hf recruiting - headhunter or cold outreach?

trying to transition to buy side, have done/familiar with private equity recruiting but now want to try public investing and don't know how hf recruiting works, any help is appreciated. 

focus: l/s, long-only fundamental equities, georagphy: anywhere in US

  1. did you get most of your interviews from headhunters or through your own cold outreach? (do most opportunities go through headhunters/are recruiting processes structured like PE recruiting?)

  2. which are the most active headhunters in the L/S, long-only space?

  3. how did you source/identify the funds that fit your criteria? did you attach a model/pitch in your outreach (email)? (any database, lists, newsletter, etc.?)

  4. any online prep courses you recommend? I looked at wall street prep's public investing course, looks alright to me - any other suggestions? (the $5000 fundamental edge is too pricey for me, more looking at stuff in the couple-hundred-dollar range)

 
Most Helpful

1) joined out of U/G, was entirely through cold outreach - did pitches via email... you can find emails typically on Bloomberg profiles or you can find the email convention by going to the SEC IAPD website, finding the fund's brochure, often times it'll have the COO contact email and you can solve for who you're looking for's email that way. Since then though all my opportunities have either been directly through BD at platforms or through headhunters. Not really ever "on-cycle" though

2) Dynamics, Odyssey

3) IAPD brochures have a section for each fund's strategy/method of analysis. For the smaller groups that was helpful in identifying which strategies I was aligned with. No model/pitches for headhunters, but for cold outreach yes

4) Fundamental Edge is super pricey but probably the best course/training $ can buy that isn't just being in the seat. I've never done a course (this is not me bragging I just haven't wanted to spend money on it) so can't be useful there

Good luck

 

would you mind sharing your conversion stats - roughly how mancy people/firms you reached out to, how many you got on a call with, converted into an interview process, and got an offer at? thanks

 

Would add search one as well in terms of recruiters that traffic in the space. HFs will do a combo of headhunters, posting on bloomberg, word of mouth and some cold outreach given the other poster (i suspect this is more an exception than the rule). If you are specifically looking for a 'brand name' fund they are more than likely to use a headhunter. 

Most funds don't have a ton of info out there although some post their letters (or they leak) or if its a new-ish fund they might have pitched at one of the conferences (like Sohn) or gone on a podcast. The IAPD brochures are helpful to an extent, but its still a lot of boilerplate language so you are only going to get so much from them. If you follow the market, you could look at their quarterly holdings disclosures and prob get a decent sense of the flavor of stocks that they invest in. 

 

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