BONUS: A career ladder below partner.
By Hitendra Patil
Around the 150th conversation I had with firm owners about staffing – I counted for a while before I stopped – and a pattern became obvious. The firms struggling most with retention were almost always struggling with the same two things: no visible career path for anyone below the partner track, and no honest answer to the question of where the firm was going.
PE-backed firms have ready answers to both.
- Career path: You will grow into a larger organization with more titles, more specialization and more upward movement.
- Firm direction: toward scale, through acquisitions, toward an eventual liquidity event.
These are not always the right answers for every person. But they are clear answers. Clarity has real pull when someone is sitting across the table weighing their options.
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