Commercial awareness

Commercial awareness is that second step, and it is the one candidates skip. Knowing that a listed group has announced a disposal is information. Saying what it means, that the group is under pressure to bring leverage down before it refinances, that the division will most likely go to a sponsor rather than a trade buyer because the overlap is thin, and that a carve out of this kind creates months of separation work, is commercial awareness. The first is available to anyone with a news feed. The second is the job.

It is tested with a deliberately open prompt: which deal have you followed, what is happening in this sector, what would you ask this client. Open, because the interviewer wants to see what you reach for unprompted. A candidate with one prepared deal and nothing behind it is exposed by the second question, which is why having a second example ready matters more than polishing the first.

A usable structure has four parts: what happened, why now, who is affected beyond the two parties, and what work the situation creates or removes for a firm like this one. The why now is what separates an analysis from a summary, because a transaction almost always has a trigger: a financing window, a strategic review, a founder reaching retirement, a shareholder applying pressure.

Have a view, and attach the condition it depends on. Nobody expects a forecast from a candidate, and a confident prediction is worse than a qualified one. Saying the price looks defensible if the cost synergies land within two years, and that you would want the overlap by site before believing them, is a view with a test attached, and it invites exactly the follow up you want.

The European specific: in a continental office the question is usually local. A domestic mid market deal, a family business sale, a carve out from a listed group or a sponsor exit in that market shows you read the market this desk works in. Naming a large US technology deal is not wrong, but it is the answer most candidates give, and it says your reading is a US feed rather than the one producing this office's mandates.