But if he were applying today, he doubts that his own firm — which boasts a highly selective acceptance rate of less than a percent — would hire him. Why not?
“Because my grades,” he told Yahoo Finance in an interview at his offices.
“I wasn't a summa cum laude or magna cum laude. I wasn't even a cum laude,” he joked. “So there are different modes of learning, and, you know, I'm not so bad at some of this stuff.”
Of course, that's not all Blackstone looks for when looking for “10s,” as he likes to call the ideal candidates.
"I think it's important that we look at different factors here at the firm," Schwarzman said. "The conservative way is, always hire the brightest person. I think it's important to be involved in student government of some type or a club or something where you demonstrate leadership.”
He also said that he gravitates toward applicants “who are athletes only because you can take pain. If you're a good athlete, you push yourself to a point where it's not pleasant.”
Schwarzman was a track star in high school and president of the student council. But at Yale, he quit the team — and found that he was unprepared academically.
Socially, though, he did well and was inducted into the secretive and prestigious club Skull and Bones.
After graduation, he accepted a job at Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette in 1969. Within months, he was packing for training camp for the Army Reserves, then left for Harvard Business School.
He spent the next several years climbing the ranks at Lehman Brothers as a star mergers and acquisitions banker. He founded Blackstone in 1985 with Pete Peterson.
‘Feel how smart’ a candidate is
In his new memoir “What It Takes,” Schwarzman noted that a slim 0.6% of candidates are accepted to work at Blackstone.
He also takes the time to interview candidates and often pulls an interesting highlight from their résumé to discuss.
“I'm trying to feel how smart they are, how stable they are, how curious they are. And usually, you can do that by just looking into their eyes,” he stated. Schwarzman said he has a unique way of engaging with would-be Blackstone employees.
“Sometimes I'll walk in a room and talk about what I was just doing if it's exciting. And if they recoil with fear because it's a different situation, they probably won't be able to handle things that come at them in an unpredictable way,” he explained.
Julia La Roche is a finance reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter.
Blackstone has 169. That's an entry rate of 0.27% - or 1 in 400 or so people. Harvard, in comparison, has an acceptance rate of around 4%. The Navy Seals have a 6% acceptance rate.
Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman had another big haul last year, collecting $896.7 million in compensation and dividends, according to the firm's annual financial filing. As in previous years, the bulk of that—some $776.9 million—came from dividends on Schwarzman's roughly 20% stake in the private-equity firm.
Schwarzman is Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder of Blackstone, one of the world's largest alternative investment firms with over $1 trillion Assets Under Management (as of December 31, 2023). Mr. Schwarzman has been involved in all phases of Blackstone's development since its founding in 1985.
Stephen A.Schwarzman is Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder of Blackstone, one of the world's leading investment firms. Mr. Schwarzman is an active philanthropist with a history of supporting education, culture, and the arts, among other areas.
This translates to a selection rate of less than 0.3% and means that getting an entry-level job at Blackstone is 12 times as tough as getting accepted to Harvard, Schwarzman noted. “I doubt I would be able to be hired today; not sure that's a great thing,” he said during the call.
Requirements: You must be attending Hight School or an accredited university as a full-time student, or have graduated from an accredited university within the past six months. You must maintain a minimum 2.5 GPA.
Since Blackstone's IPO in 2007, Schwarzman has had a base pay of $350,000. Beyond that, anything he earns comes from carried interest and other incentive-based compensation, and dividends. He is not awarded a bonus of any kind.
Schwarzman is chairman, co-founder and largest shareholder of Blackstone Group, a New York-based private equity firm. The publicly traded company managed $1 trillion in assets as of Sept. 30, 2023. The billionaire has collected more than $7 billion from a combination of stock sales, dividends and compensation.
Jay-Z's Roc Nation joins Blackstone in takeover of $500 million collectibles company. Blackstone is acquiring the Certified Collectibles Group in a transaction valuing the company at more than $500 million. Jay-Z's Roc Nation is also an investor in the transaction.
However, the two companies aren't really comparable by numbers alone, as they provide services to different sectors of the market and are both strong investment firms in their own rights. BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager and Blackstone Group is the world's largest private equity firm.
Average Blackstone Products hourly pay ranges from approximately $12.73 per hour for Janitor to $22.00 per hour for Shift Manager. The average Blackstone Products salary ranges from approximately $50,000 per year for Industrial Designer to $120,000 per year for Content Manager.
The estimated total pay range for a Vice President at The Blackstone Group is $219K–$331K per year, which includes base salary and additional pay. The average Vice President base salary at The Blackstone Group is $195K per year.
Private equity giant Blackstone announced Friday it was buying Tricon Residential, a Toronto-based landlord that owns 38,000 homes across the U.S. and Canada for $3.5 billion. It's comparable to Blackstone's prior deal from 2021 for Home Partners of America, which owned more than 26,000 properties, for $6 billion.
Getting a job at private equity giant Blackstone is getting more competitive. Out of some 62,000 applications for the firm's 2023 first-year class, just 169 people were hired.
Blackstone was the top-ranked private equity firm in the eFinancialCareers 2016 Ideal Employer rankings, which polled over 6,500 finance professionals globally on the companies they'd like to work for. Across the private equity industry, typically one in 300 applications is eventually offered an entry level job.
Is The Blackstone Group a good company to work for? The Blackstone Group has an overall rating of 4.1 out of 5, based on over 777 reviews left anonymously by employees. 75% of employees would recommend working at The Blackstone Group to a friend and 89% have a positive outlook for the business.
Blackstone considers candidates from schools across the globe. Candidates eligible for full-time opportunities are completing their final year of college or graduate school.
Introduction: My name is Duane Harber, I am a modern, clever, handsome, fair, agreeable, inexpensive, beautiful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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