Finance M&A – career entry / intern (m/f/d)

Role Summary

Every acquisition changes the buyer's financial structure. Anyone who buys law firms in order to keep them must know beforehand what they are buying - and afterwards whether what they expected will actually happen. This role sits exactly between these two points.

Vogel is one of the most successful medium-sized consulting companies in Germany - several thousand medium-sized companies entrust us with their tax, commercial and strategic issues. Established clients, long experience, strong basis for growth. We are building the leading consulting platform for German medium-sized businesses on this, and part of this growth is achieved through the acquisition of law firms: evaluation, negotiation, conclusion, integration into a common setup. Unlike a financial investor, our work doesn't end at the closing - it begins there.

You have completed a degree in economics or are in advanced studies with a focus on finance, accounting or corporate finance. You don't want to maintain comparables for three months or build models whose assumptions someone else makes. You want to follow a transaction from the first evaluation to the time after completion and see whether your account has paid off.

The role has two entrances. As an internship lasting three to six months during advanced studies - or directly as a full-time career entry. The structure is the same, the difference lies in the horizon: in the internship you work continuously on a transaction, in the start of your career you are completely responsible for it.

You work directly with the management. After 24 to 36 months, the natural progression leads to a leading role in Financial Performance & Value Creation or in Corporate Development.

What you delivered after 3 months

• You have worked continuously on at least one transaction and have been independently responsible for the valuation.
• You expanded the target company database and kept the pipeline clean.
• You wrote a decision template that had an actual impact.

What you delivered after 6 months

• You are fully responsible for managing transaction work teams, from normalization to purchase price mechanics.
• You accompanied initial discussions with owners and represented the financial side yourself.
• You have transferred a purchased unit to our reporting system.

What you delivered after 12 months

• You handle transactions largely independently and know when to escalate.
• You shared operational responsibility for an integration and can prove where the evaluation was effective and where it was not.

Where the position is developing

The next step is a manager role in Financial Performance & Value Creation or in Corporate Development. This requires independently responsible transactions or integrations, not additional professional years. Technical expert careers and management careers are both open.

Responsibilities

YOUR RESPONSIBILITY

Assessment and Modeling

1. Build and defend the valuation model for a target — normalized results, adjustments, purchase price mechanics, sensitivities. Your benchmark: every assumption is documented and can be attacked individually.
2. Normalize the annual financial statements and interim figures of a law firm so that the actual profitability becomes visible - including the positions that are hidden in the owner model.
3. Calculate the financing side: capital service, return participation, payment structure over time.

Due diligence and decision templates

1. Prepare the financial and commercial due diligence - structure the data room, identify anomalies, formulate open questions for the negotiation.
2. Write the decision template for management: a recommendation with reasons, not a collection of key figures.
3. Work on declarations of intent, negotiation documents and shareholder material.

After graduation: reporting and value creation

1. Transfer the purchased unit to our reporting and from there make it clear whether the assumptions of the valuation are met.
2. Build the evaluations with which we can compare profitability, utilization and mandate development across all locations.
3. From the comparison of the units, bring back into the evaluation what we need to do differently for the next goal. What you build once runs in every location.

WHAT YOU WON'T FIND WITH US

1. No deal romance without integration. We buy to keep. If you lose interest after graduating, you have missed the more interesting part.
2. No financial investor model with a five-year holding period. What you calculate must still be viable in ten years.
3. No modeling internship in the second row. Your review will go into a negotiation taking place this month.
4. No pure accounting back room. You work visibly with management and corporate development - finance is a creative function here.
5. No corporate corset in which you wait for promotions. Growth here comes from contributions, not from years worked.

FAQ

1. WHAT IS BIRD — AND WHERE DO YOU WORK?

Vogel is one of Germany's leading medium-sized business consultancies - a family business since 1959, based in Aalen - and is building the leading consulting platform for medium-sized businesses. We are growing at several locations: in Aalen/East Württemberg as an established headquarters and in Munich as a new hub. In both, we look across functions — from tax advice to consulting to the strategic teams that build the platform.

1. HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE SALARY BANDS?

Deliberately wide - and identified at every point. We differentiate based on track record and market value, not on degree: scarce, highly sought-after profiles at the top end, less scarce ones at the bottom. We calibrate exclusively to the market - two people with similar experience can earn different things with us.

1. HOW MUCH — AND HOW — DOES VOGEL WORK?

It's measured by what you move, not by hours. But it's also honest: If you're looking for 9-to-5, we're not the first place to go. We are looking for people who work intensively on their own initiative because the tasks are worth it. How you distribute your time is largely up to you. What we share: We work together face-to-face - culture, sparring and the best ideas arise in daily proximity. We are not a remote company and do not have major home office policies; Individual remote days are no problem.

1. HOW DOES THE APPLICATION PROCESS?

Slim, fast, transparent — and graded according to profile. For entry-level roles (internship, work study, career entry), two interviews and a short work sample are usually sufficient; experienced roles are a little more detailed. For selected senior roles, we are looking into incorporating a joint working day in the future so that both sides get to know each other better. The following always applies: scheduled deadlines, quick decisions, substantial feedback - regardless of the outcome.

1. HOW DOES VARIABLE PAY WORK?

Linked to performance on a quarterly basis and assessed qualitatively. The scale increases with the level: up to 20% Associate, 27.5% Manager, 35% Senior Manager, 42.5% Director, 50% VP. Expected value with good performance - you meet the requirements, set your own accents, pass the keeper test - is around 50% of the maximum; the maximum bonus is not the norm. The focus is on a holistic assessment by your manager: ownership, quality, learning curve, collaboration, impact.

1. HOW DO I DEVELOP MYSELF - WHAT CAREER PATHS ARE THERE?

Two active paths: Mastery (technical depth, expert career) and Pioneer (leadership, management). You choose the direction after onboarding, usually in years 1-3. Starting a career is not a special path, but rather the early part of the same route - from working student or intern to associate, for the best ones without having to reapply.

1. TEAM, CULTURE, HOLIDAY?

A shared lunch is an open daily option - not an obligation; If you like, you can join us; anyone can eat at any time. Plus dinners, social events and offsites on a regular basis - not as a mandatory program, but because a good team also shares time outside of work. Benefits: thoughtful and substantial, not symbolic. Vacation: 28 days.

1. I KNOW SOMEONE - IS THERE A REFERRAL BONUS?

Yes — EUR 2,500 for each successfully filled position (no internships). A short context is enough: who you are thinking about, for what role, why. Doesn't have to fit perfectly, but has to be substantial.

Requirements

THIS IS WHAT YOU BRING WITH YOU

Experience & track record

• You have completed a degree in economics or have an advanced bachelor's or master's degree - economics, finance, industrial engineering, business law or comparable.
• You have seriously dealt with valuation, accounting or corporate finance - during your studies, during an internship or on your own initiative.
• You have gained initial experience in M&A, transaction services, corporate finance, private equity or tax consulting.
• Profiles that do not fit into the above grid, but have depth of evaluation and analysis, are expressly invited - we evaluate on the contribution, not on the label. Specifically: tax clerks with ongoing studies who know the inside of the annual financial statements; Mathematics or physics students with an interest in business valuation; People who have built or sold a business themselves. The range shown is not a room for negotiation, but rather a profile scale: the lower end represents entry straight after studying, and anyone who already carries out the standard tasks in this area independently starts in the upper third. Anyone who brings a different background starts at a different market price and converges to the role level after twelve months of proven performance - the logic behind this is in our compensation principles https://www.vogel-beratung.com/culture/verg%C3%BCtungsgrunds%C3%A4tze.

Skills & way of working

• You build models that a third party can understand and calculate further. A model that only its author can use is not a result.
• You read annual financial statements and recognize what needs to be explained instead of writing off key figures.
• You write analyzes with recognizable recommendations. Anyone who leaves the decision to the reader has not finished the work.
• You work with AI as a natural tool - research, preparation of data rooms, drafting, pattern recognition in operational data. Repetitive tasks are an incentive for you to automate, not a fate.
• In an openly formulated task, you make your assumptions explicit, take a direction and adjust as you go.

Mindset & personality

• You will of course treat confidential matters confidentially. In an ongoing transaction, you learn things that no one else is allowed to know - not even internally.
• You are interested in the company behind the numbers. A law firm is the life's work of its owner, not an object of valuation.
• You have the humility to learn from practitioners. The tax advisor with 20 years of experience knows things about her mandate that are not included in any model.
• You aspire to set the highest standard in everything you deliver — not because someone controls it, but because mediocrity bothers you personally.