I am very curious to get the forums thoughts on why there are barely any non us citizens (internationals) in PE in the US,
having browsed through multiple team pages, everyone seems to be American or Canadian (which I would not really classify as international).
very curious since there are plenty in other high paying and competitive roles like tech, IB , consulting, trading
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Sponsorship. PE firms do not want to sponsor when they can more than fill their needs with US citizens, so it is extremely difficult to land PE as an international who needs a visa.
and really, IB firms largely don't want to sponsor either, so there is a smaller pipeline of internationals to begin with.
Stupid and more general question about international sponsorship: why don’t more companies sponsor? Is it an extra cost? Extra work?
Tons of reasons. It's a huge amount of extra work and paperwork, likely need advice from an immigration lawyer, and the lottery odds are not that high after going through all of that. Also, majority of PE shops are smaller operations, their 1 or 2 person HR department is not equipped to deal with visas, while big tech or consulting has an entire department for that. PE is also not rocket science so you have a large supply of qualified US citizens who are very easy to hire
It is mostly related to the odds of H1B Lottery. The probability of getting selected is less than 20% each year. You will have 3-4 times to participate in the H1B lottery, provided you are on a STEM OPT Status (did STEM majors at school). If you were studying non-STEM humanities subjects, you are only eligible for 1 lottery attempt. The odds is the same regardless of your firm name, salary and your firm's "willingness to sponsor". It is a 100% luck-based lottery so it is reasonable that corporates do not want to take the chance (training someone for 2-3 years and they can't even stay in the US..)
This. But I have seen a LMM PE in a Tier 1 city hire an international at the post MBA level (both the banker and the founder shared similar ethnicities and the firm is notorious for nepotism hires so this is a one-off anecdote).
But how come there are plenty of internationals in consulting, tech etc
just curious why this is a pe specific and to a lesser extent in ( since there are quite a few internationals in ibd
Because all of those other firms (including IBD) are very very large multinational firms who benefit from scale and have entire departments to do this type of thing. PE is not - even the really big name guys like KKR and APO are only 2,000 employees, their HR departments aren't comparable to JPM, MBB, or big tech etc
I’m from Australia and have access to the E3 visa which has never hit its quota with the US . Even with that no firms have been replying to me
Plenty of Australians in PE might just be you…
Did these guys attend ivy league or aus universities? is geography also in nyc?
Have only seen aussies transfer internally via IB , attain visa first and then move to PE rather than directly going straight to US PE
The biggest reason is that PE wants you in for the long haul and there is a default risk internationals go home at some point. In IB they don't care if you quit eventually. Same with consulting.
Investment banking and private equity are caste system patronage jobs - they don’t need to give away any of those to foreigners. That’s like asking the Saudi’s why they won’t hire people to be princes.
Canadians are international af. The ones that made it likely have dual citizenship.
Lol nope. It's a much easier visa process.
TN visa under economist designation has gotten dicey recently... knew a few guys who got denied at crossing and were relocated
Sort of. I struck out on an H1B three times. Lawyers said I basically had no chance of getting a renewal on a TN under the new rules, but even then it's a burden the longer you live there and set down roots etc. I know other Canadians who've had similar issues or had it hanging over them until their 3rd+ H1B go. There's a peace of mind in never having to deal with USCIS again.
Edit: or put another way, IF things go smoothly it's easier for Canadians. If they don't, which is very possible, it's just as much a pain in the ass as from anywhere else.
Good observation - p much seen none either
Broadly, adds risk (lotteries aren't guaranteed, etc.), adds cost (paperwork, legal fees), and adds complexity (complicated when firing an under-performing individual could also mean deportation, etc.). As everyone mentioned, there's plenty of domestic demand here to not have to take on the aforementioned risks.
International analyst heading into PE this fall. My two cents - at the junior level, it is hard to break into PE in the US without any prior work experience in the US. Granted, there are bound to be exceptions but most PE firms in the US tend to hire from the analyst classes of banks based in the US. Over the past few years, due to reasons discussed above, the number of banks sponsoring visas has gone down and keeps falling with every cycle, thereby locking international students out of SA/FT recruiting altogether. As a result, the candidate pool itself doesn’t have many internationals for firms to pick from.
Thanks and congrats! Do you know other internationals heading to pe? How hard was it to get the gig?
Is it really that bad? I am an undergraduate international student and I’m very interested in exploring PE after graduation. Is it pretty much impossible, or is it doable but you gotta go out on a limb?
definitely doable but harder given IB international pipeline has gotten more stringent
I meet a decent number of internationals - most often Canadian, British, Australian, Chinese, Korean, or Singaporean. Tend to see firms having multiple, presumably because once you’ve accepted the paperwork / set up the systems you’re more likely to do it again.
Most have prior banking / consulting experience in the US, but sometimes they come in through international firms with offices in the US and abroad
Any Indian people?
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