Hi,I have an offer to do Commercial Due Diligence and M&A Advisory work from one Big 4 firm;and an operational due diligence job offer from another.I'm still a student and still don't know that much about long term career opportunities.I'd like to know the following from more experienced consultants:a) What kind of exit opportunities (say in 5 yrs time) exist for these two different careers?b) Would there be significant base salary/bonus differences between these two career choices as the years go by?Thanks

Hi,although I do not know the answers to your questions, I thought I could tell you a bit of what I know about CDD.Its a practise that is mainly used now in the US and UK. Now moving to Europe as many PEs are starting to ask for it. A couple of firms in the Big Four let employees from CDD move into Strategy work, it depends, but work is relatively similar. They do work very closely with Consultancy anyhow.CDD depends on the M&A situation. Now its booming. Next year its likely to be the same, who know in 3-4 years. I cant compare it with ODD, because I haven't done it. It's likely that the line between ODD and CDD is blurred.Hope this was helpful.

Thanks for the comments Mr. T, does anyone else have any comments about career opportunities within CDD?For example, is it possible for someone with say 5 years CDD experience to move into industry, if so, what kind of role?Thanks!

Some of the largest companies and groups (BP, Microsoft, Shell, etc.) employ small in-house M&A teams where CDD experience would be relevant. CDD is more commonly a service provided by external advisors though so most opportunities will lie in that direction.

I guess that after a few years Big 4 CDD experience, that you can always jump ship into a smaller CDD provider such as AMR International.I think that CDD would be good pre-MBA experience for getting into i-banking or P/E, as long as you've got the MBA from a top school and did a lot of quant modules there.