• TPG is the latest private equity firm to bow out of early recruiting for junior talent.
• The firm sent a letter to potential candidates on Monday saying it won't hire until 2026.
• It joins Apollo and General Atlantic in toppling an annual recruiting tradition amid criticisms.

Another private equity firm pulled the plug on recruiting for 2027 associates this year, Business Insider has learned.

TPG, a buyout firm with $251 billion in assets, emailed recent graduates — many of whom are about to begin their first year as investment bankers — after 4:20 p.m. on Monday to say that they will not hire for 2027 until "sometime in 2026."

This is the third firm to withdraw from "on-cycle recruiting," a frenetic recruiting process focused on getting incoming junior investment bankers to agree to jobs that won't start for two years, usually after their investment banking analyst training has ended.

The domino effect began when Apollo announced a similar decision on June 11, as BI reported. It was followed by General Atlantic, which also canceled plans for early recruiting on June 12. Those announcements came days after JPMorgan told its incoming first-year bankers that they'd fire anyone who accepted one of these pre-dated jobs.

The industry has been criticized for starting on-cycle recruiting earlier and earlier each year. Last year, the process kicked off at the end of June, before many incoming junior bankers had even started Day 1 of their new Wall Street jobs. This year, there were signs it might start even earlier, with some firms reaching out for informal "coffee chats" during college graduation ceremonies.

TPG's memo, a copy of which was obtained by Business Insider, was sent by Anna Edwin, an HR executive at TPG. Here's the email:

Congratulations on your recent graduation!

This is an exciting moment as you transition to your professional life, and we want to emphasize how important and foundational this time can be. We are confident that these learnings and experiences will help inform the decisions you make about future steps in your career, and we hope that you will be thoughtful and engaged during this time.

We believe that our people are our most important asset, and our goal is that the Associates who join us each year will build meaningful, long-term careers at TPG. We aim to be thoughtful and intentional in our recruiting and hiring process and are committed to enabling recent graduates like you to focus on your learning and development.

With this in mind, TPG will not begin to hire for the Associate Class of 2027 until sometime in 2026. We will continue to approach our hiring process in the way that we think is best for our talented candidates, our teams, and our industry more broadly. We look forward to continuing our dialogue with you as you embark on your careers.

Best of luck in this new chapter and please stay in touch.