The private equity resume,
read against a shorter clock.
Private equity reads a CV faster, and for different things, than a corporate hiring committee. Tenure counts for less, pace counts for more, and every claim gets tested against cash and the exit. A page written in group language — programmes, initiatives, alignment — fails not because it is untrue but because it answers questions nobody in this market is asking.
Two readers behind one phrase
One reader is hiring an operator into a portfolio company. They want to know whether you have run a business with a sponsor across the table, a lender with covenants, and a clock. The other is hiring into the firm itself, deal team or operating partner, and wants to know whether you can underwrite, diligence and sit on a board without taking over the company.
The structure you worked under shapes both readings. A control buyout with a board seat, a minority growth investment with consent rights, and a distressed situation with a lender steering committee produce three different working lives, and only one of them is what most CVs actually describe.
The sponsor's shape, within what you are free to say: fund size band, control or minority, deal value, and the governance you genuinely sat under.
Where in the hold you arrived — diligence, the first hundred days, mid-hold operating, or exit preparation. Funds hire for the phase they are short of and cannot infer yours from dates.
Entry multiple, leverage at entry, hold period and exit route, with the multiple or IRR where those are public. Where they are not, write that they are confidential rather than leaving the line empty.
Which workstream of the value creation plan carried your name. Claiming the whole plan is the quickest way to be read as somebody who watched it.
The bridge, the cash and the clock
A sponsor reads the EBITDA bridge before the summary, because the bridge says which part of the growth was bought and which part was run. Build the page around it. Every figure below is one an operating partner asks for in the first conversation, and having it written down changes what that conversation becomes.
EBITDA at entry and at exit split into price, volume, mix, cost and acquisitions, because an unbridged number cannot be told apart from three bolt-ons and a good year in the category.
Cash conversion from EBITDA to free cash flow, with net working capital days at both ends, because debt is serviced out of cash and profit that never converts is a presentation.
Net debt to EBITDA at entry, at its worst point, and at exit, because deleveraging supplies a large share of the equity return and operators routinely leave it off the page.
The hundred-day plan counted: actions set, closed on time, late, and dropped by agreement, because every candidate claims one and the completion record is the only part that is evidence.
Bolt-ons with the blended entry multiple against the platform's exit multiple, and delivered synergies against the case, because multiple arithmetic is what buy-and-build rests on.
The sponsor reporting rhythm you personally owned — monthly pack by which working day, weekly cash, quarterly board — because an executive who has never lived under it is the precise risk a fund is trying to price.
Corporate sentences that fail this read
Each of these survives in a large company because everybody there shares the assumptions underneath it. In a fund, the same words mark a candidate who has never worked to a hold period.
“Delivered sustainable long-term growth.” A hold runs three to six years. Say what moved inside that window, in which quarters, and what the buyer paid for it.
“Partnered with the board and key stakeholders.” In a sponsor-backed company the board is the fund. Name the cadence, what you were challenged on, and what you changed afterwards.
“Led a business transformation programme.” A fund hears cost and delay. Give the run-rate benefit, the cash cost to achieve it, and the payback in months.
Three lines, rewritten.
The same fact, made checkable. Every figure is illustrative of the shape an evidenced line takes — nothing here is invented on your behalf.
The claim on the left is not wrong. It is simply unreadable as evidence: nothing in it can be checked, compared or priced. The version on the right makes the same statement in a form a search partner can act on.
Held full P&L responsibility for a private equity-backed manufacturing business.
Chief executive of a $140M-revenue components manufacturer, majority held by a mid-market buyout fund. Entry at 7.2x on 4.1x leverage; sold to a strategic buyer after four years and three months at 10.4x. EBITDA $17M to $31M: $6M price and mix, $4M cost, $4M from three bolt-ons.
Executed a 100-day plan following the acquisition.
Ran 42 actions across 6 workstreams in the first hundred days: 34 closed on schedule, 6 late, 2 dropped with the sponsor's agreement in week 7. Pricing landed first — 3.1% blended across the top 200 accounts, held for the rest of the year, worth $4.3M of run-rate margin with volume loss under 1%.
Managed investor relationships and reported on business performance.
Owned sponsor reporting end to end: a nine-page monthly pack by working day five, a rolling thirteen-week cash file every Friday, and quarterly boards with the deal partner and the operating partner. Leverage came within 0.3x of the covenant twice in year two; both were flagged six weeks ahead with a mitigation plan, and neither needed a waiver.