Leland+ Content Library

Your Path to PE: Non-IB Strategies, Skills, and Opportunities – AMA

Breaking into private equity without an investment banking background is challenging—but far from impossible. In this AMA-style session, expert Leland coach and former consultant turned PE Connor P. will answer your questions about the alternative paths into PE, the skills that matter most, and how to position a non-IB background competitively.

Email Manager Skill

"/email-manager" triages the user's inbox, sorts emails by urgency, skips noise, and produces ready-to-review reply drafts in the user's voice without sending anything automatically. To install, run this in your terminal after downloading the file: unzip ~/Downloads/email-manager-skill.zip -d ~/.agents/skills/

Ask Me Anything: IB Recruiting Insights from a Former Lazard Banker

Breaking into investment banking is competitive—especially if you're targeting elite boutiques or specialized coverage groups. In this AMA-style workshop, Akaash P.—a former Lazard banker with hands-on experience across Media & Telecom, Restructuring (RX), FIG, Energy, and Software—will give you an inside look at what it takes to stand out in IB recruiting. Drawing on cross-sector banking and investing experience, as well as coaching candidates into top groups at elite firms, Akaash will answer your questions on technical prep, industry-specific expectations, crafting a differentiated story, and navigating competitive recruiting processes. Whether you're aiming for M&T, RX, FIG, Energy, or Software roles, or simply want to understand the landscape better, you’ll leave with clear, actionable insights to elevate your recruiting strategy.

Deferred MBA M7 Series: Harvard

Join us for an insider-focused session on the Harvard Future Leaders deferred MBA program. Expert Leland coach and former HBS AdCom Geri T. will break down what makes HBS’s deferred pathway unique, how the admissions committee evaluates early-career candidates, and what “leadership potential” really looks like at this stage. You’ll learn how to position your experiences, craft a compelling narrative, and avoid the strategic mistakes most applicants make. Ideal for undergrads and master’s students aiming to build a standout HBS application from the ground up.

Deferred MBA M7 Series: Booth

Learn what it takes to stand out in Chicago Booth’s highly selective Deferred MBA program. In this session, expert Leland coach and Admissions Fellow at Booth Tim F. will share insights on what Booth values most, from intellectual curiosity to leadership potential. You’ll walk away with clear strategies for crafting a strong application and telling your story with authenticity and impact.

Building real world products with genAI

The AI landscape is evolving faster than most teams—and candidates—can keep up. In this session, a panel of experienced AI product leaders will share candid insights on what’s actually working, where organizations are going wrong, and how product managers can position themselves to build meaningful, defensible value in an AI-first world. After quick intros and opening remarks on the biggest mistakes they’re seeing in AI today, panelists will respond to a mix of curated questions and live audience Q&A. You’ll walk away with clearer frameworks for evaluating AI opportunities, stronger language to articulate your value, and a practical understanding of how companies are approaching AI product work in 2025.

Review Medium Data Analysis & Arithmetic

This is a review of data analysis and arithmetic with additional medium-difficulty question examples as well as the substitution test method.

Positioning for PE and the Buy Side in EMEA

Breaking into private equity and buy-side roles across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa requires a clear understanding of regional recruiting dynamics, fund structures, and candidate expectations. In this session, you’ll learn how EMEA recruiting timelines differ from the US, what firms prioritize in backgrounds and deal experience, and how to position yourself effectively whether you’re coming from banking, consulting, or another pathway. You’ll leave with a practical strategy for networking, technical preparation, and crafting a narrative that resonates with buy-side firms across the region.

Review Hard Data Analysis & Arithmetic

In this review we will cover counting, probability, and statistics as well as additional examples for data analysis and arithmetic.

Home for Ambition #4 — Weekly Live Show [4/8/2026] (Recording)

Home for Ambition is a weekly live show, by Leland, for people trying to stay ahead as work, learning, and opportunity keep changing. Each episode tackles a handful of timely, high-signal topics across AI, careers, education, and the future of work. We expect thoughtful debate, unique perspectives, and practical takeaways you can actually use. It is not a typical interview show or a generic news recap. It is a live roundtable built to help ambitious people make sense of what is changing, understand what matters, and leave with a sharper point of view on how to navigate what comes next.

Deciding Where to Apply to Law School

Choosing where to apply to law school is one of the most consequential decisions you’ll make—and Leland coach Machmud M. is here to help you approach it strategically. In this session, he’ll break down the factors that actually influence your career trajectory, from employment outcomes and geographic placement to culture, curricular strengths, and long-term fit. You’ll learn how to separate signal from noise, evaluate programs through the lens of your personal goals, and build a school list that maximizes both opportunity and alignment. If you want to make confident, well-informed application decisions, this workshop is a must-attend.

Deferred MBA M7 Series: Kellogg

Thinking about a deferred MBA and wondering what it takes to get into a top program like Kellogg? Join Andrew Dale, a former Kellogg Admissions Officer and Supercoach on Leland, as he walks you through what makes a strong application, how to tell a compelling story, and what Kellogg specifically looks for in deferred candidates. Bring your questions about essays, recommenders, interviews, and strategy—Andrew will help position you for success.

School Agnostic Recommender Guide

Non-program specific recommender guide with templates.

MIT Sloan Personal Statement Short Answer

While MIT Sloan does not have a traditional personal statement, they do have a Short Answer portion of their application following their behavioral cover letter and video introduction. This is an example of the Short Answer from an MIT Sloan admit.

Inside Private Equity: Ask a PE Founder and Former BlackRock Director Anything

Private equity can be hard to break into and even harder to fully understand from the outside. This session is for candidates who want a candid look into the industry from someone who has operated at a high level and built their own firm. You’ll learn how private equity professionals think about investing, what the day-to-day actually involves, and how candidates can better position themselves for roles in the field.

PE 101 for Interviewees and Professionals: Deal Dynamics, Diligence, & Value Creation

Private equity can feel complex from the outside, but understanding deal flow, diligence, and value creation is essential—whether you're preparing for interviews or entering the industry. In this session, Saleem H., an early graduate from a non-target school who has built a career in private equity after consulting, will break down the fundamentals in a way that’s approachable and practical. Having mentored dozens of candidates into top MBA programs, MBB and Tier-2 consultancies, boutique firms, and competitive PE roles, Saleem brings hands-on experience and a passion for supporting nontraditional, first-gen, and early-career professionals. He’ll walk you through how firms evaluate deals, where analysts and associates drive the most impact, and what interviewers expect you to know about value creation from day one.

Top 5 Tips for Succeeding on the GRE

Looking to raise your GRE score with strategies that actually work? Join Leland coach Bruce H., a veteran GRE instructor who has helped countless applicants unlock top-percentile results. Bruce will share his five most impactful tips—from tackling tricky quant reasoning to avoiding common verbal pitfalls and building a smart, efficient study plan. Whether you're early in your prep or aiming for a final score boost, you’ll leave with clear, actionable techniques to level up your performance.

Build Your First Custom GPT (No Code Required)

Imagine having an AI assistant that already knows your workflow, your writing style, and how you like things done. That’s what Custom GPTs can do: write content, answer client questions, summarize reports, train new team members, and organize project plans. In this hands-on workshop, you’ll learn how to build one from scratch (no coding required). We’ll walk step-by-step through defining your GPT’s purpose, adding your own examples or instructions, and refining how it responds—so by the end, you’ll have a personalized AI assistant that works the way you do. (Note: You’ll need ChatGPT Plus to create a GPT, but anyone with the free version can attend, follow along, and learn the process.) Outcomes: You’ll walk away with your first working Custom GPT, a clear understanding of how to teach AI your preferences, and ideas for expanding your assistant’s capabilities for different roles or teams. Learning Objectives: *Understand what Custom GPTs are and how they extend AI beyond one-time chats *Learn the step-by-step setup process (no coding required) *Build and test your first GPT for your own use case or workflow

r/AMA: Building products people love from Slack to Discord to Reddit

What does it take to build products that millions of people use every day—and genuinely love? In this AMA, Sri V., a product manager at Reddit who has also worked on community and communication products at Discord, Slack, and Microsoft, will share candid insights from years spent shaping how people connect online. With a background in computer science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a career built on solving meaningful problems rather than just writing code, Sri brings a uniquely human-centered perspective to product development. Come with questions about breaking into PM, building social and community products, navigating big tech careers, or even national parks—Sri has nomaded through nearly all of them.

Defining the 1%: The Skills and Habits Behind 99th Percentile LSAT Scores

Scoring in the 99th percentile on the LSAT requires more than just practice—it reflects a specific set of skills, habits, and ways of thinking that most test takers never fully develop. This session is for students aiming to break into the 170s who want to understand what truly separates top scorers from the rest. You’ll learn how high scorers approach each section, the study habits that drive consistent improvement, and what differentiates performance across the 150s, 160s, and 170s.