Bain & Company McKinsey & Company Boston Consulting Group Bain & Company
I'm interested in joining PE (PIPE/PEG/PEPI) ring fence assignments (typically 3-6 months for my office) but not sure if I'm ready?
Been at my current firm (NAMR) for roughly 5 months, internal mentors (working outside the PE space) told me to wait a couple more months to build my toolkits so that I'm properly equipped / can avoid poor reviews.
Was wondering if anyone else have had similar experiences?
At least at McK I tell people to do this sooner vs later - you get more benefit of the doubt, easier to over deliver on expectations, and team is more likely to be resourced to provide additional support. But make sure you’ve done right stuff in prep - like if your 5 months is all PMO / transformation paper pushing, you’ll get skewered.
Make sure you are actually driving PS whether analytical (something with a model) or conceptual (thinking / talking through a problem). Learn to use our various sources of insight whether internal experts, external experts, KNOW, interview insights, etc - don’t just look to your EM and ED for input. Get comfortable editing pages, making pages with direction, then taking a stab at a short storyline and initial pages.
Idk why but we often stick new joiners on a TO - don’t let yourself stay there for long if that’s you. If your brain doesn’t hurt a little bit, you’re probably not getting that learning curve we promised you 🤗
Nah. As an analyst, you’ll learn by being on the projects. The project team lead should task you with easy admin tasks and have you shadow a sr analyst or someone with experience. Go do a CDD project and you’ll be set
Pro
At least here we don’t let people shadow someone else or do easy admin tasks. If you’re in PEG you better pull your weight. And yes: that means the first few DDs will be rough. But it gets better.
Pro
I’ve done a year of PEG after one year as Bain. Coming without consulting background post MBA, that feels about right. I’d agree with your mentors that 5 months is a bit early, but depends on what you’ve done before.
Also: 3-6 months seems short for a PEG rotation. I’d recommend at least 6 to get some reps (in fact at Bain EMEA I don’t think we do anything shorter than 6, more typical 12.