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FDD has become a race to the bottom in fees which results in wildly understaffed projects all while clients demand more than ever = low morale
This is accurate
Coach
Another 15 year perspective - the past few years have had their ups and downs as have all the other practices I know people at.
From a macro perspective - flat deal markets aren’t good for anyone and the cycle we’re in now where everyone has a at least a few sell sides that they’ve been working on and updating for a long time makes staffing challenging. There’s also something to be said for the post covid teams/zoom first approach to DD making the job less enjoyable - less access, more pressure, much more timeline pressure, less downtime on the road getting to know your teams. To say nothing of the AI doom cloud.
EY specific - Everest caused a lot of tension in the PPMD group through the wrangling to figure out how our practice was going to be split. Which continued with the practice instituting a national leadership structure two years ago (had been regional first before) and doing PPMD level headcount reductions in the wake of that. For the most part the people impacted made sense based on performance numbers but also never an easy action to take. The move to the MD -> PP promotion path has also caused a lot of frustration in the SM ranks, and some of that definitely impacts morale down the ranks. And the staffing model change to start hiring significant numbers of people from campus in recent years has forced us all to adapt how we approach training our people.
On the whole though my view is things are trending up - we now have an FDD alum as the #2 EYP leader and a well liked new FDD leader. The deal market is getting hotter by the day and I feel more optimistic today than I have in the past 2 years.
My TC this past year was ~$640K
1,000% feeling this. Understaff teams, over promised deadlines, every day is a fire drill, staff can’t operate independently, RTO, stretched thin across 5+ deals, AI - you name it
Might be office / team specific but def feeling it at pwc too
Will they bump up pay?
Just got a recruiting message from them today, is pay there still low?
Interesting, why is that? Most of my team members are former EY
Lack of job security (especially at higher levels), understaffed teams, manager shortage resulting in massive gaps (people with 10-15 years experience working directly with people with 2-3 years experience and nobody in between to bridge the gap), rotating door on leadership, adding a step from SM to partner (and even if you make it to partner or MD, seeing a lot of folks terminated within a few years of the promo), no downtime between/during deals due to shortage of experienced deal leads, and I’m sure other reasons I’m forgetting.
Feel free to DM if you are looking for a change of scenery. We continue to grow YoY and have an ambitious/healthy outlook over the next 5 years that will require growth and contributions at all levels. Comp and job security remain a strong suit, along with opportunities for upward mobility - just some food for thought.