Are investment bankers a lot more interested in corporate development jobs than they used to be? It sure looks that way. Executive recruiters say they're hearing from more and more I-bankers looking to make the jump to a strategic.

Not that it's a big surprise. The job market is flooded with thousands of laid-off I-bankers. Michael Rosenblatt, president and founder of executive recruiter the Quest Organization, estimates half the I-bankers he's heard from in the past few months are talking about job security.

The good news for job hunters is that strategics are dipping into the pool of finance talent. Recent high-profile examples include Alcoa Inc., which hired former Citigroup Inc. vice chairman of global banking Mike Schell as executive vice president of business development and law and Campbell Soup Co., whose lead dealmaker, Tarkan Gurkan, joined from Lehman Brothers Inc.

Yet making the switch to a strategic isn't easy -- one reason why most moves come at a junior level, not a senior one like the examples above. Lower pay in the corporate world is one big impediment. Work flow and cultural issues loom large as well.

Lorne Groe spent more than a decade in investment banking, most recently with Wells Fargo Securities LLC, before making the switch to corp dev in 2003. Today he is VP of corporate development and finance for Valassis Communications Inc., a $2.5 billion media and marketing services company. Groe says he's known a lot of bankers who've made the jump. "I think most of them were bored," he says. "The dealflow is not there, and a lot of the tiny details you have to deal with day-to-day in a corporate environment are not there in investment banking."

Learning to work as part of a corporate team also takes some getting used to. "If you rub people the wrong way, you're dead," says another I-banker turned corp dev executive. Being smart matters, but it's not enough. "What I found is the internal network you build is more important."

Many bankers make the transition just fine, of course, bringing valuable skills to their new employers. "Investment bankers get incredible exposure to deals everyday," says Campbell's Gurkan, "and develop deep industry knowledge and insight. You end up with an incredible network of relationships -- in corporations, banking and research. Now I can pick up the phone and find any angle on a deal that I need."

Still, a little skepticism regarding a banker who suddenly has a burning desire to work for a middle-market manufacturing firm is only natural. The Quest Organization's Rosenblatt says when the industry rebounds, some bankers will move right back to Wall Street.

"A candidate's background will tell you a lot," says Randy Gulian, founder and president of executive recruiter InSearch Worldwide. "If he or she worked at a corporation after business school, that's a good sign." If they've got no corporate experience or haven't expressed an interest in the field in the past, well, says Gulian, that's reason for pause on the part of a corporate employer. - Suzanne Stevens

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