know given we were talking about earlier how there's so many different types of pe it really should go deeper than like oh i just want to do pe right it should be like hey i'm really interested in lower middle market companies because i love working with entrepreneurs you know or i'll work at mega companies because i want to do just like headline grabbing transactions massive deals right and

14:46 move markets and there's no wrong answer but it's just developing the answer that that suits what you're trying to do and who you are and where you want to go so this isn't something you're turning in this is sort of your personal narrative to prepare yourself for an interview yeah exactly so you know i'm developing a background story about who i am starting with like hey you know i'm from here i kind of walked me through you know a lot

15:09 of times you're going to see an interview the first thing they're gonna ask is walk me through your resume so tell the story of who you are you know where are you from where where'd you go school like why you know i i was an engineer at penn like why why'd you do engineering you know as opposed to business right or economics right and so you walk through and explain the steps you made and try to tie them to how it's

15:29 helped you lead you to where you are today right um and so i think that's really important to have that story down be able to tell that in a chris way in a couple minutes actually it's interesting like i would i would really pre i would practice my story everywhere i'd practice it on the subway i practice it walking up the school because i wanted to be so fluid that it just came out naturally i'd stop myself

15:52 in the middle take a tangent because you know sometimes maybe you're talking to someone and they went to bank of america and you did too so you're going to stop your story i like the fact that happened get back to your story get back on the tracks or maybe they ask you a question while you're telling your background and so you're almost like you know it's kind of like steve jobs right i think he practiced what like 98 hours to do a

16:11 two-hour presentation right and so you know just keep memorizing your background so that it just becomes absolutely natural to give that talk to the interview that you're gonna be doing and so that's what you're developing you're developing your history on the jobs you've worked at and and specifically the transactions that you've done and that will become even more critical as as you continue to move down the path you know you'll have less transactions obviously when you're

16:34 going into your first gig you'll have a couple more hopefully if you're you know going from an associate to kind of like a post mba type role so you should have those to talk to yeah and so once you have this how do you go about let's say you're not part of a process because i think a lot of our subscribers um maybe they come from a non-target school or they didn't have on-campus recruiting um i

16:56 know you've been in situations where i think you had both that you were immediately exposed to a network of private equity groups and you've been in situations where you went out and you created that network and essentially hunted them down um so what does that process look like and then i think one step kind of the macro question before that is how do you identify which type of private equity you're pursuing sure that that's a lot of questions coming

17:18 back we'll try to get through all those um but you're right i mean you know i start with do all the do the leg work while it's fresh to kind of develop your story and about you then the second part is how do you start to identify the targets right and you know sometimes you're fortunate like you're in your analyst program and the recruiters are gonna start to reach out and a lot of people are gonna have more

17:39 formal processes you can be a part of but at the same time um you know approach it like you're looking for a deal like you know hey here's the universe i'm interested in i want lower middle market i want middle market i want more growth i want more tradition where are you finding these names right yeah and then that's about you know where the tools you can go do that there's pitch book a lot of people have access to that

17:58 great resource for finding firms the size of firm they are when they've raised a fund so they might be hiring um you know if you're in investment banking talk to your colleagues right you uh go talk to the financial sponsors group they're covering everyone they can tell you who's good who's bad right um and also just start networking and asking people right like hey talk to this firm who are your competitors right uh who you know who are your brethren i

18:22 mean it all starts with like where you want to be first right and then try to find that target universe so like you know when i wanted to work in lower middle market yeah when i came down to dallas and wanted to work in pe well you know my history is working with entrepreneurs working smaller size companies right so you know that that helps me limit and focus because i know i want to be in funds

18:42 that are predominantly sub call it 500 million right and so that helps you narrow the universe and then um find folks who can identify them actually you know some other ideas are go talk to lenders go talk to accountants go talk to legal you know lawyers you know they're going to know i'm biased they have a little more unbiased view on like hey who are all the players out there and they they don't mind sharing that

19:04 list so i got a great list of that helped me it's surprising how often i realized i missed like i thought i knew the dallas market being from here and it's not huge and i was shocked how many firms i never heard of when i was doing my search last year for example the reason why i was able to get a really well formulated list was reaching out to kind of people who weren't in pe but touched it and

19:23 asking them for their list and they're happy to share that that's terrific so talk i've seen it so talk to me about this workbook how detailed it is sort of the more important columns the information you're tracking and the frequency with which you're reaching out to people yeah so i i i use you know i used excel and i created you know really a crm so like i have a workbook where i identified every single firm that i

19:46 thought could be a target right and i fill in uh what their current fund size is when it was raised because you know that can be an indicator of when they might hire um i always look for kind of who my key contact person is there and what the relationship there is with that person uh so i'm always trying to find we'll talk about that a second like a key contact into every firm out there regardless of

20:08 whether a headhunter is reaching out or not we get into that later um i'll track kind of you know last time i contacted him i put in a next contact date i always try filling a note saying what's the next step right okay i need to reach out in the fall because they might be hiring or oh contact this guy now to go set up an interview right whatever it might be and so i created this

20:31 kind of excel model in a way to track all my deals just well track all my firms just like you track all your deals and help prioritize them and and create next steps forward so you're substituting the two yeah because i really am right i mean it's it's very similar to what i'm doing today yeah looking for deals yeah through your process absolutely absolutely so talk to me a little bit you you have this list you're reaching

20:54 out um old versus warm introductions and how you approach them it's so funny i i found i have given up on cold introductions they're called cold outreaches i just i don't do it it's just a waste of time it never works i you know my my philosophy is first off start with the warmest light you can find right so look through linkedin um use all the connections you can of you know the investment bank you work with

21:22 or the consulting firm you're working with any third parties you've worked with they can make an introduction doesn't matter you know your your best buddy's cousin i mean just find a connection to a firm because what you have to understand is that people just get bombarded you know it's you're up against the world you're up against the world people love private equity that's just the fact right and everyone wants to get in and so people just a lot of times are not going

21:46 to respond and so my number one way my number one way my number one successful way to get into a pe firm was through a warm introduction after that i would of course look for something just to go back a step when you're saying a warm introduction i think of that as networking to create warm introductions not someone you've necessarily known for months but through your networking process you've sort of reduced the degrees of separation and

22:10 then you have kind of an acquaintance making the introduction or how how would you think about it yeah yeah right so it's uh like a good example would be like if uh one of my sponsor coverage officers like covered that pe firm right and they can make a warm introduction to one of the partners there or if uh a good good childhood friend of yours happened to like work with one of the vps at one of the uh p firms like if

22:35 you emailed me one day and said hey brad i want to introduce you to this really sharp guy right i'm going to respond to that that's interesting right and so you're looking for those warm leads and you know a lot of times those are hopefully ones you can mine from where you have relationships before it doesn't feel like you're giving an ask and also it's going to be more powerful you can tell like if you know someone

22:54 they're asking introduced to me you're gonna make a nice introduction i'm gonna be able to tell this is an important person versus like if i just find you one day on linkedin because i notice that you're linked in to someone else i want to get to like you know that's a little bit harder yeah right much harder and those you know i think typically can sometimes work but not as high of a chance right and so you're right it's

23:13 just it's building that network out um and you'd be surprised too like when you start talking to people like ask them hey who else can i get an introduction to yeah when i was doing my dallas when i was doing my dallas search um you know my goal was to never run out of introduction so when i was talking to people i was always like at the end of a call i'd be like hey who are one or two

23:32 other people i should be talking to collecting introductions yeah yeah it's a great way to put it absolutely and i think the other thing that's interesting is um when you're reaching out and it's a warm introduction even even if it's an acquaintance or someone you know well i think there's instances where the most important email you're sending out is the least important email to land in that individual's inbox right they're working on transactions they're trying to close

23:53 a deal you may have crafted the most perfect email and they just don't have time gets buried in their inbox they're not gonna they flagged it but they don't go back so i do think you have to have like comfortable cordial ways to follow up otherwise you just get lost in the shuffle so you know one thing i want to mention first actually before i i tell a kind of an interesting story along that line uh

24:13 the comment you just made is that um i kept the tracker actually of every single conversation i had who it was and who i got the introduction from uh so i could keep track of everyone i think you know for my search in dallas oh so you kept track of how you met the people also yeah because i thought that was really helpful because you're gonna be meeting so many people and it was so helpful to remember

24:33 what who made that introduction to them right because the reality is that like you find and i see this like people are just trying to make this like an end game of like hey i'm just trying to get use you to get a job and if you can do a little bit extra the mile in terms of like remembering them who they are like how you got introduct how you got introduced you create a much more

24:53 lasting impact on that person and the reality is that you're net you're networking with people who are in and around the industry you want to make you want to make friends with them yeah you know you want to start in the industry you're going to be working with these people yeah exactly right and so um you know i actually every conversation i have i take notes and one of the things i do is actually i like take notes not

25:12 just on the pe stuff but like when they say like i'm like hey tell me about yourself like hey i got two kids i live in addison great yeah i'm actually writing that down i'm crazy but like you know it's not i think that's i think it's perfect i think it's highly relevant you know i had i had 200 conversations i think uh to get to the job that i ultimately took right so not interviews but

25:32 conversations to identify the interviews yeah this was all networking you know this was all networking conversations like 200 i had yeah a lot of them were with pe people some turned into interviews but i talked to probably over 200 people and it's helpful when you can call back and check in a couple weeks and be like hey how's how's johnny doing like how was your trip to colorado whatever it might be and you're trying to build

25:57 that relationship with them because it maybe it turns to a job or maybe it's just gonna be helpful down the road um and so you know on on your on your um comment around you know your email your your introduction might be the lowest you know priority on someone's inbox which is true in there even though it feels so important when you send it right not and so i i i once uh emailed a guy and

26:22 i used to do this thing where uh google had this like snooze button i think they still haven't and so i would snooze every email i sent one week oh brilliant so it one week from any email i sent it would pop back up yeah that's a great tip they hadn't responded i would send a follow-up yeah but yeah a nice email seriously and i had a guy call me once and he said brett you know the reason why we're on

26:46 the phone and chatting is because i can't tell you how many people email me and they never follow up never right and i actually have a policy of never responding on the first email i want to see people that's fascinating persistent that's huge and i said that's great i got to tell you a secret i cheated i use the snooze button right yeah glad we got to be on the phone anyway but it's kind of i think that's

27:07 like so important because i think people worry about being um too persistent or too uh sort of in someone's face and it's actually sort of a trait required for the industry you sort of have to be following up with people you have to be persistent about it and so i do think people take that into into account when you're applying for a job you know they're like here's someone who will be doing this on the other side when we

27:27 hire them on our account no you're right and you can you can be persistent and still be you know um still doing the right way right and so i completely agree uh and i think a lot of people will look at that favorably if you show that kind of consistency in terms of following up and continuing to try to move the ball along right absolutely uh so one to kind of you know provide that thought sure

27:50 um all right so our last bullet on networking is the coffee chat which is hugely important so talk to me a little bit about your process around the coffee chat yeah look i think um it's it's it's good we're bringing up that subject because a lot of times um what i found to be most successful in terms of getting leads opportunities that could potentially train interviews is by really trying to network first and approach it more from hey i'm you know

28:16 i'm trying to learn more about the industry i'm trying to learn more about your firm about about this particular market and i'm not trying to interview like hey i just would love to meet for coffee pick your brain ask you some questions and i find that um you know while it might seem overused it's still a much better way to get someone uh to actually meet with you because if you're like hey do you have a job on an interview

28:39 chances are they're not looking right now right or they might you know they might be cut off guard by you by you reaching out that way and it's actually much more effective to reach out to folks saying hey i'm just trying to learn about the market and try to figure out you know my next move and actually um as ando that's how i got my current job at last work was i got you know one of the partners of last work i'd

29:02 heard his name a bunch that he was you know a very good guy here in in dallas uh was doing interesting deals and so i kind of reached out to him just to connect and actually um through it was during covet so we were chatting on the phone we weren't actually having coffee but um through that conversation and actually i think we had better conversation because it wasn't an interview it's just connecting that at the end of it it's like hey actually

29:28 we're looking for someone would you like to interview right and and so that it actually ended up working out and then you know lo and behold i am fortunate to have a job there now but i don't know what happened if i interviewed him right from the start saying hey are you hiring i love to interview with you right and so you've already sort of won him over so the interview is kind of a check with

29:45 the firm sure your leg up yeah and so you know um so when you're doing your outreach when you're looking for a job what i'm trying to do is you know pick a period like months six months a year before you're going to get that pe job start your networking especially if you're an mba you have that time spend that year before just reaching out to that network build that network like you're talking about ask for those

30:08 coffee chats go meet them talk with them just build up a relationship so that when they are potentially going to hire or they know another firm they might be they're thinking about you and you've kind of made that connection right um the last part that i'm gonna say is you know when you go for that copy chat though even though it's not an interview approach it like it is right you're selling yourself be hyper prepared be

30:28 hyper prepared i would create what's called the one pager i can share with you i'd spend probably at least an hour before any coffee chat uh building what i call the one pager where i download kind of from their website you know what's their investment philosophy what's their fund size what are all the deals they worked on i try to find a connection to one of them is something that i've done before examples of connections you've you've

30:52 successfully kind of made just through backgrounds sure like um maybe i actually looked at that deal we lost uh or um we invested in that space or i've had just a particular interest in that space myself and i can just speak to it right and so i'm just looking for ways to have a more engaging conversation once again so it's not just like hi how are you i'd like to get a job from you right and so we can have a more uh fulsome

31:17 conversation so when i'm you know using his time it's it's it's a it's a productive conversation it's and you know it's not just kind of one way and then it also kind of helps them start to test who you are and how you think right and like oh maybe this guy's this guy's thoughtful he's insightful he took the time to learn the website to learn what we're doing he has interesting questions about a deal i did

31:38 even if you have no connection any deal pick a deal that's interesting to you and just start asking questions hey why'd you do this what how has it worked what's gone right what's gone wrong you don't love talking about their deals yeah so it's just like it turns into kind of just this it'll it'll be wildly verbose if you start asking about their deals it's a great way to just keep the dialogue going you're just trying to build you're just

32:00 trying to have a good conversation right um and so that that's how i kind of think about that coffee chat and so like when i was looking for my job here in dallas or even with my mba for example it's like the first year you when i was my first year of mba i was not trying to get a job i was just i was actually purposely not trying to get a job i was purposely trying to just

32:19 network and have good conversations with folks so that when you have team time yeah absolutely yes yeah right um and i think if you have that approach it's going to work a lot better than if you're if you're trying to be incredibly transactional i guess what i'm trying to say yeah so the coffee chat is about as close as you can get to the interview so let's let's transition then to the actual interview sure and how you

32:41 prepare um how you get ready for something that uh you kind of you know everything you've been preparing for for months now all tested at once sure yeah i mean look as you can see like i'm pretty processed guy right so wildly right yeah i was an engineer so it probably comes through um you know why i we talked about the background research before the reason why i like to do that up front uh before i start my kind of search process is one

33:08 you know it's gonna be fresher in your mind right then you know if you're an mba you're two years down the road you're it's amazing how much you forget about what you were doing two years ago or in your investment bank so recording stuff along the way is incredibly helpful um and then the second thing is that the interview process you never know what's gonna happen and it's gonna come faster than you think and so you know

33:31 i don't like to cram and so by doing all that work up front then when it comes time to interview i feel much better prepared already and all that's kind of left is doing the research on that specific firm at the time right and if you're fortunate maybe you've had coffee chat with someone from that firm or someone's who knows about that firm so you already have some intel done already you know every coffee chat i did just

33:52 like i was talking about all the conversations i'm taking notes and i found that incredibly helpful because not only was it just about building those relationships but you know when i'm doing coffee chats i'm learning about the market who's doing what who's raising funds what they're doing and so when you get into the interview you're building on the knowledge you already have and i feel like so many people miss out on that because they're not recording you're just not gonna remember

34:15 everything you're having so many conversations so i'm always looking back on on all my notes uh on conversations i've had in the past so that i can be like okay like this firm last time i heard they're raising this capital let me let me find out more about how that fundraise is going right where are they in that in that process or hey they were doing this deal let's go talk about that again they're going to like that like

34:36 i'm continuing that conversation with them and i i think i would add i mean i'll see if you agree but i think the more prepared you are the more an interview becomes dialogue versus like a q a round or you just feel like you're just being attacked with questions um yeah the moment they realize that you're really engaged familiar with their firm it's almost disarming and and the questions will kind of it will become conversation that you can kind of

35:00 uh enjoy and make a good impression with versus just being attacked with highly technical questions yeah that's fair and actually on that's a good point to get a little more tactical for a second on on the prep for the interview is you know what you gotta remember is folks not everyone's trying to be an but but people do want to test you they want to see how you think sometimes they want to purposely throw you off kilter a little bit to see how

35:20 you're going to respond right and so as you think about your prep and and you know you're going to be talking about your transactions like you know if i can tell you especially at the post mba type role when an interview goes like it's like this walk me through your background right you spend three to five minutes you walk through it maybe there's some follow-up questions on that what's the next question tell me about a deal you worked on

35:41 explain it to me right you know what's gonna happen right and if you don't you're gonna find out really quick through your interview process and so you're typically gonna go through your background you're gonna go through one transaction sometimes two in good detail and expect to be able to talk about for 10 to 15 minutes and then sometimes they'll give you a case study or they'll ask you some kind of just like teaser type questions maybe

36:02 and then it's probably going to wrap up that interview right it's it's incredibly consistent across the board and so what i'm getting to is that on your transactions first off it's on your resume be prepared to talk about it you don't want to talk about that transaction don't put on your resume as long as people try to pick the one not the first one on purpose right and then the second thing is that be prepared try to do everything you can

36:26 about that transaction right i mean i worked on a deal that uh provided uh um scrubbers for coal-fired power plants they helped scrub co2 right and one of the questions i'll never forget was like some guy asked me about the the concept of do you know about peak versus baseload power and what he was trying to understand was do i understand the concept of how the industry operates and he was asking about that and interesting and i started

36:57 answering it and he was like all right good he might hear the full answer well he wants you to know you were there that i was there and i didn't just do this deal like i actually took the time to understand the industry so don't so be ready you're going to get questions left and right and then part of the good part too though is that a lot of times they might not know your deal so they're

37:14 going to try to ask you questions so just be confident sure and how you answer and it's okay if you don't fully know the answer just give the best answer you can they're just trying to see like did you think about can you process that come up with a thoughtful answer uh and not just kind of like fall apart because they ask you something that's you know at left field a little bit which is a great point because sometimes

37:33 they will throw questions at you where they want you to fall apart they want to see if you have a confident response to something that maybe is not even answerable right like they could be uh really involved in the industry and have some information that's not available to you and in some sense like in some instances um i'd say they might have even looked at your deal right i mean if you're at a senior level um you're looking at a

37:53 certain geography certain industry certain size range you're combing every competitive landscape and it's possible they've seen your transaction so being prepared and and waiting to be called out i think it's super important no for sure and i think sometimes folks are gonna just they're gonna purposely just keep diving deeper why why why just they're not doing that because they know something you don't know they're just trying to see how far you can go right right and

38:16 so trying to trying to remain um calm through that and give you know good answers um you know and then you look you should be ready to uh answer basic questions like you know even as you get to the post-mba level sometimes you will get still kind of not brain teasers but you know people make sure you understand like how cash flow statement works how to walk down the ebitda yeah you know how depreciation goes through an income

38:38 statement that's more of an associate type interview question but still be prepared because it might come sometimes right and you don't want to lose because you screwed up on something so basic you just haven't thought about it for a while get wilder and wilder the more junior you are right i remember being asked um the square root of 50 to three decimal points in one of one of my analyst interviews um can't think of what else do what's the

39:01 wildest question you've been asked oh man um that's a good one i think i got like a square root question once when i was going for a uh internship yeah i definitely had some funny ones interning i mean i think the most ridiculous thing i did to someone was they came in for uh an associate position and i told them if they beat me arm wrestling they had the job just to see what his reaction was you

39:26 know that was it just wanted to know just want to see yeah then obviously we didn't arm wrestle i mean one of the one of the questions i loved the most was like uh you know i i put like a lot of people my interests and you know i love when people i've had people be like what was the last hike you did yeah what was the last book you read right right um that's great when you get it right yeah when

39:45 people like let's let's understand this guy that doesn't happen author no no for sure not right and then you know the last part is that um i would i would always develop questions for each interview so if i'm if i'm coming in and i know i'm going to have three different interviewees i'm i'm actually going to write down questions for each interviewer so i always took a portfolio with me and i actually do a trick where i would

40:08 pull the page up and actually put questions down under each one before um and so i developed those i developed those in advance and i'd write them down in advance and you know because you're gonna do one page per interview in and so because sometimes you're nervous in between interviews it's nice to like okay i got interviewed down i got interview one done what were the three questions i had for interview number two i might forget so right hey

40:32 it's right there hold it up nicely it's kind of hidden they don't realize that yeah and so to make sure that you have thoughtful and different questions because people will pick up if you just keep asking the same stuff absolutely and i think the last thing you want to do is be mute when they turn it back to you like do you have any questions for us you just sit there silently it's really uh goes against you and have something more

40:51 thoughtful and you know look i'm not afraid i'm surprised by how few people when i'm interviewing them take notes because like you think that they want to especially when they're asking you questions i mean that's what we're doing on the other side right and so i take i take copious notes during when we're chatting uh and and then you know i take those i transcribe those onto my google doc that i keep for all my different

41:14 companies right and that i found that to be incredibly helpful so like as you know like you it's gonna take multiple rounds to get to an offer right it's just just a fact of life and so by having those notes i mean it was amazing how often i go back to like oh my god there's some incredible nuggets here and they might not remember they told me that i had times where like like people didn't realize we talked

41:38 about something before and i i read it and so i remembered it for the interview and like it came off really well because like i was like asking about this like wow wow great question and like they forgot that or didn't know that i talked about with someone else right like two weeks prior um so just kind of keeping that store of information was incredibly helpful yeah absolute process yeah that's perfect it's not cheating you're just a lot of

41:59 people don't do it right giving yourself a leg up huge advantage and not in ethical yeah um i realize we're probably we're kind of spilling in a little bit into like interview tips that that i do in terms of kind of taking the notes uh having questions developed uh in advance you know like i also use my notepad to like for example um i'll like i'll take my notes on the right i'll write things points i want to

42:23 bring up because you know a lot of times like oh yeah they just talked about that but they're talking write down something like okay i'm gonna bring that up later yeah right um so i try to take advantage of the fact that like it's okay to take notes it's okay right you know it's okay to like not remember it because you're not expected to remain yeah remember everything right absolutely um so don't put that burden on yourself yeah

42:43 and it can and i i think it can give you a quick pause if you have a difficult topic or something you're working through um it's a it's a helpful moment like i think yeah and that's a good point like you know be curious to your opinion but it's okay to pause and i i i'm i'm victim to it i'm probably like answering right away to a lot of your questions but you know you should be um

43:06 uh you should pause it's okay to pause when someone asks you something it takes some time sometimes when it was a harder question i would i would purposely pause and write down a couple things first and like collect my thoughts before i talk you know gave an answer i think nervous energy can can kind of get you to put your foot in your mouth um so being comfortable with silence in an interview i think it's fine

43:28 if it's a technical question maybe like less so but anything about your background um i do think it's great to be prepared with kind of a an approach to getting out of a technical question you don't really know the answer to right it's kind of you need to speak around that question or speak to a relevant topic um confidently state that it's something you you know can't understand will understand but it will otherwise sort of derail your

43:53 interview i think like it's you lose your confidence at a certain part you can just start to feel sort of the momentum change entirely in it all of the leverage shifts back to their side of the table um which you want to kind of avoid if possible no for sure um it can be challenging and you know there's definitely been times where you know if you don't know the answer don't freak out uh instead try to talk

44:16 through how you would figure it out and that could be a way to save yourself right hey yeah i'm having a mind blank right now but here's the approach i would have to maybe get to this answer you know that the to the question that you're asking me right uh because it might just be they might not even know the answer yeah they're just testing you sometimes absolutely what are their favorite tips do you have sometimes uh

44:35 yeah i shouldn't be telling you this but you know people love to talk like uh i like to talk right and i get them to talk first you know you read in any interview book never if you're the interviewer you should never talk first you should always go last get the person talking do everything at the very end talk about your background and about the job and everything else that they might want to ask you because

44:55 you're giving away too much right but a lot of people just fall for that trap right so if you can don't be too obvious because you know that they want to hear from you so if you if you ask too many questions at the start you're going to turn them off but like if you can just get some nuggets up front you know by starting the conversation maybe asking a question early yourself about their background or what they're

45:15 looking for you know sometimes they'll reveal a lot of information that you can use to your advantage absolutely right so you can get them talking first it's always kind of a an advantage yeah i know you talk you have a negotiating class right and i can't remember what the advice is there if you should negotiate first or last when you're doing negotiation but i do know with the interview get them talking first yeah i think that's

45:34 absolutely fair more information early just try to make a plug for your for your other classes yeah the last the last thing i would say is um you never know where you're getting judged i had a firm that would purposely have the um admin uh pick up uh the interviewees because this was a this was like a uh a firm that was kind of off-site so a lot of times people would take a train to go see it and we'd

46:00 always ask her how did the how did the associate or vp act when you picked them up how they work with you and that was actually a really important uh decision maker and who we're hiring because we wanted to hire good people sure and did you treat did you treat the admin with respect were you were you polite to her on the right over um so you know the interview is always on you never know when it's not so it's always

46:22 pretend like it's on i guess not to add nerve-wracking energy but yeah you're constantly being judged yeah right right yeah um and then the last thing is that post interview send a thank you note i'm shocked how often i don't get anything i don't need i don't need a an email is fine i don't need a crafted paragraph i mean if there was something that's interesting throw it in there that that won't hurt that'll only help

46:44 but at the very least just you know same day next day latest please say hey it was great great to interview with you with it's great to interview with you and yeah i'd love to you know love to be considered for a job shocking and that's it yeah and it it is yeah it's amazing when people miss that yeah i almost i like i i don't think like i don't think i've ever advocated for someone who didn't send me a thank

47:08 you note right now unfortunately a lot of the strong people have always sent it so i haven't been that position how to do it it's been close i feel like a couple times yeah i think um i mean all of these things have parallels in what you do in private equity if you work on a transaction or you work on a process you get close but it doesn't get there you're still going to follow up with the

47:25 investment bankers you're still going to follow up with the sellers you're trying to maintain all these relationships at all times private equity is a relationship game so how you manage that i think is observed through the entire interview process yeah it's relevant oh look i mean we have a deal um we're chasing right now actually i got some anillo eye on and uh it came back to us because we were we were we were consistent in terms of staying

47:48 on top of the steel even when we lost it because we thought we thought actually that the the the seller or the buyer they went with um was was not making a real offer and that was going to fall apart and it actually did and the reason why we got the second look was we were consistently checking in every couple weeks yes showing a good face and it came through and so it's it's it's crazy it's the

48:07 same lessons from you know work like you're talking about and interviewing yeah it all just comes through yeah i do that all every transaction we worked on if we ever lost it i would follow up with the banker every couple weeks hoping that it fell apart so that would be the first call and that can happen in a hiring process it's not impossible at all and when something falls apart they're they're they're worried and they're like who

48:29 they going to turn to well you know someone who's been called for three months or someone's been emailing me every two weeks right yeah it's like well they seem pretty confident they still want to do this deal like we know you can influence the outcome for sure for sure so there's two things i talk about with interviewing the first is um the art of learning uh by was it josh wayziak i might be saying the last name wrong and

48:50 there's this idea of like like making smaller circles and the thought process is that you you learn something and and you just learn it so well it's so that you can kind of take it apart and you can also um like just slightly change it and keep it and and what i mean by that is like you know he would like practice a punch and then be able to like keep keeping the mechanics of it and

49:15 then be able to like you know try to do it a little bit closer and do a little bit closer and keep that same power and the whole idea was that he was trying to be able to throw that that jab uh in whatever situation he might be in where he might be a little closer to the opponent he wants he might be a little bit farther you might be a little bit off balance but you still can get that

49:32 power right absolutely and so by by first learning how to do the punch in the regular position where you're gonna be most powerful and then slowly teaching yourself how to give that same powerful punch if you're an inch closer you're two inches closer if you're a little bit to the left a little bit to the right a little bit behind you still get that power you're still going to land a really good punch and that's what i was actually talking about

49:52 with my background story why i would i practiced it memorized it in a a um uh sterile environment like just sitting at my desk absolutely so i had it cold right right and so it didn't so i practiced it in environments this is that's why we do it a dynamic element to your background story exactly i would do it while in the subway i would do it while walking to work i would do it while i get interrupted i would i would

50:14 purposely throw myself off and be like hey i'm gonna stop my story right here and just make a side point and then come back to it that's true i love that perspective rate that fluidity of your story so that when you're in the interview no matter what happened yeah i always felt like i could tell my story really well it's like i was in the middle of my story it's like hey i'm brett you know i'm

50:33 from texas i went to penn i did engineering and you might be like oh bret i went to penn right and i would be like great we have banter for two minutes and then i'd be like cool where were you so that was your narrative after engineering i went to investment banking and it allowed me to just continue that with like there was no gap right and not get me thrown off and so that that's that kind of concept of like

50:53 the making smaller circles from from from the art of learning that i borrowed for how i approach the stuff that you know you need to memorize and nail for any interview that's terrific that's that's the first concept of how i think about just not just interviewing it's almost like anything where you're like i know i just have to do this one thing right i gotta do it well like well when your job it's it's more like the pitch on who your

51:15 firm is right yeah yeah it's the same way that you use that concept it's interesting countermount talks about and thinking fast and slow how the most effective way to be a great baseball player um is to practice with different kinds of pitches constantly even though it feels terrible feels terrible throws you off it's it's that different angle you're talking about two inches closer two inches further away whether it's curveball fastball etc um but statistically they massively outperform

51:40 when it comes time play sure and so i think that's kind of a parallel on those smaller circles as well that's a great it's a great analogy right and you you've seen it before and so you can react to and keep going right and then the second concept um is from a a ted talk around um uh around like kind of psyching yourself into a like mental state that you want to be right and so i've had

52:06 um i think i'm a pretty casual guy and sometimes maybe that means i'd be a little too low energy and then i should be in an interview yeah and i've gotten that feedback once or twice and so so you're trying to prime yourself um i would pride myself and so and so give yourself like three words and i actually would say like you know before an interview you know like you're confident you're energetic you're excited and like

52:27 that be the three words i choose and so like before i start my whole interview process for the day i would i would say that kind of mantra to myself several times uh just to amp myself because studies show actually that works like that i'm excited you say i'm i'm confident uh you're gonna start feeling more like that right right uh so you can do it with content too something you're reading or you know certain content you're watching they say

52:49 that also primes your mind or whatever you're about to kind of encounter yeah so that you know that that was that was another thing that i would do and then the last thing too is that you're working so hard i would always like make sure you call it quits on i can give you some time to relax so like you know at the end of like a night before interview like just stop at some point like you're not gonna learn more and

53:09 make sure you get rest and then also like i think that actually there's another great thing there i think sometimes people see others who have the job and there's so much polish it just looks like it was easy yeah and i think if people understood how hard people work to get these jobs it's it's a wild amount of work people do work all night they study they find friends who will test them they go read everything online it's it's

53:30 a wild amount of work to get uh compensation that's so far outside of the norm right your standard deviations outside of the average salary so that's your competition people work all night to figure out how to get it and uh it looks polished when you're on the other side but it takes so much work to get oh my god you're so right and i try to tell people it's like you know this is the work that's gonna you have to put in

53:50 sure and um are you ready right now and that kind of teases out like who really wants to do pe yeah right yeah uh especially folks you don't have the background because i'm like look this is what i did and i was fortunate enough to like be on quote the pe track to continue to work and be right um and that same concept applies like you know right before an interview i typically would say like 10 minutes

54:10 before i go in for an interview just stop like just relax like you know i'm not saying like full out meditate but you know like just just clear your head you know and give yourself a break because you're about to go on a marathon really it's just you should have that knowledge prepped it should be accessible yeah right you just so you just need to be calm going into it the extra five minutes it's not gonna help

54:29 you what's gonna help you is like clear clear your mind for a little bit of time you can press for a second because you're gonna be on it's gonna be tough yeah absolutely okay so let's talk about post job offer yeah finally get through the interview get the job offer how do you respond what what steps should you be taking to make sure kind of get the conversation you want talking the right people etc yeah look i think um

54:49 two things uh you know when you get a job offer uh first off the good news is like the leverage has now shifted right it's in your favor and so uh you can't be egregious about it but this is that so people are i mean whoever shifts what does that give you well it gives you the opportunity to now um you know they've picked you right it's a competitive process and they pick you because they like you and they think

55:14 you're going to be a fit and so now is your time to maybe ask questions that you couldn't have during the interview process because you don't want to sound too conceited or you know like to like hey i'm not sure if i want to do this job you know or this firm right and so there's sometimes questions that you might all be aware of that like you just don't want to ask yet absolutely and so this is your time to kind of try to ask

55:36 some of those questions hear in a little bit you know peer in a little bit deeper into the the opportunity to the extent that maybe you had some stuff that wasn't answered before um and so you should take advantage of that and and honestly the reason why they're hiring you is because they thought you were um you know i like to say it's like you know i want someone who's doing their homework and they've and so i want someone almost to ask me

56:00 questions right if they just like accept it on the spot i'm like wait a second like you know shouldn't they want to know more about us you know like did they really get everything because like interviews are mostly them talking right you don't get that many questions out typically um so i kind of want folks who like are like doing their homework now you can always do too much right and they can come off like and come off poorly you

56:22 don't want to insult them yeah there's a line you don't want to cross and also like you know like we're we're still junior folks right sure if you're asking for their balance sheet right you can't piss them off but that's a fair point the more senior you're the more senior you are the more leverage you have right yes and the more you can ask but you know look when you're associated it's pretty cut and dry i mean you should ask

56:39 some questions about maybe the culture for some other things like when i start make sure you're on the same page with everything but uh and you know there's always some room to try and negotiate i don't think there's anything wrong with trying that but you should conduct some diligence i think it shows well you know i always ask for it like can you send me your uh can you send me your latest this is more post mba than pre like can you

57:00 send me your latest marks on your portfolio i want to see how the performance of the business is going and i'm happy to sign the nda about it uh explain why that's so relevant why do you want to know how that's performing well because you want to join a firm that that's doing well and making good deals and because you want the firm to be able to raise more capital right right and raise more funds which

57:20 provides a longer tail to your career at that pe firm right and it's kind of a way of showing like hey i do my due diligence just like you're gonna expect me the due diligence due diligence on any company right like if you don't ask me how you're performing like well what does that say about him we have to go to a deal or her um so i i do think you should uh i think you should reach out and do some

57:45 you know ask questions ask thoughtful questions about about the firm and how they're performing and you know make sure you understand kind of their fundraising goals career track everything else that you may or may not have asked during your interview process i'd had one thing um you know this all too well but i think if uh if a portfolio is not performing and you get hired you will also be spending a lot of time cleaning up

58:06 messes and i think you want to be more transaction focused more growth focused than you do be kind of cleaning up a portfolio that's um underwater yeah if that's yours if that's what you want right maybe you are more of a structuring mindset and you like that right but um you know it's it's partly just making sure you understand what you're stepping into as best as you can so you have you feel like you have the right fit

58:30 with the company too right um you know if you are doing a great job interviewing and you and you're fortunate enough to have a couple different processes running you know that's the time now to quickly inform others to make sure they're aware of your offer to see if maybe a couple others will speed up i've had that happen to me where you know sometimes yeah it's kind of like venture investing right there's kind of this follow the

58:55 herd mentality you know it's crazy i mean it's so hard to convince one person to give you an offer but like sometimes you get one once you yeah everyone wants you everyone else starts rushing for the door to get you right yeah um i can't say how many times like i've had good good interviews with people and they're not really sure if they want and the problem is they're not sure if they need to hire right away

59:13 because it's so hard especially as you get uh more senior hires to know when you need that person because you're like oh i got like four lois like i don't know if i have the capacity i might need someone but i'm not sure because you know some of them might die so like i might need another vp i might not and so they're interviewing you and they're just gonna keep punting until they have to make that decision or you force them

59:33 to right so don't don't forget to kind of follow up on firms that you like huge it's a great point i remember i learned that on my second job um i was accepting an offer and i just called to let the other group know that i was doing that and they put me on hold told me they'd get back to me in two hours and the other firm gave me a competing offer i ended up going with

59:51 the second firm yeah it happens all the time right yeah i mean um it's it's incredible how they're their their they'll just change when they when they're forced to make a decision right absolutely um and they they might have dragged their feet for a month or so had you not had the other offer to come and that's hard it's hard you know getting someone finally to say yes right um you know i would i would also keep recruiters

60:18 active on um uh you know your process you know a lot of times especially at the associate level you're gonna be working with recruiters so kind of keep them abreast of like how things are progressing it's a hard balance because you don't want to oversell you're really close with a bunch of places when you're not and lose and they're like why are they not getting offers but you know kind of you got to keep them aware and definitely

60:39 make them aware if something hits right because then they might recruiters love people who are getting offered so like you're doing well they're going to try to push you hard on some other folks um you know once you this is a really interesting thing that like literally no one does and i found this to be incredibly powerful when you've accepted a um uh an offer uh not right away but um you know over the next month or two i i

61:06 email every single person i talk to during my my uh my networking process call it so i seriously it took me a long time this time i i emailed 200 people wow and i said impressive i said hey you know blah blah thank you for the help here's where i am here's what i ended up love to say love to stay in touch i cannot tell you how much comes out of that i mean not just the appreciation from their side

61:33 but how much it helps you i i had approached a really great approach we have a good mutual friend uh you know john ben horan oh yeah uh the reason why i got to know john was i uh had a coffee chat with his old firm in la and um uh you know nothing happened of it but he was he was a super nice guy and so when i got my job at pe from here in dallas not my current

61:58 one um i emailed him said thank you for the help during my search and he was like oh my god you gotta meet this guy he's incredible he used to work for me you should just get to know him so i got set up on a bro date with him and yeah he's a really good friend and actually now he married my wife's best friend you know it doesn't always go like that but you know right it's incredible how many

62:19 folks have have been like oh my god you're working for this firm now you should talk to this person you should talk to this person and how that's helped me so much and also validate things because like when i accepted my most recent offer i had so many people say like oh i know that i know last work great shop really good partners there and it was really validating to hear that you know because it's a tough

62:40 decision yeah that's when you when you're going with someone so it feels really good too yeah it just it spawned a lot of connections like follow on you know a lot of people then what maybe get coffee with you like hey i might have an idea to pitch you i might have something you never know i feel like that's a lot of people lose that you know you shouldn't stop uh talking to your network just because you

63:00 got a job that's not the end of your connection with them it's actually just the beginning yeah right and you might know you're perpetually networking now you're professionally networking and you know you you know i've sort of like cul you collated the list a little bit to folks who are more relevant than not but like i have this whole list of people who are doing interesting things and around private equity why would i stop talking to them yeah they're going to

63:20 help me find deals they're going to help me find consultants third parties or just anything that can make me more successful my job why would i why would i give up all these high power people who are doing interesting things and you spend so much time building the network yeah you know you want to keep it maintained yeah no for sure you know and then that that kind of spills the last part just kind of staying in touch with folks right sure

63:40 uh you you spend all this time right like why why give that up right that's that's kind of that's kind of uh that's how you're going to join equity that's how you get right it's super easy right you got it it takes you know no time no effort totally done uh talking about the the networkings actually the interviewing side so whenever um whenever i was starting the interviewing process uh my my kind of philosophy was you know get

64:07 to know all the recruiters because they are kind of the gatekeepers to like jobs but never trust your career yeah and i don't mean that in a bad way i mean just but to never trust them whenever i heard from a recruiter or anyone about job offer um i always try to find a connection to that firm if i didn't have it i never relied on the recruiter because the problem is the recruiter has 600 people

64:29 they're also showing that job too yeah and they're giving a book to and so just because the recruiter says hey brett i got this firm it matches all your criteria i think you'd be a great fit can i submit your resume yes you say yes to that obviously but don't rely on that because they're at least gonna submit another hundred and so how do you like how you ensure that your resume gets pulled so you can at

64:48 least get that first conversation and that's what you're that's really your goal then it's on me like my goal is can i get someone to can i can i use my network have someone say hey you should give brett a shot sure can i leverage that relationship and then give myself the opportunity to shine because at the end of the day there's so many people want to do pe any one job probably can get a hundred good resumes so why is

65:16 yours going to get pulled and so or thousands right and so never rely on the recruiter to pull you you need to have you need to find a connection into the pe firm so there's someone saying hey i got the stack of resumes make sure brett's make sure peter's resume gets pulled right it's a first-round interview right not i i don't expect anything more just give me the chance right and so don't don't trust them you know always

65:41 use them to find out who's out in the market who's active who's hiring and then make sure you go around and make sure your resume is getting pulled and that you're getting an interview yeah absolutely all right so we were just wrapping but brett had an amazing idea you want to tell me a brilliant idea sure uh i think it'd be great to uh you know come back in a couple months and do a uh you know

66:02 with kind of q a that you guys provide so if you guys enjoyed the video you have follow-up questions about any part of this uh kind of conversation that we had any questions around interviewing or any experiences you had that you know you'd love to hear our input you know because he's also done live interviewing himself and unfortunately we look forward to kind of answering some questions you guys might have yeah um reach out to the

66:26 contact form on the website or uh just put comments uh comments below and we'll aggregate them and get back with a sort of q a information session yeah we're talking again yeah all right cheers