Private credit careers
Break into private credit.
Sourced guides to the firms, the routes in, credit analysis and what the job pays — for the side of the deal that gets repaid, not the side that exits.
Written and edited by Clara Lindqvist. How these guides are made.
Firms our guides cover
The five guides
Everything the interview tests — in five guides.
Start anywhere. Each guide is a complete, sourced map of one part of the private credit path — from how the funds are built to the exact questions you’ll be asked.
The Firms
How a credit fund works, and one guide per firm
How a private credit firm actually makes money, how the global platforms differ from the mid-market specialists, and a guide to each one — the process, the format, and what it tests.
In this guide
Strategies
Direct lending, mezzanine, special situations, asset-based
Direct lending is one strategy inside private credit, not the whole of it. What each of the others actually does, who runs it, and which one you are really applying to.
In this guide
Breaking In
From leveraged finance, restructuring, advisory or a bank desk
The US mega-platforms run an on-cycle process; almost everywhere else hires role by role as seats open. The route in depends on the desk you are leaving, and each background is screened for something different.
In this guide
The Interview
Structures, covenants, coverage ratios and the downside case
A credit interview asks what happens when the plan does not work. Unitranche against senior, the covenant package, the coverage ratios, the recovery in a downside — and a case study built around a paper LBO that is being lent to, not bought.
In this guide
Money & Career
Pay by level and geography, carry, progression
What the job pays at each level in New York and London, why carry on a yield-driven fund behaves nothing like carry on a fund that sells companies, and where the role leads.
In this guide
Latest guides
Fresh from the desk
- The Firms
Private Credit Firms: The Line Between a Platform and a Specialist
Sep 2026 · 17 min readRead - Strategies
Private Credit Strategies: What Each One Actually Is
Sep 2026 · 16 min readRead - Breaking In
How to Get Into Private Credit: The Routes, and When They Open
Sep 2026 · 10 min readRead - The Interview
Private Credit Interview Questions: What Lenders Actually Test
Sep 2026 · 14 min readRead - Money & Career
Private Credit Compensation: Pay, Carry and the Tax Rule That Just Changed
Sep 2026 · 15 min readRead - The Firms
Apollo Global Management: The Lateral-Hire Interview and Its Credit Case
Sep 2026 · 17 min readRead
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Not sure where you stand?
Take the interview readiness check — 20 questions across the 5 areas funds test. See the answer as you go, get a score, and learn exactly what to study next.
FAQ
Private credit interview FAQ
- What does a private credit interview test?
- Whether you can lend. A credit case study runs the same company a buyout case would, and asks the opposite question: where in the capital structure you would sit, at what price, and whether you get repaid when the plan misses. Equity returns are not the output — leverage, coverage and recovery are. See the question frameworks.
- Is private credit the same thing as direct lending?
- No, and the distinction gets tested. Direct lending is one strategy inside private credit, alongside mezzanine, special situations, opportunistic credit and asset-based finance. It is the largest by assets, which is why the two names get used interchangeably, but a candidate who treats them as synonyms has said something wrong in the first minute. Where the boundaries actually sit.
- When does private credit recruit?
- It depends where you are, and getting that wrong costs people a cycle. The largest US platforms run a compressed on-cycle process alongside buyout recruiting. Almost everywhere else, and in Europe especially, firms hire role by role as seats open, clustered loosely into an autumn and a late-winter window, and expect experience already. The routes that actually work.
- Which background gets you in?
- Leveraged finance first, because the credit agreement literacy and the debt schedule transfer directly. Restructuring is the strongest route into distressed and special situations. Bank credit desks, debt advisory and transaction services all work; the gap each of them has to close is different, and the interview is built around closing it. Which route fits your desk.
- How does carry work in a credit fund?
- Differently enough that borrowing the buyout numbers gives the wrong answer. A credit fund earns its return as contractual income arriving every quarter rather than as one gain at exit, so the profit share is smaller, crystallises sooner and more continuously, and is taxed as income in most places rather than as a capital gain. How the pay actually works.
Prep like you already work there.
Start with the funds guide, then see where you actually stand.