Blackmore Partners Employee Reviews about "private equity"

Pros

Good start for private equity. Had various access to connections in private equity and different industries. The firms hosts unique conference for private equity firms and executives, and it is a great opportunities to get to know those people.

Cons

People need to have self-discipline

Pros

It is incredibly easy to get hired at Blackmore Partners. This is due to the low retention rate of the internship and the people hired on tend to drop out before their start date. This is due to the negative reputation of the company. About 6-8 new interns will get hired each month and about 2 of those people will actually have the stones to show up for their start date. You have nothing to worry about in your interview. As long as you don’t completely suck you will get hired. You are evaluated on whether you understand what the company does (hint: they are a private equity INTERMEDIARY, include this word), your communication skills and your ability to ask questions. Prepare for your interview based on these guidelines. Your fellow interns you work with are the best part. I have met so many wonderful, cool people in this program from all over the world; particularly a lot of people from China. In my understanding of how people build relationships. It’s either through a common like or dislike and you will definitely bond over your dislike of Blackmore. You interact right away with the top corporate executives of the world. You hear cool insider information from the executives that would make the writers of Forbes magazine salivate. Your ability to move up in the program is tremendous. If you want leadership experience you can get that here. You have a great chance to lead a small team. The team leadership roles are Social Media Team Leader, Salesforce team leader, Talent Acquisition, and HR Team Leader. All titles have nothing to do with M&A. If you do well you get to work on the backend. You may never reach the backend. Salesforce is used in many companies. Good thing to have on a resume. Occasionally, there are company outings where management buys you pizza or tacos.

Cons

Let’s get the first one out of the way. There is no pay. It sucks to be unpaid. It’s just how it goes. The management is incredibly cheap. A good example of this is when a guy from Bloomberg did a presentation for the services for the company. Management had no intention of ever paying for the services. They just wanted to use the 2-week free trial. Blackmore has a negative reputation on Bloomberg as well. The front end is really awful and you could be doing that for 3 months. Much has been said in past Glassdoor reviews about how you are basically a secretary. You start titling resumes to qualify c-level executives for meetings with the Managing Director. Scheduling meetings does sounds like secretarial work. That is the most basic task in the office. Then you are placed onto two teams; the social media team and the salesforce team. Both feature their boring, repetitive tasks. The social media team is about spamming executives with potential acquisition deals. While salesforce largely deals with maintaining the database of executives. You also have responsibilities when it comes to Talent Acquisition. This isn’t really included in any of the intern descriptions posted online. Because Blackmore Partners do PE deals and such deals take a long time to complete. In order to keep the lights on, Blackmore has you generally do the work of a headhunter. This is done so when deals are being discussed with the PE firm. Blackmore can package not only a company to sell but also the executive to run it. However, not all TA positions you will find are meant for PE deals. Sometimes, they are just because companies use Blackmore as headhunters and the management wants to make money using you as free labor. The TA assignments are good experience if you are an HR intern. But generally useless for your resume if you’re an M&A intern or Marketing intern. The management treats you like garbage and views you as nothing. You are replaceable. You are dirt. You are nothing. There is no appreciation for you in the program. I’ve seen management call people “stupid” and “dummy” directly to their faces. You will never hear “thank you” or “good job,” no matter what you do. You will work hard because Blackmore Partners is always short-handed. You will be loaded with assignments that are time-consuming and mind-numbing. Then, yelled at for not completing them in a short period of time. The management is obsessed with making sure you don’t text and arrive on time. If you are late 3 times, it counts as an absence. All absences are added to the end of your internship. The management is so hateful of texting. Which is fair enough; people generally shouldn’t be on their phones at work. However, this can be taken to the extreme by management. One intern whose father was known to be in hospice care receives a text from his mother informing him his father has passed away. The Managing Director sees him reading this text and yelled at him for texting and “for being completely unprofessional.” Absolutely unacceptable and some of the poorest social tact I’ve ever seen. There is absolutely no trust between management and interns. The management hates millennials. They are used to interns leaving and assume you hate the job because you do. You will hear the same speech over and over about how millennials don’t know how to work hard. How we are self-absorbed and conceded. They are not above micro-managing you and having HR record your movements. How long you leave the office, how long you are in the bathroom etc. Absolutely no respect and no encouragement will ever be heard from their mouths. If you will take a sick day, you will immediately become suspect to management and your commitment to the program will get questioned. The Managing Director won’t remember your name. You will constantly hear him say people’s names incorrectly. The Marketing internship program is generally a joke. There really is no marketing program at Blackmore. There are few marketing interns who apply for the program. The majority of the people working there are M&A interns and to a lesser extent HR interns. I remember one marketing intern asking when he was going to start doing marketing. To which management said “everything is marketing.” All you do as a marketing intern is push Blackmore Partners on Linkedin. But all interns do that. It’s not a special duty reserved by marketing interns. All of it is sending out spam messages to executives to try and find people to sell their business or if they know of someone trying to sell their business. It’s just another repetitive task. There is a 3-month summer internship sometimes available in the summer where you basically will do the front-end for the whole duration. This shortened program is a huge joke and you basically learn nothing. There is so much pressure on the HR interns to increase intern numbers and retention. This proves to be difficult because of the negative reputation and toxic atmosphere that the management creates. When people leave Blackmore, they just stop showing up. I’ve seen good workers who were seen as model examples. Just leave and never return. If you are not a great English-speaker, you will not rise up in the program and won’t work on the back end. The backend is basically the whole reason you want to be an M&A intern.

Pros

• Great opportunity for first time work place exposure. Initial training is centered around proper workplace etiquette, developing communication skills, and business development. • There is great deal of camaraderie among interns and leaders at the program. • Regular invitations to networking events in Chicago that are sponsored by the program and give a great opportunity to meet local leaders in Investment Banking and Private Equity.

Cons

• All internships are unpaid for 3 to 6 months, which is stated on the application.

Pros

-Exposure to the PE industry -Networking skills -Interns are typically fun, good people

Cons

-No pay -Ridiculous expectations for a nonpaying job -No technical PE experience (modeling, due diligence) -You will basically do all the thinking and labor for the 'managing director' -NO ONE knows the last time when they closed a deal. This is interesting because I see this place resort to more and more desperate measures. For example, this place is supposed to be sourcing deals for private equity, BUT if you peruse LinkedIn you will notice that they have basically become nothing more than a glorified hiring firm (which they try to disguise by calling it 'Talent Acquisition'). When I worked there, the boss was trying to get interns to rent a room in his house/apartment (I don't think anyone took him up on his offer). Whatever makes a couple bucks, eh? -The boss's wife works there. -There is absolutely no room for growth, unless you consider making $1000 a month a huge step up in the world. -The previous office was in a desolate building that was falling apart. It had a bad rodent problem. They have since moved offices (I have no idea what the new office is like). -You will be nothing more than a glorified telemarketer. -Oh yeah, that bonus you get if a deal closes? Probably nonexistent. If a deal actually does close then they certainly won't share anything with you. Read the contract they want you to sign. Better yet have a lawyer read it for you.

Pros

I found my internship and work experience at Blackmore Partners to be quite fulfilling, enjoyable and valuable. I am switching career paths, specifically wanting to pursue a career in finance (Investment banking, private equity). Prior to my internship the only experience and knowledge I possessed was all classroom knowledge. I had no actual hands on experience in regards to private equity or investment banking. This internship provided me with valuable insight in regards to deal making. I gained in-depth understanding of the interaction between private equity firms and potential target companies they look to acquire. I hear many people say that there isn’t any financial modeling that takes place here as many people are looking to gain “financial modeling” experience. And they’re right, there isn’t much financial modeling that goes on here. But you should have gained and tuned your financial modeling skills in school. This internship offers you much more than that. This internship gives you a great understanding of the process of buying and selling companies, and what private equity firms look for when purchasing a company. You interact and are constant communicationnteract and are constant communicationnteract anteract anteract and are constant communication with Private equity firms, investment banks, and C- level executives.

Cons

This internship is non-paid, but that’s made very clear from the beginning. Just reiterating this point to those individuals who live out of state and are thinking of moving to Chicago for this internship, or any other nonpaid internship for that matter.

Pros

Working as a M&A Analyst Intern at Blackmore Partners, I have learnt a lot of invaluable experience, which help me build a strong career path in future. Training and projects taught me how to be a professional in Private Equity Industry and made me work efficiently. The best part of this internship was that you could develop yourself to be the way you want. After I had done my daily task, I wanted to enroll in more projects and assist my directors to finish their documentations. Therefore, I developed myself with skills of project management and multitasking. I think, Blackmore provides a very serious working environment and you can learn a lot if you are serious too.

Cons

If you are already a professional, this job may not fit with you.

Pros

Friendly environment, remote work, plenty of opportunities to learn new skills, and a great way to learn about the Private Equity world.

Cons

Very little chance of long term employment opportunities.

Pros

As an accounting student, I learnt a lot about how to apply my skills and knowledge in a private equity firm. The experience here helped me get familiar to communicating and following up in a professional business environment. All the interns and supervisors here are nice and friendly, talking with them about your feelings and goals can help them set good internship program for you.

Cons

You need to have a clear goal before working here.