Due diligence or strategy - £?

In terms of long/med term financial remuneration, do you think commercial due diligence or corporate strategy offer better career paths?

Thank you for any comments.

Difficult question. Most of the strategy houses offer CDD as a service line, so its likely you would have some exposure to CDD anyway.

If you join a big 4 transaction services teams, its likely you would be spending a greater proportion of your time doing CDD.

CDD will give you a solid foundation in business fundamentals and a skill set that employers value. You will typically be working for banks / private equity firms - which creates some good exit options.

However, the hours can be a killer - lots of short-term projects, demanding clients and sleepless nights

I am yet to see a Big 4 CDD or VDD document that is much more than a huge data dump.

Sort of a "if we put every single bit of data in, cut in every imaginable way, then we can't possible miss anything out" mentality.

Therefore, I would go down the strategy route where you will likely still do some due diligence anyway

I once heard a colleague say "Avoid the double-D's".

I think he had a point... the hours in DD can be gruelling because you're often boiling the ocean whilst simultaneously up against hard deadlines. There is always more data to analyse during a DD, and team leaders are often keen to impress the client with how thorough they are!

Plus, you may find corporate strategy more varied and interesting in the long run?