Business Development Associate Interview Question:

Sounds like a good deal, you get to acquire companies and advise the CEO while avoiding all that boring internal budget stuff. Why did you want to do corporate development rather than PE or HF?

Submitted by: Muhammad

A couple reasons:

I wanted to go to a top business school one day and I could set myself apart by doing something other than the typical "track."

Since I was from a non-target school and didn't work at a bulge bracket bank, I had almost no chance of getting into the top private equity firms and hedge funds.

Corporate development offered a better lifestyle and more responsibility than what you'd get at a typical PE firm or hedge fund - at a lot of those places you're still an Excel jockey pulling all-nighters.

Even though it's a startup, the company itself is very well-known and so I also received the benefit of branding by working there.

The downside is that you don't get paid as well and bonuses are much lower, so if you're 100% focused on making as much money as possible, you're better off following the traditional path.
Submitted by: Muhammad