Related Posts
Please do not show to client before Partner review!

McKinsey & Company Any advice to help prepare for data science analyst role at top consulting firms (McKinsey & Company EY Boston Consulting Group etc)? Any materials, open source platform recommended to take on freelance data science project? When should I start actively looking and applying? I am a new grad who is working in tech as a marketing analyst I’m looking to pivot to marketing& sales data science consulting next year. Would like someone with similar backgrounds offer some practical tips.
JIRA for Agile Project Management

More Posts
Does jp Morgan provides headset too
How hard is Haas to get into?
Thoughts on CVS Health?
I got an offer from another company. Currently working in walmart. The main idea behind getting an offer is to ask for a salary rise. I was very much underpaid here. So I thought getting an offer will help increase my pay here in walmart by getting counter offer from them. But i am not sure if I discuss with my manager it will backfire me.Walmart
I had an interview with Cognizant and then got an email from HR to fill in CIS form and also along with to send all the documents. After i send all those details i got an email saying the position went on hold and to wait until they revert.
Any idea that how much time it would take for the position to be released? They did not respond when i asked the same question.
Cognizant
Additional Posts in M&A - Mergers and Acquisitions Professionals
Anyone on pros and cons of A&M PEPI group?
Why do private equity firms use M&A consultants?
New to Fishbowl?
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.





It’s a operational model instead of DCF model. You don’t need banking experience, but you should be strong in excel and atleast understand financial statements / EBITDA. At a high level, it usually ends up being a 15 or so tab model broken up by functional area (finance, hr, sales, legal, operations, etc.), with headcount and non-headcount costs. Depending if it’s looking at synergy or carve-out costs, you look at incremental costs by functional area. You generally do both one-time costs and re-occurring costs. You then lastly make some assumptions on how long each will take to achieve.
Any advice on good literature to learn more about the process?
It ends up being fairly bespoke, but the above should explain it high level. Sometimes you need to spend a lot of time making the cost baseline make sense and is properly mapped (e.g. one company may put salesforce in IT, but another company may put it in sales). Also mapping headcount costs also usually takes a while.
EY, at Deloitte working capital stuff would be a FDD and done by Deloitte advisory not consulting . Also day 1-100 would be the phase after an ODD (e.g. implementation planning) and not within M&A strategy.
My resume is baller, but I’m burnt out and ready to quit. I’m manager now. You learn corporate level strategy, understand every functional area of business, learn industries, and talk to senior leaders or PE people
CDD are market sizing and growth, growth drivers, competitive landscape, customer assessments, and validating company growth targets (you don’t always do all of these). It usually involves 50+ interviews, ability to quickly synthesis, and create a convincing story (similar to a normal strategy project). A lot less excel than an ODD, but market sizing model can sometimes get complex.
I am aiming for corporate strategy & development roles, M&A roles, and PE-backed portco roles. I don’t know if I can get a direct PE role, but maybe in a LMM, my lack of DCF experience may be a showstopper. May also look into value creation (ops) teams instead of deals teams at larger PE.
Try to do some CDDs too
Sometimes you might deep dive into one area (e.g. customers) and be going in stores to interview people, create and release a survey, etc.
I’ve done about 12
Definitely not DCF, merger models nor LBOs. Probably just some simple financial 'models' to show day 1 to 100 readiness and what a company would need to do operationally (whether it's a working capital issue, working on transaction support agreements) and the like
At least, that is what I presume.
D1 did you enjoy those projects? I heard they are high burn but what do u feel u gain from that exp? I would be coming from an SC perspective
Would you be able to describe the CDD work we do by any chance
Sorry last question : what exit opps are u looking at D1 as an M? Corp strat dev/PE ?
Thanks a bunch D1!
Great explanations here, D1
D1: where are you based? I do mostly pre-deal work and always looking for experienced M’s (SM here)
OP: D1’s descriptions spot on. I encourage you to reach out to some M’s and SM’s in our pre-deal space to get more info. Am one of them and happy to help. Am NYC-based
Agree with D1. Whether it’s synergy assessment or stand alone cost, the model is always broken down by function and head count vs non headcount. I would add that the census is source of headcount costs and the TB is the source of non headcount costs. The model really isn’t that hard after you’ve done a few but assessing the reasonableness of a proposed end state cost structure is where a lot Of time is spent after senior associate