by Brian DeChesare Comments (31)

Corporate Development Recruiting: The Definitive Guide

Corporate Development Recruiting
Search for “corporate development recruiting” or “corporate development interviews,” and you’ll tend to find the following results:

  • A lot of confused questions and contradictory answers.
  • Disagreements about what to expect in interviews, case studies, and even the process itself.
  • And debates about exit opportunities and how they compare with the ones offered by investment banking.

We’ve published quite a few interviews from readers who broke into corporate development from all backgrounds: straight out of undergrad, Master’s in Finance degrees, consulting, investment banking, corporate finance, valuation, and yes, even data science.

This article will summarize the key points from those stories and give you an idea of what to expect in the recruiting process – no matter your background and the types of companies you’re applying to:

Corporate Development Definition: What Is It?

Corporate development teams at companies focus on acquisitions and divestitures, including deal sourcing and execution, as well as on joint venture (JV) deals and partnerships.

They also spend time doing competitive research, creating “market maps” of companies in different sectors, and determining which markets their companies should enter.

Much of it is similar to the work you do on buy-side M&A deals at an investment bank, but the key difference is that you work at one single company and contribute to that company’s growth over the long term.

You do not represent clients, but instead complete acquisitions and other deals that help your company grow.

Also, you may spend more time on integration following the close of deals, though that varies by firm and team.

Many other groups have “corporate” or “development” in their names, so here’s a full comparison:

  • Business Development: You focus on sales, marketing, and partnerships rather than M&A. The goal is to boost the company’s growth via organic means.
  • Corporate Strategy: This is like management consulting, but internal to the company. You plan the company’s big-picture strategy, solve specific operational problems, and complete competitive analysis.
  • Corporate Finance: You plan the company’s budget, work with auditors, complete monthly reports, and manage cash and cash flow. This role is more about day-to-day and month-to-month tasks and has nothing to do with JV or M&A deals.
  • Corporate Banking: This one is completely different because it only exists at banks. Corporate bankers are like the “hub in the wheel” for clients who need to access the bank’s products and services, and they provide credit, cash management, trade finance, liquidity management, and other services.

If you are in corporate development at a large company (e.g., a Fortune 100 firm), then you will focus on M&A deals and you won’t need to do much sourcing since you’ll get so much deal flow from bankers and other parties.

If you’re at a smaller company or a startup, the role will often be more “random,” and you’ll spend more time on sourcing and tasks that might fall under the business development or corporate strategy categories at larger firms.

Why Corporate Development?

Corporate development is a good option if:

  1. You want to work on transactions, primarily M&A deals and joint ventures;
  2. You don’t mind the fact that, as in PE and other buy-side roles, most of the deals will go nowhere;
  3. You want to stick with one company over the long term and help it grow;
  4. You want a better lifestyle and hours than you would get in investment banking or private equity; and
  5. You don’t mind significantly lower compensation and slower advancement.

Obviously, you should not mention points #2, #4, or #5 in response to the “Why corporate development?” question in interviews – you should focus on #1 and #3.

Corporate Development Recruiting: Who Wins Interviews and Offers?

Corporate development (CD) teams want candidates who:

  1. Have deal experience working on joint ventures, acquisitions, and other deals;
  2. Know the industry and the specific company in-depth so they can come up with meaningful ideas; and
  3. Can run deals by themselves.

In practice, this means that CD teams prefer to hire investment bankers who have worked in matching industry groups.

They do also hire consultants, especially for roles that are less M&A-focused, as well as professionals from strategy teams and Big 4 valuation and transaction advisory teams.

Unlike many private equity and hedge fund roles, corporate development is open to more than just elite boutique and bulge bracket bankers.

You could easily work at a boutique or middle market firm and still get into corporate development; in fact, that’s often one of the top exit opportunities from such banks.

Another difference is that it’s more feasible for post-MBA bankers and consultants to get in – the “exit opportunity window” doesn’t close as much as it does for PE/HF roles.

You could also potentially get into corporate development coming from a job in private equity, such as Private Equity Analyst.

You do not have a great shot at corporate development roles if you’ve worked in a “public markets” group/firm like equity research or asset management since you won’t have deal experience.

Corporate development teams sometimes hire internal candidates, such as ones who are in corporate finance rotational or data science roles.

These candidates often know the industry and company well, but lack formal deal experience – but since they’re internal hires, that may not be a deal breaker.

It is very rare for students to get into corporate development straight out of undergrad.

It’s even rarer than winning a PE or HF role out of undergrad – with those, some firms increasingly recruit undergrads who want to skip banking.

But in corporate development recruiting, teams rarely do this because professionals need more of a “real-world” skill set, including the ability to wrangle information out of bureaucratic organizations and win agreement from different departments.

By contrast, you could do well at a hedge fund if you can sit in a room, do a ton of research and analysis, and come up with insights.

If you want to start in corporate development, you should target smaller, higher-growth firms, such as startups with a few hundred people (but not, say, a few thousand).

These types of companies sometimes hire recent grads for their “fresh mindsets” and unbiased views, and they might view internships as providing sufficient industry knowledge.

Finally, keep in mind that there are far fewer corporate development jobs than there are IB/PE/HF jobs.

To have a corporate development division, the company must already be fairly large – 10-person startups don’t have teams dedicated to M&A.

So, while a wider variety of candidates have access to corporate development recruiting, it can be challenging to find positions or companies that are hiring.

The Corporate Development Recruiting Process

If the private equity recruiting process in North America is early, highly structured, and driven by headhunters, then corporate development recruiting is more like off-cycle private equity recruiting:

  • The timing is very random, and firms do not fill roles 1-2 years in advance as PE firms do. There might be a lead time of several months.
  • Initial interviews often come from referrals and your own networking rather than headhunters.
  • There is some structure, but nothing like PE interviews where all the big firms send modeling tests to candidates, interview them, and make decisions in a single weekend.

Headhunters have less power than they do in PE recruiting because large companies have plenty of ways to find candidates on their own; it’s easy when you can ask 10,000 employees for recommendations.

Some PE-owned companies may still use headhunters if they need to hire someone ASAP, but most CD teams skip headhunters and rely on referrals and internal candidates.

If you win a referral to a CD team that is hiring, you’ll usually go through a phone screen, complete a few phone interviews, and then meet everyone in the group for in-person interviews.

If it’s a bigger company with over a dozen people in the group, then you may not meet everyone – just those with hiring power.

If you’re in investment banking or consulting right now and you want to move into corporate development, you should start by asking for referrals from the senior staff in your group – assuming it’s the type of culture where junior employees are expected to leave after 2-3 years.

Keep your requests open-ended because your MD probably can’t help if you want “corporate development roles at fin-tech companies in the crowdfunding space in London with over 1,000 employees.”

Again, it’s the opposite of how you deal with PE/HF headhunters, where specificity is key.

If you cannot win referrals from the senior staff, then the next best option is to find companies that have posted corporate development positions on job sites.

Then, look up those companies on LinkedIn, find professionals in the CD team, and email them to introduce yourself and ask about opportunities at the firm.

Because of the relative scarcity of CD roles, you should not be too picky.

Yes, you should go for companies that match your current industry, but you don’t want to be as specific as the example above.

Corporate Development Interview Questions and Answers

The main interview topics in corporate development recruiting include:

  1. Your deal experience.
  2. Technical questions similar to the ones in IB interviews.
  3. “Fit” questions similar to the ones in IB interviews.
  4. “Why corporate development?” and similar questions about the job.
  5. Industry knowledge and ideas for acquisitions and JVs.
  6. Case studies and modeling tests.

The questions vary significantly because CD professionals have very different backgrounds, and so do the candidates.

For example, a single team could have former bankers, former Big 4 professionals, a former software engineer or biochemist, a former data scientist, and a former integration consultant.

Each person has different concerns and looks for different qualities.

In many teams, the most important qualities are industry background and fit – especially if it is something specialized or technical, such as pharmaceuticals or biotech.

You would have a huge advantage at that type of company if, in addition to deal experience, you also knew about the drug lifecycle, the government approval process, clinical trials, the business models of generics vs. branded drugs, and so on.

If the company is in an unusual location (e.g., far outside major cities or in an emerging market), then local connections to the area can be quite important because they want to see that you’re committed for the long term.

Here’s what to expect in each question category above:

Your Deal Experience

We covered the key points about your deal experience in the article on investment banking deal sheets, and everything there applies to corporate development recruiting as well.

The main differences are:

  • You must be much more critical about each deal because corporate development is, effectively, a buy-side role. So, in addition to your key contributions and the transaction rationale, you should develop your own view of each deal as well (i.e., should the buyer have done it or not done it, and why).

There’s a good example of how to do that in this article on middle-market private equity recruiting.

  • If you do not have M&A deal experience, you must spin whatever you do have into sounding like deal experience. For example, if you held a corporate finance role before this, you could point out how a major project required collaboration across the entire company, which is similar to deal processes since you need to coordinate large groups in both.

There’s an example of this strategy in the data science to corporate development article.

You’re most likely to get a lot of questions in this category if you’ve had 2+ years of experience working on deals.

Technical Questions

You should take a look at the article on investment banking interview questions and answers because all the technical questions there apply here as well.

Unlike in corporate finance, where questions beyond accounting are unlikely, anything could come up in corporate development recruiting since you value companies and model transactions.

Even LBO models are fair game because you’ll often compete with financial sponsors to win deals, so you need to understand how they think about potential targets’ values as well. If you don’t already know how they work, check out our simple LBO model tutorial.

“Fit” Questions

In corporate development recruiting, these should be quite similar to the fit questions in investment banking interviews, so refer to that previous article.

The main difference is that CD professionals are less likely to play “bad cop” and probe you on points that might be deal breakers in IB – such as being too old, not going to a target school, or having a GPA that’s below their cutoff.

Those topics could come up, but interviewers are not going to spend 30 minutes grilling you about a bad grade in a 1st year accounting class, whereas a banker going through a mid-life crisis could easily do that.

Why Corporate Development? Questions

Especially if you’re moving in from investment banking, you’re likely to get a lot of questions about your knowledge of the group; they want to make sure that corporate development recruiting is not just your “Plan B” or “Plan C” after private equity did not work out.

Questions in this category might include:

“Why corporate development?”

Focus on the long-term nature of the job and how you want to stay with one company to grow its business year after year rather than switching between different companies/clients.

“What are the key challenges in corporate development compared with the ones in investment banking?”

Winning buy-in from all the relevant parties is much harder in corporate development because certain departments are averse to deals; the challenge isn’t connecting a buyer and seller, but getting everyone on your side to agree. Integration also tends to be more difficult than execution, which is something you’re not exposed to in IB.

“How much do you know about the deal process here?”

Take a look at the articles on M&A deals and CIMs to get some ideas.

“How are JVs or partnership deals different from M&A deals?”

The main difference is that there’s less due diligence and more deal analysis since you’re not acquiring another company – but the details of a JV deal can be very complicated, much more so than the average M&A deal.

For example, there might be an upfront payment, commissions for back-end or subscription sales, bonus incentives if certain goals are met, penalties for underperformance, and so on.

Industry Knowledge and Acquisition/JV Ideas

There isn’t a fast or efficient preparation method for these questions in corporate development recruiting because you need to take the time to learn the industry and figure out the company’s goals.

A few tips to prepare:

  • Start with our article on How to Learn an Industry and follow the suggestions there on doing rather than passively reading.
  • If the company is public, read its past few earnings call transcripts and look at what the CEO, CFO, and other executives are saying. Also, review transcripts from its closest competitors.
  • Look up the company’s past acquisitions and avoid any industries in which it has recorded write-downs and impairments from these past deals.
  • If you’re interviewing with a PE-owned company, you should research the sponsor to understand their deals and portfolio companies.

Once you have some ideas, pitching an acquisition or JV is similar to pitching a stock, but with a different focus because of the long-term nature of corporate development.

For example, you could point out why a target company is undervalued, but it would be better to point out how the acquisition would boost your company’s metrics and make it more valuable over time (e.g., a “value creation analysis”).

Also, in many cases, you cannot do much to mitigate the risk factors with 100% acquisitions.

There are some options, such as earn-outs for private companies, but if it’s a large, public company, your choices are more limited.

So, most of these pitches will take the form:

“We could acquire XYZ Company for Price A, which is a good deal, and it would boost our business by improving metrics C, D, and E; furthermore, there’s a strong team/cultural fit, and XYZ Company would allow us to move us into higher-growth markets.”

The Corporate Development Interview Case Study: What to Expect

There are four main types of case studies you can expect in corporate development recruiting, ranked below from most common to least common:

  1. Most Common: An on-site, 30-60-minute test where they give you a potential acquisition target and ask you to recommend for or against the deal and if you’re in favor of the deal, the price you would pay. You may also have to present your findings and answer questions from the team afterward.
  2. Less Common: A take-home case study where you have a few days up to a week to analyze a target company’s financial statements, value it, and explain how much it might be worth to the company you’re interviewing with.
  3. Even Less Common: No case study or modeling test at all – they’ll just ask for work samples, presentations, and deal documents you’ve worked on, with sensitive information deleted.
  4. Least Common: A partnership or JV model that includes upfront payments, incentive fees above certain performance goals, and other terms. For example, one company in the JV might be penalized if the other company’s sales fall, but it might receive a bonus if combined sales volume rises by a certain percentage.

With the on-site, 30-60-minute tests, avoid over-complicating the case study and get to a quick answer.

For example, project the company’s cash flows, calculate the IRR at different purchases prices, and build a simple DCF.

You could look at something like our Uber valuation and simplify that to get an idea of what to expect (as it’s far more complicated than what you’d be expected to complete in a short, on-site test).

You don’t need an LBO model, full 3-statement projections, or anything fancy if you have only 30-60 minutes.

With take-home case studies, you still want to keep the models relatively simple, but you should go above and beyond with your market research.

For example, instead of stopping at a deal recommendation, research the market and present another few acquisitions that might make more sense than the original idea and give rough valuation ranges.

And with JV/partnership models, the key is to enter the Excel formulas competently and efficiently and use functions like MIN/MAX and INDEX/MATCH correctly.

This one is more of an Excel practice test than a financial modeling or investment analysis test because you’re simply trying to calculate the correct numbers.

If you want to practice these types of case studies, we include 17 examples with full solutions in the IB Interview Guide (plus, technical questions, fit questions, deal discussions, and more).

And if you want to learn the fundamentals from the ground up, including the key Excel functions and shortcuts and the concepts behind all the models, check out the Core Financial Modeling course:

course-1

Core Financial Modeling

Learn accounting, 3-statement modeling, valuation/DCF analysis, M&A and merger models, and LBOs and leveraged buyout models with 10+ global case studies.

learn more

When Will You Hear Back in the Corporate Development Recruiting Process?

As usual, if you hear back quickly – within a day or two – then it’s almost always good news.

If not, however, you can’t necessarily conclude that the interview went poorly because CD teams tend to be small and resource-constrained.

As a result, they sometimes get busy with deals and have to put interview processes on hold for 1-2 months.

So, follow up every week or two until you’ve heard back, and understand that since the process is more random, you may not get an answer right away.

Corporate Development: What Next?

That’s it for our overview of corporate development recruiting.

Coming up next, we’ll delve into what to expect on the job, including daily tasks, compensation, exit opportunities, and more.

Corporate Development Series:

Further Reading

You might be interested in:

About the Author

Brian DeChesare is the Founder of Mergers & Inquisitions and Breaking Into Wall Street. In his spare time, he enjoys lifting weights, running, traveling, obsessively watching TV shows, and defeating Sauron.

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Comments

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  1. Hi Brian – I’m curious about MBA-level corporate development recruiting (for internships). Do you know how this process works (i.e., structure, process, timing, etc.) – is it similar to the recruiting timeline for investment banking MBA internships?

    1. Sorry, I have no information on this. I would imagine it is slower and less competitive than IB recruiting because CD roles pay less and have worse exit opportunities, and they’re not open to as many candidates. It is also probably a bit less structured. But no direct information on this topic one way or another.

  2. Hello Brian,

    Thanks for the awesome article. Would someone working in IB Leveraged Finance be able to exit into Corporate Development?

    Asking because, from my understanding, corporate development seems closely tied to M&A and strong industry groups. Thank you.

    1. Thanks. Yes, you could probably exit from LevFin into Corp Dev, though you are correct that your chances are probably higher coming from a strong industry group. Any industry that uses significant debt could still be a good target coming from LevFin.

  3. Hi Brian,
    Great article as always. I notice that the “data science to corporate development” article seems to have been taken down? Where can I find the content? Thanks!

    1. Thanks. Yes, we deleted that article because it didn’t generate much traffic, and pretty much everything in it was covered and summarized in this overview article instead.

      With a lot of the interviews on this site, people say pretty much the same things over and over, so we prefer to consolidate the insights and takeaways into single articles covering one specific career or recruiting process.

      1. Got it that makes sense. I am particularly interested in how the data science interviewee spin his/her experience into sounding like deal experience and broke into CD, but this article skips over the details. Would you mind sharing more details about that example? Thanks a lot.

        1. Relevant parts of the interview:

          “Q: But how did you meet those criteria [deal experience, know the industry and company in-depth, and can run deals by themselves]?

          You had no deal experience, and you had never run a deal by yourself.

          A: No, but I had run projects across the entire company before.

          Data science ties into all the other departments, so I said, “While I may not have run M&A deals before, I’ve done something similar with Projects X, Y, and Z, where I had to disseminate information, work with senior executives, and speak with all departments at the company to win project approval.”

          I argued that “deals” were similar to the “projects” I had been working on; in both, you act as the central communicator.

          And since I had performed well at the company already, the corporate development team had more faith in my technical skills than banks.

          Q: OK. What about the process itself?

          A: I spoke with two Associates, three VPs, and one MD, all on the same day. It took about 3-4 hours total.

          We have a pretty big deal team – over 15 people – since this is a Fortune 100 company. So, I spoke with ~1/3 of the team during interviews.

          They asked me:

          -Technical questions similar to the ones you might receive in IB interviews – depending on the interviewer.

          -Pitches for acquisition or joint-venture ideas for the company, which took a lot of time to research.

          -Questions about why I wanted to move into corporate development and how much I knew about the deal process.

          They also gave me a 30-minute written test at the end, but it was pretty simple: They showed me a potential acquisition target, presented the revenue and cost synergies, and asked how much I would recommend paying for the company.

          If you’ve ever built a merger model or valuation, it was not difficult to answer.”

          1. Thank you Brian!

  4. From my group, I have the option to enter into either Corporate Development (F100), MM Infrastructure PE Fund, Real Estate PE, however i am not sure which option to choose. I have networked extensively in these fields to try find what my interests lie more towards, however am still having a very hard time trying to decide.

    I feel as though because both are equally “good” options for me, i should just take the one that has higher pay?
    Would you agree with this?
    If so, which career overall do you think pays better? (Though also understand that it depends on many things, but would be great to get your opinion in general)

    1. The PE options will tend to pay more than corporate development. If you want to earn more but have a worse lifestyle, infra PE or RE PE are better. You will also be more specialized in both of those. If you want more of a relaxed lifestyle but at the expense of lower pay, and you want to be more of a generalist, the CD offer is better.

  5. Stanford man

    Hey Brian – just submitted a case study for a corp dev position where they asked me to put a brief together for a strategic partnership (so not necessarily M&A e.g. could also be a product development between 2 companies which is what I did). I did the above but did not include a sensitivity table in the deck due to hitting their required page limit – instead I wrote a bullet in the “proposed next steps” page that I would run sensitivity analysis sensitizing X assumptions by Y reasons. Do you think not including an actual sensitivity table would ding me even though I acknowledged what I would do if I were to run a sensitivity? Or I guess more broadly, what is it that the case studies are usually judged on / how important critical are they to getting the job e.g. if one sensitivity is not included but the rest of the case is ok, would you get dinged.

    1. I don’t think the lack of a sensitivity table will hurt you, especially if you mentioned that you would also create one with more time/space. They mostly want to see if you can think logically and present coherent arguments for or against a deal.

  6. Thank you for all of the great content, huge fan of M&I.
    I have landed a corporate development role and was curious about potential exit opportunities. My team is a bit unique in that in addition to M&A i have made seed – series A investments within an internal “fund”. Curious to how this type of deal experience would lend itself to IB, PE, VC, or other CD roles given the early stage investment deal experience. Deliberately being somewhat vague, but i am pre-MBA and lack deep M&A experience.

    1. I think it would work well for VC roles, but it would be tough to use that experience to get into PE because they normally want to see more traditional M&A experience. You might be able to use it to get into IB because bankers sometimes don’t go into a ton of detail on what you did, exactly, in each deal.

  7. Hi Brian – great article, thank you.

    Within the interview case study section, you said: “For example, project the company’s cash flows, calculate the IRR at different purchases prices, and build a simple DCF.”

    What would the “investor proceed” metric be within each year of the IRR formula? For example, year 0 would contain the company’s market cap (the purchase price we’ll likely sensitize, also assuming it was a 100% stake purchase).

    In the final year (eg. year 10) of the IRR, assuming it’s a strategic buyer, would we assume a theoretical “exit” multiple (even though strategics would probably hold for a much longer time period than the projected period) or Terminal Value via multiples method (I guess technically the same thing), both ending up as an “exit” market cap via the EV to EqV Bridge?

    What about investor proceeds within years 1 through 9? Would you treat these period’s investor proceeds like you did in the 7 Days Inn case study, make them all 0? Would these periods contain their respective cash flows you just calculated: maybe take the unlevered FCF you calculated for the DCF, factor in interest payments and mandatory debt repayments by creating a debt schedule and arriving at levered FCF for each of the periods (so your using apples to apples with market cap purchase and exit values?) Maybe have levered FCF in the final year too instead of/with the theoretical exit market cap talked about above?

    Maybe these “in between” periods only contain dividends that would be issued due to a high cash balance remaining after debt servicing would make up the investor proceeds (also requiring a debt and cash schedule with a minimum balance?)

    Maybe it should be as simple as Atlassian’s Growth Equity IRR analysis, only purchase and exit market caps?

    Apologies for the information dump! Looking forward to your response.

    1. We cannot answer technical questions of this level on this free site. If you are a coaching client or have a BIWS account, please leave a comment with your questions on the site or contact us via email for answers to these questions.

  8. Mottles and bodles

    A full 3 way model wasnt required for this either so definitely agree with you on the unlikelyhood of a full merger model. The reviewer was just trying to see where my knowledge was at and how well i could lay out a model that was logical to follow. Doing your courses was definitely a big help

    1. Thanks, glad to hear it and thanks for sharing. Good luck!

  9. Hi Brian,

    I appreciate the article. I have been interested in CD for a while. It seems much better to me than the investment banking road. I’m willing to trade the prestige of having an IB job & pay for better hours and still have the opportunity to work on deals/due diligence.

    My question is for those of us without IB experience (I am an auditor with a CPA), do you think it’d be better to go to a company in say their FP&A department and look to transfer to CD within the company later on or would I be better off going to like a Big 4 valuation position and wait 1-2 years?

    1. Either one could work, it just depends on where you have the easiest transition. If you can move into the valuation group at your current firm more easily, that’s probably a better option because you will then do work that is more relevant. But if it’s difficult or they don’t accept many transfers, then it probably makes more sense to go for a corporate finance role and move in like that.

  10. Thanks for this Brian. Could you provide some information in regards to:
    -Top Companies for CD
    -Career Progression and salary at each stage

    1. Oops did not read the last paragraph my bad.

    2. Yes, we are covering these topics in the next article in this series, but it’s hard to say what the “top companies” are because it depends on how you’re using the role. If you’re using it to potentially move into IB, the biggest companies (Fortune 100) are best because you’ll do more relevant work and get a better brand name. But if you’re using Corp Dev as your path into the industry and a first job, then it’s better to aim for smaller companies that are more open to hiring you without a lot of deal experience.

      All-in compensation starts at around $120-$160K for Associates and ranges up to $350K – $400K at the Director level. Figures will be lower than that outside of major financial centers and at smaller companies. And it takes a long time to make it to the Director level, longer than the equivalent role/title in IB, because turnover in CD is quite low compared to banking.

      1. Anthony Trinh

        Thank you for the explanation, Brian.

  11. Hello Brian,

    Many thanks for this article, very insightful as always. I am currently in the process for a CD internship next year within a very large Financial Institution (BB), and have made it successfully to the last round, where I will meet the head of the CD Team. It seems to me more like a “confirm the hire by the top guy” type interview since I already had interviews with 4 team members and a case study, but in your experience what should I expect from this interview?
    I suppose it will revolve around my knowledge of the team/role and usual fit questions, but I would very much value your input.

    Best and thank you for this amazing website

    1. Thanks. Yes, it sounds like they just want to confirm your hiring, so I would expect a fit-focused interview where it’s more about your background and how well you’ll do in the team rather than specific technical knowledge. Senior interviewers tend to care more about that and usually leave technical questions to the junior interviewers.

  12. Mottles and bodles

    Hi, thanks for the write up.

    I have a 2 hour case modelling test soon for Corp dev in a private company. Just wondering on the likelihood of having to build a merger model? Or would that be too little time? Since it is longer than 30-60 minutes just wondering what else to expect.

    1. It’s very unlikely that you will have to build a full merger model. At most, maybe something where you combine just the IS and simplified CFS. And a valuation case study is still more likely in most cases. There might just be more information to review (or more questions at the end), but the actual model will not necessarily be more complex just because it’s 2 hours.

      1. Mottles and Bodles

        Just wanted to give you all an update on this, but for my modelling test I received an LBO test which took me a bit by surprise

        1. Thanks for the update. An LBO test isn’t too surprising since it’s really just a variation of a 3-statement model, and those are common in all case studies. But yes, LBOs and LBO models are definitely fair game. I still think a full 3-statement merger model would be unlikely due to time constraints.

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