I've recently been approached by a recruiter about a Deal Origination opportunity within A&M's Corporate Finance team and would appreciate some advice from anyone familiar with similar roles/processes.
My background is non-traditional for finance, I studied a non-finance subject, started my career in B2B/commercial roles and have since moved into M&A origination.
I'm particularly interested in understanding how candidates with a less conventional background are assessed and how best to position my experience during the interview.
The process is expected to involve 3 stages, including conversations with senior members of the team.
For anyone familiar with A&M or similar Corporate Finance/Deal Origination roles:
- What do they tend to look for in interviews?
- How technical should I expect the process to be?
- What would you focus on preparing?
- Any advice for positioning a non-traditional background?
Would really appreciate any insight!
A&M Corporate Finance / Deal Origination interview advice
Hi,
I used to work in BCG's Principal Investor & Private Equity practice.. so I am very familiar with the transactions space.
If the role is specifically focused on Deal Origination, the first thing we need to do is to understand clearly what goes on in Deal Origination. As you are aware (given you are in M&A origination), it involves namely
- Finding / creating potential deals
- Pitching & winning potential deals
Therefore, this would inform the answers to your 4 questions:
- What do they tend to look for in interviews?
- They will look relevant abilities w.r.t Deal Origination which include financial/strategic analysis, ability to created structured presentation documents, knowledge of relevant data sources/databases
- How technical should I expect the process to be?
- Given this is a specific role - you should expect it to be technical. This is not a generalist consultant role
- Typically for these kind of roles, it would be ~20%-30% fit/behavioural and 60-70% technical assessment
- What would you focus on preparing?
- Focus on those points/skills mentioned above
- Any advice for positioning a non-traditional background?
- You can read my article which talks about this dynamic
- Breaking into Consulting from a non-traditional background
- 5 Reasons Why Experienced Hires Fail the Interview
All the best!
hey there :) I’d focus less on having a traditional finance background and more on showing that you understand the commercial side of origination. Be ready to discuss your deal experience, how you identify and qualify opportunities, your approach to relationship building, and some basic M&A/valuation concepts. Given the seniority of the interviewers, I’d expect the fit and commercial judgement side to matter a lot.
Your non traditional background can actually be a strength, especially if you position your B2B experience as evidence that you can build relationships, generate opportunities and understand clients. Make sure you have a very clear story connecting your past experience to why you want this role now.
best,
Alessa :)
Hi there,
First of all, congratulations on the invitation from Alvarez & Marsal!
I would be happy to share my thoughts on your questions:
- First of all, I would advise you to treat this as a deal origination role and not as a consulting role. What they want to see is that you can find targets nobody else has found, and that you can get the owner or the sponsor to take a meeting. So prepare two or three concrete stories where you sourced something from scratch, and be ready to name the databases, screens and networks you actually used.
- Moreover, the technical part will be heavier than in a normal consulting process, I would say roughly 60 to 70 percent of the total, with the rest being fit. Expect valuation logic, deal structures, and a discussion where you have to defend why a specific target is attractive. I would advise you to pick one sector you already know well from your origination work and go deep on it, because this is where they will push you.
- Lastly, I would strongly advise you to stop presenting your background as non-traditional in the room. Say instead that you come from commercial roles, and that this is exactly why you can talk to owners and founders in their language, which is what origination is about. Three stages with senior people mostly test whether they would put you in front of a client, so your story has to sound confident and not apologetic.
If you would like a more detailed discussion on how to best prepare for your upcoming Alvarez & Marsal interviews, please don't hesitate to contact me directly.
Best,
Hagen
