I’m about six months into thinking seriously about PE after a few years in strategy consulting, and I keep hitting this wall: I can talk about project impact, but I don’t really know how to frame my work in PE language. Like, I ran a go-to-market optimization for a mid-market manufacturing client that cut their customer acquisition cost by 30% and unlocked an extra $2M in annual revenue. That sounds good, but when I try to translate it into PE terms, I just… blank.
I know PE people care about value creation metrics, deal thesis validation, operational leverage—stuff like that. But I’m not sure if my consulting background actually translates cleanly or if I’m supposed to be reframing everything from scratch. The consulting metrics I’m comfortable with (efficiency gains, margin improvement, revenue acceleration) feel related, but I don’t know if they’re actually what PE investors are looking for when they’re evaluating portfolio companies.
I’ve been reading some deal theses and market reports, but it’s not clicking how to actually map my consulting wins onto the kinds of metrics that matter in PE. Should I be thinking about EBITDA bridge analysis? IRR implications? Return on invested capital? Or am I overthinking this?
What does the actual translation process look like for you guys—how did you take consulting project wins and turn them into a narrative that made sense in PE recruiting or in your first few deals?
look, honestly you’re already halfway there if you’re thinking about revenue and margin. here’s the thing—PE folks don’t care that much about how you framed it in consulting; they care that you actually moved something. your 30% CAC reduction is money in the bank. what they want to know is: did you do it alone? can you replicate it? does it stick after you leave? sell that narrative and stop overthinking the jargon.
the thing that gets me is everyone thinks PE valuation is some magic formula. its not. EBITDA, revenue multiples, cash flow—pick one, explain why it matters for your deal, move on. consultants always try to sound smart instead of just showing they moved the needle. you did that. stop dressing it up.
dude this is so helpful to read bc im like 2 yrs in and freaking out about the same thing. the 30% metric is huge honestly. im trying to think about my stuff the same way rn. thanks for posting this.
this is real tho, like translating consulting to pe language is harder than ppl think. ur example def helps me see how to approach mine. thx
You’re on the right track, but let me clarify the framework. In consulting, you optimize for efficiency and growth. In PE, you optimize for cash flow and returns. The bridge is straightforward: quantify your consulting work in terms of cash impact. Your 30% CAC reduction and $2M revenue unlock are perfect—frame them as EBITDA accretion. During PE recruiting, focus on: (1) the intervention you drove, (2) the quantified financial impact, and (3) your role in execution. Avoid over-indexing on methodology. PE values outcomes and repeatability over consulting elegance.
The real skill you need for PE is linking operational change to valuation. Your consulting background gives you an advantage here—you understand how companies actually work. Use that. In interviews and in deal work, the question is always: ‘What operational change drives value?’ Your consulting experience should answer that. Don’t apologize for consulting; translate it into PE language with specificity and evidence.
You’ve got this! Your consulting wins are totally PE-relevant. Just frame them around cash and impact, and you’re golden. PE teams will absolutely see the value. Keep building that narrative!
I went through exactly this two years ago coming from a Big 3 consulting firm. What saved me was talking to a friend who’d already made the jump—he basically said, ‘Stop translating, start explaining.’ I had this project where we restructured a supply chain and saved $15M annually. I kept trying to fancy it up with consulting frameworks. He was like, ‘Just tell them you saved $15M at a company and you understand why it mattered.’ That single reframe changed how I talked about everything.
The translation is more systematic than you might think. Consulting metrics (cost reduction %, revenue growth %, efficiency gains) map directly to PE metrics through two lenses: (1) EBITDA accretion—your efficiency gains and cost reductions primarily drive EBITDA improvement; (2) revenue quality—your go-to-market wins improve cash conversion and revenue stability. Your 30% CAC reduction likely improved both. Document the baseline, the intervention, the outcome, and critically, the durability. PE cares less about the consulting methodology and more about whether the improvement sticks.
Quantify not just the metric, but its financial implication. A 30% CAC reduction for your client means lower customer acquisition cost, higher LTV:CAC ratio, and better unit economics. Frame it that way in your resume and interviews. PE professionals evaluate portfolio companies on similar unit economics, so demonstrating that you’ve improved them before is material.