I am a portfolio manager. I was a trader at a bank and now work for one of the big multistrategy hedge funds everyone wants to work for.
Moving into this job highlighted some major deficiencies in today’s hedge fund hiring process. Throughout my career I have worked closely with a handful of trusted executive search firms, but when I wanted to move, it became apparent that other recruitment firms in the market were claiming to know me.
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The hedge fund hiring market is very over-broked. When a recruiter places a senior portfolio manager, he or she can earn a fee of $500k-$1m and sometimes more. However, the pool of talent is very limited and dishonourable recruiters in the market have been gaming this limitation.
Their game is to look on LinkedIn for public profiles of people funds might want to hire and to generate fake resumes to match the profiles (with the candidate’ actual name and actual experience). The recruiters then submit the resumes they’ve generated to the hedge funds without even talking to the candidates.
Recruiters do this because the hedge funds will tag them as being associated with the top candidates. If another headhunter tries to introduce those candidates to the fund, he or she will often find that these candidates have been introduced already, but that the candidates know nothing about it.
It creates a difficult situation. Many people are so eager to work for one of these funds that they will go with whichever recruiter the fund steers them towards. They don’t want to rock the boat.
I found myself in this situation. It’s awkward and unfair on the headhunters who have spent a long time building relationships. In my case, I made it clear that I knew nothing about the other recruiters claiming to represent, but I know many people who don’t.
Carl Potter is a pseudonym
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