I think it will be very difficult to go from “niche M&A” to PE if you’ve already spent 14 years working in M&A. PE firms tend to hire at the junior levels or the senior levels, but not much in between. So your best bet might be to reach the Partner/MD/equivalent level, if you’re not already there, and then aim for PE firms by pitching your contacts and deal experience and focusing on firms that operate in industries similar to yours.

Hands down, Brian!! You’re genuinely a piece of gem. How did you figure out my current situation (i.e. I’m planning my future for 5-6 years). You’ve my respect buddy

I think you should focus on getting into a top university and winning the initial internships before planning out your future 5-6 years in advance. You might not even be interested in these fields by then. But to answer your question, attending a non-target university is a bit less of a problem in the U.K., but yes, it could still come up in recruiting even for PE roles following banking.

It will still be tough without any formal deal experience, so you should probably look at doing an internal transfer at your current fund so you can work on deals there first. Once you have some deal experience in private credit, you can use that to interview around for PE roles (potentially). This is not necessarily an easy transition in the U.S., but in Europe, sometimes it’s a bit easier to enter PE without an IB background first.

I’ll assume you’re joking (as you shouldn’t take anything on eFinancialCareers that seriously), but no, it’s not a good idea to lie about your background to get into the industry, as it could easily backfire. You have to keep in mind that the vast majority of hires are still made because of work experience / university / ability to do the job, even though the news media likes to hype up “diversity” (as they’re always in search of stories, even when highly exaggerated or non-existent).

I’m looking to move over to PE in London.

I recently read this article:

https://www.efinancialcareers.com/news/2021/05/diversity-private-equity-funds

… which basically points out that recruiters openly discriminate in favour of minority candidates (literally sometimes saying take only females, etc.). This is not a unique article either. I’ve heard about this discrimination for a while now.

Since I am a straight white male (lucky me, right…), I was thinking about lying on my resume and implying im gay by saying that I attended my uni’s lgbt club (this would be a complete lie but nobody would ever be able to check this in any way).

I’m afraid that there is a small risk with potentially getting a homophobe interviewer at some point in the process which would end up backfiring on me…

But I think with the insane emphasis on being inclusive, it’s worth the risk if I can get tagged with a golden inclusivity aura from the start…

Thoughts on this strategy for London PE?

Other potential strats include wearing a wig and calling myself Jasmine instead of James and/or getting a dark tan and saying im from Morocco xD

I don’t think you have a great shot at ER if your only work experience is in accounting. You might have a chance at prop trading if you can show evidence of strong performance and you find a firm that doesn’t care about formal credentials.