Ideal Profiles for Venture Capital

There is in fact no "perfect profile" for venture capital jobs, because venture capital firms themselves can be very different and have different strategies. So how can you know if you would be attractive to venture capital firms? There are still a few characteristics that will give you an idea of your chances:

Academic background

You will have much more luck if you studied science at school: engineering, biotechnology, computer science, etc. The reason is fairly obvious: the large majority of VC deals occur in the technology space so it helps is you are actually able to undestand the technology that you are investing in. PhDs are quite popular too.

Marketing studies can also be useful to some degree as in all cases you need to sell a product but not as popular / common as science backgrounds.

Accounting / Finance / Business degrees tend not to be very popular except at the largest venture capital firms where more financial modelling would typically be required.

How about MBAs? Again this is not a very popular degree at most venture capital firms unless you have a related experience beforehand (in VC, engineering, sales, etc.), but the degree tends to be more popular at the larger Venture Capital firms.

Professional Background

Again, here, it varies. However, the most popular backgrounds are:

- Engineering backgrounds

- Product development, research

- Sales or operational experience at firms that are similar to what the venture capital fund invests in (Internet companies, software companies, etc.)

- Entrepreneurs that have experience launching, managing or working for high growth startups (even if it failed - failure is actually something that teaches you a lot)

How About Bankers and Consultants for Venture Capital?

Investment banking (M&A) and strategy consulting (McKinsey, Bain &Co, BCG), while useful experiences, are not among the most popular professional work experiences and it can sometime even be a disadvantage. The reason are obvious if you think about it:

- Bankers and consultants tend to work with larger, more established companies > VCs  work with small companies that are growing fast

- Banking and consulting is very hierarchical > VCs are always very small and have very flat structures

- Bankers and consultants are  used to be given clear tasks to do > VC is much more informal and independent

- Bankers and Consultants tend to have a lot of pride (i.e. arrogance) about working for big firms on big deals with big clients > VCs need to be very humble to be able to get business with startups

In brief, the only reason why VCs would hire a banker or consultant would be largely because that is where you tend to find bright people, so bankers and consultants that have the right personalities and experience still stand a chance, particularly at the bigger VCs. But often those that can break into VC are the ones that combine bankings/consulting experience with some kind of entrepreneurial experience.

Personalities