The Best Resume for Private Equity

It is now popular to land a private equity job which makes your first point of entry—your resume—all the more important. Lack of understanding about what are the attractive points will be picked up and could eliminate you from the running. Whether you're applying to a middle-market firm or one of the largest PE firms -- it's worth taking the time to scour over the details with a fine toothed comb. For a PE job, even one spelling error will get your resume tossed by the first level screener.

Something most job applicants do not realize is that even the largest PE firms are small in size, it's important to come across as a potential fit to each particular firm by truly understanding the demands. Every firm has a different culture and what they view as requirements for candidates .

Making matters more complicated, "a private equity resume has to go into a lot more details because you have to demonstrate results," says Jacoline Loewen, author of Money Magnet, who creates resumes for job seekers. Once you've gathered all of the details, keep in mind that your resume can be longer than the traditional one-page resume -- provided the information is necessary.

Here are some more tips on getting all of those details right:

Tailor to Fund’s Industry Focus
Private Equity firms focusing on specific industries, it's important to highlight your involvement by tailoring your resume to each company and position. Check out their website and look up their portfoli companies. Then build your resume to show where you have related experience. With so many applicants, Private Equity funds have the choice of making sure the people they hire have specific industry experience. "Having a couple of different versions of a resume isn't a bad thing," Loewen says. For example, if you're applying to a private equity firm that focuses on construction, it's important to have a resume that covers details from any previous experience.

Stress Financial Modeling Experience
To demonstrate your financial modeling experience, mention the results of the analysis performed and the area where it was applied when writing bullet points for your job descriptions. Adding any advanced-level Excel work can be another helpful way to demonstrate your expertise.  Private Equity does not want to train employees on how to do the bells and whistles of modelling. Thy do want to see that you adore number crunching.
Demonstrate Deal Experience
Whether you've worked on deal origination or oversaw a portfolio, demonstrating deal experience during your previous employment is key. Attract attention by setting apart the types of deals you worked on in a separate section at the top of your resume. When recruiters or hiring managers pick up your resume, deal experience will be the first thing they notice. You can also add additional competencies to the top portion of your resume then follow with a reverse chronological format to make the resume semi-functional and loaded with keywords for electronic screening.
List Other Interests
Personality-defining hobbies or activities can increase your chances of landing a job at many PE firms particularly if they reflect the interests of those in the Fund already. The performance-driven culture can create a stressful work environment so hiring managers look for candidates that will fit such a demanding culture. Don't ever underestimate the 'additional info' section of your resume. Include something that's not necessarily academic, a lot of the times people want to talk about that. Favorite sports teams or unusual hobbies listed on a resume can often spark a conversation and help your resume standout.
Don't Exaggerate
When a junior-level applicant puts in their resume that they single-handedly led a multibillion dollar transaction that raises a red flag about the rest of their resume. It is smarter to be accurate about how your role and what specific tasks you accomplished.  Additionally, many recruiters compare your resume to your LinkedIn profile to further track discrepancies.
Boost Your Education
Even if you didn't get an M.B.A. from Ivey Business School, having the name of a good business school on your resume can help. Consider attending an executive education program or a certificate program at a good business school that focuses on furthering your private equity career like investment management. MBAs are becoming run-of-the-mill and other financial degrees will add more, such as the Certified Financial Analyst or CFA. This additional degree separates the wheat from the chaff when it comes to the  private equity skill set. You have to be able to number crunch and an MBA is not really designed to build that skill set. The CFA, in comparison, does just that.

What is the ultimate objective of every private equity investment?

 The ultimate objective for every private equity investment a Private Equity firm undertakes is to create a company that produces superior products or services and operates efficiently to maximize financial growth.
To repeat that in language that the entrepreneur understands: The goal is to help companies grow.
If you want to grow your business, you have to state "Our company will grow at a xyz rate" as a corporate goal, and you have to get everyone on your business knowing this is the goal. After that, define the growth rate at 21%, or whatever you want, and why.
Give a reason for the growth rate. Do you want to be Toronto's best, Ontario's best or the world's best make of toys? Spin Master gave their vision out to public view and set an aggressive growth target. They wanted to be the world's best toy company and to make $500,000M revenue. Then they went for it. 
Spin Master is now a $900,000M revenue company and are a Canadian success story. To think that they began by making little faces out of stockings and when you added water, grass grew out of their heads. Remember those?

Are entrepreneurs a little crazy?

Kevin O'Leary of Dragons' Den fame, but also a savvy investor and a strong entrepreneur, got my attention when he said he likes to look at the deals where the people are a little crazy. Kevin says, "Crazy as a fox."
Why would that be? Kevin says it means they are thinking outside of the box and will push that much harder to succeed.
At a recent Women's Post event where I was invited to present for the Courage to Lead series, I mentioned the "crazy" part. My co-panelists agreed whole heartedly but I also received a great deal of feedback that so many business owners believe this to be true about themselves.
I received a letter from Licious owner, Joan Embury, who said, "Your comments on "a little crazy" resonated as how many of us have not thought that of ourselves and our businesses at some point; particularly before dropping off to sleep in a state of exhaustion and anxiety. We don't have to go and get committed."
So, let's go and be a bit crazy!

What tipped it for the winning team at IBK Ivey Business Plan Competition?

Sitting in an Ivey conference room this weekend, for the final judges' deliberation over who would win the IBK Ivey Business plan competition, I was struck by the passion of the private equity people in Canada. Peter Frisella of Tech Capital was smart, Deryk Smith of Edgestone was open and Albert Behr was his usual punchy self and had his son along too. The IBK family team was there, son Michael White is curious and Matt Hall from Covington gave his piercing assessment. Jason Zan from Rogers was in the same MBA year as Spin Master's Anton Rabie who spoke the previous evening.

I joked that there should be a prize for best judge too. We talk about about how that elusive concept of passion makes a person get through the bad stretches of business and push to the finals, but these private equity experts were top of class. 

We went over the merits of each of the three finalist plans. Which one would earn back money? How much potential money was also the big sticking point as one was a medical device put forward by a group of superb engineers and if this went through FDA approval, would be a great revenue spinner. The other was a software web application which could get sold quickly, but for $5M to $7M, waaaaaay less than a medical device. This company and was already making $25,000 a month in revenues and many judges expressed concern that it was an easy-to-replicate widget. The presenters were also engineers - memo to my two sons, please study your math and science.

We went around the table and listened to the one expert medical investor and then we voted. It was very close but what tipped it?

The quality of the presentation and PowerPoint. 

The two lead products were very different. Both could push forward and do well but only one could get the cash that day. When we added in the quality of presentation, the widget won.

I spoke to both groups afterwards and was impressed with the integrity - too often these business plan competitions attract scammers looking to get some quick money. Seriously. Althought not in this category, many of the presenters were also presenting at other competitions, like TIE. They make a business of entering business plans which I guess is a good way to get seed cash. So it is good to see that the real entrepreneurs who have that passion get the dough.

As for the private equity judges at the IBK Ivey Business Plan event, these are all seriously good people with entrepreneurism running through their veins. It's was a great weekend for Canada.

Well done to the student organizers: Navtej Sidhu and Karamdeep Nijjar. Karamdeep is going to be working with iNovia Capital  and Navtej is currently job hunting. I would recommend them highly as they were professional, warm and  absolutely in control of the whole schedule of the conference. Quite the roll-out! You can reach them at Ivey Business School.

What Does it Take to Rebound? Event coming up in Toronto

What does it take to rebound?
This question will be unpacked by one of my favourite private equity hires - Tricor Pacific's pick for CEO of one of their portfolio companies - CPI Card Group. The CEO is Anna Rossetti and she has experience in card solutions, microprocessor cards and chips - she will talk about Canadian Tire and other companies too.
Loewen & Partners is putting on this event with Rotman's Womens Programs at Miller Thomson's offices, 5:30, Tuesday 13th. John Turner may be there to open the talk.
Come by to learn more about Rotman's prgrams for women and to talk about private equity with Anna. Rossinni and Jacoline Loewen. The Miller Thomson team will be there and they are helping a wide range of companies. One of the IBK Ivey business plan winners told us that their patent lawyer was Miller Thomson.
Hope to see you.
Jacoline Loewen, author of Money Magnet, Attracting Investors to Your Business