Garbage Work From IB Analysts
I keep getting garbage work from my analysts and associates. This has been ok for the majority of my IB career as I usually clean it up myself or work late at night with the analyst or associate. I’m nearing the end of my second year VP and should be focusing more on client coverage. Anyone have any advice on how to ensure work quality is strong? I think I perhaps am too friendly with the analysts/associates but I’ve never been a dick ever in my career and like to treat everyone around me well.
Have you ever considered no one really cares about the work you are producing or thinks it's "garbage". No one cares if footnote 8 on p.75 of the followup analysis is jacked up. People spend about 30 secs looking at your slides.
They do however care about client relationships, deal flow, and that workstreams are being taken of. Start focusing on that instead of hopping in model riders and freaking out about numbers. That's not your job.
Based
Exactly. Freaking out about quality of work is a forever vp mentality. He should be freaking out about client relationships and building a book. Not ensuring numbers tie.
This truly demonstrates the discrepancy between "junior" bankers and "senior" bankers. It's been said 100 times that as a senior banker, your job is to pull in deals. As a junior banker, you execute the deals seniors pull in and are more replaceable --- whether you are a PPT guru or a Modeling wizard.
The thing is, most banks don't really have a structured, upward system where juniors can learn how to sell once they are on the job. A very small amount of people actually get to pull in deals for banks. If banks really want their analysts and associates to be generating deals some day, they should give them some space to source deals as analyst/associates. Not that is unheard of, but more common at boutiques or LMM banks.
Disagree with the sourcing for AN/ASO, but would say client facing absolutely.
Yeah, this isn't really true. Yes, people on the other side of the table absolutely care about your work product quality. Your job as VP is to quarterback the engagements process and make sure the client is getting what it needs. The move from VP to senior banker is the hardest step in the career path. You have your full time day job, doing the "quarterbacking" and then on the side trying to demonstrate to the senior bankers you're more than just a super analyst, but an individual contributor that can bring in work for the group. There's no roadmap for this, it just happens for you if you're doing things "right" and making the right impressions.
Amen. Classic VP mindset nd disconnect. Are lowkey losers in a lot of cases. What does jacked up mean tho?
Can I send this reply to a micromanaging Director - Yes, DIRECTOR! - that won't get the fuck out of my model?
He can't do that if the work being produced underneath him is shit awful. Juniors always like to use "Bro nobody cares about this anyway" as an excuse for shitty models, presentations, etc.
As it turns out, quality assurance across all locations/groups is actually massively important to maintaining good brand standing with clients/customers. No, your VPs are not going to just let you turn in shit work with wrong numbers because it is easier for you. If OP was letting that happen, his superiors would probably assume he's not ready for MD yet as he still has trouble with quality control of work product.
In other words, your VP doesn't want to worry about reconciling your models and fixing your formatting, but if the juniors don't do their job, he has to. "Bro nobody cares" isn't an acceptable excuse for why yo dumb asses can't remember to use the same kind of bullet points/font/color-scheme on every page of the CIM.
Junior bankers always bitch about inefficiencies but actually cause a fuckload of them by not just doing shit the right way, the first time.
100%, brotha
Probably because they've been crying to sleep thinking about the $25K after tax bonus they got 💀
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Edit: To account for JPM, $25K pre-tax bonus*
Hey to account for MS, let's make it a donut
What would you consider to be garbage work? Poorly written CIMs or like formatting issues?
I’m not talking formatting or footnote stuff. Actual errors in decks like comp tables pulling wrong multiples due to incorrect formulas (pulling 2023 multiples when it should be 2022 and client calling us out in this), poor judgement/logical errors leading to us not addressing a MD or client ask properly, all stuff that would lead a MD or client to actually get mad.
People here are dumb. It is extremely embarrassing when numbers are wrong and the client calls it out on a call. Makes you look incompetent and can certainly damage the relationship. Even worse if it's a live deal - inserting wrong numbers in public filings can get you sued.
@OP have you tried moving to a better bank where the analysts aren't goobers? I made this decision and it was a considerable step-change in my quality of life when the quality of juniors underneath me improved.
Yeah but if there’s a filing the lawyers are going through it and making sure it all ties anyway…
I don't ever call out busts in live, external call / meetings anymore, and I instruct my junior folks to do the same (they usually flush that out a lot quicker than I do anyway). Only if said error is muddying the overall goal of presentation meeting and I get confused.
If I've engaged bankers for a process and it's a working session, I'll flag the bust and keep moving, don't have time to squabble over details that they should've caught to begin with.
I agree but I escalate it in stages over email so they get a chance to fix it / show it's a one-off before it hurts anyone's reputation, but so they're aware it's not okay and I'm not oblivious. First I'll email the Analyst or Associate and nicely ask them. Then if it happens again the VP. Then the Director. And the time after that I ask our Partner to email their MD to get their shit together. And from then on I'll ask directly if deliverables have been signed off by the MD or not and to get that sorted if not. Refuse to become collateral damage of Partner rage over shit bankers not doing their job
OP I just want to chime in with the following - I don’t know on the broader question:
Treating people well is likely getting their best work, not their worst. I do not think you should go that route.
You’re a VP, you have an associate: hold him accountable within the team. Getting comps right is his job. You need to keep checking, but as an associate, getting this wrong should start impacting your career and how people treat you. If the only consequence to the associate shit work is that you work a few extra hours, why would they care? This needs to impact them too.
Choice being:
You won’t ever be able to go fully away from ensuring work quality though. Even MDs check that the team doesn’t fuck up. And take responsibility vis a vis the client. But holding people accountable (not saying being a d*** to them) is a first necessary step at your level.
Your job is to lay the right guidelines, make sure the right points are treated, and get the messaging right. Footnotes & getting the right numbers in the context of an agreed methodology is the associate job - they need to get there.
Have to agree with this. As a fellow VP who has experienced similar frustrations, you need to hold people accountable while not being a dick. This starts with setting clear expectations about quality of work product and what the “user experience” should feel like for seniors vis a vis the junior deal team l, and it continues with calling people out when they slip. Maintain a positive/helpful disposition but you have to make it clear what will and won’t be tolerated and you have to call people out when they slip. Finally, people have to be given real risk too. Make the team aware that there will be times that you cannot be their trapeze net, and that in these moments if they fail to be diligent and carry the team it is you, not them, who will pay the price in client scorn.
unfortunately I have tried other approaches over the years but this is the only one that works. If you find yourself constantly having to make excuses/exceptions for other people’s mistakes, and it cannot be chalked up to ordinary course learning curve, the sad truth is that this person is either not fit for the job and needs to go or is directly/indirectly expecting you to carry their water, which is a dysfunctional deal team dynamic.
wish you the best
nice one
Totally understand your frustration OP. It’s not only embarrassing but unprofessional when the client receives blatantly incorrect numbers.
However I have to think that if your A&As are consistently giving you shit work product that you are, in a lot of ways, to blame for this. In reality it’s your associate’s job to un-shit the analysts work, and the associate can only do that if they have clear directions. Are you a “pls fix” VP? Do you ever explain things and “expect” them to know exactly what you mean?
Sometimes there really are shitty junior teams, sometimes there’s a shitty management team, and sometimes there’s simply just a disconnect between both sides.
How do you get this far up the IB ladder and not be able to answer this very basic Q, lol.
maybe you need to be more of a dick and make sure the underlings know their place in the hierarchy and that trash work is unacceptable
*Screams in MS VP*
Do you give vague comments? Is it unclear what needs to be done? Also can you recognize that when an analyst and associate is constantly working weekends, late nights etc. that it’s impossible to perfect? (Especially when worn out?) Also especially when given bad bonuses
Sick of loser VPs and EDs that give bad, vague comments and then get mad when it’s not to their weird expectations (then they go on calls and make themselves look like a fool in front of the client anyways)
Banks recruit hardworking people from top schools. Obviously the pipelines isn’t broke so what is? Is it your expectations, how you give work, or do you not realize if you were in their shoes it’s possible you’d make similar mistakes?
Weird to me you say you always have bad analysts and associates. Doesn’t sound like they’re bad, sounds like your expectations and maybe comments might be
Can I add that verbal comments is the worst possible way to give comments.
Especially if the convo begins with “yo, real quick” or some variation…Like can we just hammer it down now rather than doing a bunch of “real quick” type of verbal comments.
Not to sound harsh, but honestly think that you either (1) work often with an MD that has little influence in the group / is a jerk, (2) you personally are disliked by your juniors, or (3) you're at a trash bank with horrible analysts lol.
It's likely 1 or 2, since I know for a fact that most analysts that I know don't prioritize or put in much effort for MDs/VPs who we don't like. If you're not a VP who goes to bat for your analysts during reviews (which seems to be the case given how angry your tone seems), there is literally 0 reason to do good work for you.
I think you probably work at a smaller shop because at a larger one, you don’t just go to bat for the analysts that work for you. You only go to bat for the really good ones because during performance reviews, various offices, product groups and other senior bankers will have perspectives on each of the juniors (there’s usually 10+ VPs and above that will comment on each junior) and the really good ones are consistently top performers no matter who they work for. You can pump an average analyst, but eventually it’ll catch up to you. If you say an analyst is amazing but every other senior banker says they’re bad, it makes you look like you have poor judgement. All of the VPs (there’s another 3 VPs) in my group are currently feeling what I’m feeling and it’s burning them out as well. I think it’s partly due to COVID and the talent pool becoming weaker amongst analysts/associates, I’m finding that the summer interns are on average better than the analysts right now, at least in my group.
Let me know if you're looking for an experienced analyst. Have prior MM M&A experience
There’s a reason why so many banks are cleaning house and firing analysts. The analyst culture of “decks don’t matter” as reflected in some of the prior comments and the pervasive sense of entitlement is coming to an end.
If you are an ANL and you are not producing accurate numbers, well designed models and pretty slides: what are you getting paid for?
Are you sure you’re not a dick? From what I saw, toxic culture and assholes generally create shittier work quality instead of better because you start to lose the respect of juniors who will give less of a shit about the work
Look, it's not easy. There are really three things that you need to have in mind: A) teaching the analysts and associates, B) understanding the limits of their ability, and C) understanding what motivates them.
On A, the bargain for juniors in banking is that the analyst and associate have to grind at the most time consuming, painful work, and in exchange the VP has to teach them and elevate them. That means that you should be proactively providing them with context and helping them grow. If they do something wrong, your instinct should be to show them how to do it, not to "punish" them, but to help them see how you approach things. Because you are a VP, you should still be able to do the analyst and associate job better than they can, so when you have to step in, you should be showing them why you do things the way you do, explaining your thought process, and tying it into the bigger picture (for example, building dynamic functionality for this model change is an extra ten minutes now but will save us hours when we get asked to run fifteen cases in a week or two). You should also be explaining why taking a certain approach is ultimately in the service of avoiding weekend work and fire drills (which should always be part of your goal, where possible). And for the associate, you should be teaching them how you check things so that they can get more efficient and catch more errors before they rise up to you. Also, try to get approval for your analysts and associates to join meetings (when possible) - once they see that the work they do does actually get looked at, it can have a big impact on their attitude toward that work. Similarly, if they can't go to the meeting, you should catch up with them afterward to let them know how it went, what resonated with the client, and why their work ended up being useful or valuable (and don't lie to them - if the client ended up not even opening the book, don't make things up, just say the conversation was good and explain what was discussed).
On B, the reality is that not everyone is actually capable of outputting high quality work product in a time-efficient manner. And the other reality is that, while people on this forum may not like to hear it, the quality of the talent pool has substantially declined over the past several years. When I left banking a couple of years ago, the top analyst in our group would have been lower-middle bucket three years before. With that in mind, if you see that the juniors simply aren't capable, you have to be extremely explicit in your instructions (assume any ambiguity will get interpreted in the wrong direction), and you have to recalibrate timing of deliverables. If you know the work will come back imperfect, aim for faster turns, say you understand that it won't be 100% perfect, and target quick iteration so that you can more closely guide the development of the materials and still meet deadlines for sending things up the chain. Also make sure that you have a really clear understanding of what the MD actually wants from the materials so that you avoid last minute fire drills. Recognize that if someone is trying but just doesn't get it, being mean won't get you anywhere, and you'll ultimately just have to step in more - it's unfortunate, but it's the name of the game. When I was a senior VP, I had a weak analyst and associate, and a live execution with deliverables for a 9am meeting the next day, and they were not able to get the model done (it was sent to me at 9pm completely unusable with no solutions offered), so I ended up pulling an all nighter with them and running the model while they watched, then splitting up outputs among the three of us when it was ready to go. It's not what I should have "had" to do, but I had to, and I did it - they weren't being lazy, they just couldn't get it done.
On C, historically most analysts had the attitude that banking sucks in a lot of ways, but is a great learning experience and a fair bargain. Lately, I think a higher percentage of people are more cynical, less interested in learning, and more interested in trying to clip a paycheck with as little effort as possible. If you have someone with an attitude of wanting to gain as strong a skillset as possible from the job so that they can turbocharge their career and rule the universe one day, the tactics in A coupled with voicing disappointment at subpar work product will basically get the job done. If you have someone that is just trying to get out the door, you have to change your approach. Most people have at least enough integrity that they won't blatantly ignore work, so with these lower-motivation people, you just need to constantly frame things as trying to be efficient and get out the door on Friday and not have to worry again until Monday. If you have someone that is truly not willing to put the work in, then you have to just write them off, buckle down, delegate the most braindead / least critical workstreams to them and tell your staffer you don't want to work with them on anything of consequence again. Sometimes that really is the only solution (but it's not that often and it is a last resort).
Holy shit that was the most structural and systematic way of dealing with people that I've ever seen. Are you a psycho/sociopath? Or just a really good at your job?
This is really the baseline expectation for VPs and what everyone sets out to do.
The challenge becomes doing all of the above across 10 projects while simultaneously preparing talking points/deciding what to say for the next pitch, handling all of the logistics on the business development side, sketching out slides across 10 projects and staying up to date in the industry.
Now add in a kid who is sick or any sort of family issue and it just becomes impossible to get everything done and you have to cut corners. The unfortunate reality is if mentoring / giving guidance is the least noticeable if you stop doing it and so usually it is the first to go when you flat out don't have enough time to get everything done.
I would donate my left kidney to be able to work with you.
"Garbage Work"
From kids working likely double the hours you are, with maybe a third of the experience and a fourth of the pay.
Blame yourself and go out of your way to teach them the technical skills that they will easily learn, as they simply come with a few reps and some instruction from the more-experienced.
Every VP in banking is going through the same problem. On average, quality of juniors is lowest its ever been and continuing to decline. Very senior bankers are also acutely aware of this as well, but have little motivation or incentive to fix the situation.
To my question above - is it that the juniors are low quality, or the mid-level folks aren't taking the same time as before to train and teach?
In my experience each successive junior class has less natural ability and/or motivation to deliver a good work product, and hold themselves accountable. Some VPs will spend plenty of time trying to train folks up, but that none of that matters if you're working with a low ceiling junior. I think most VPs will give every fair shot and dedicate the time to train. The unmotivated folks that make the same fatal flaw mistakes over and over again (of which there are now more and more) are quickly written off.
I think also need to factor in that accelerated promotion means associate are somewhat lower quality than they used to be. not raw brainpower, etc. but if you're As2, having an extra year of experience is 25% more experience. Unfortunately, IB is a job where experience stacks up and matters more than being clever.
I've seen analysts 2 being promoted to associate and pretty much stop modelling, "empowering" the more junior analysts. By comparison when I was an analyst 1, most real models were done by 3rd year analysts or junior associates.
Attitude has changed too - the whole week-end / late night work debate has a simple consequence: if you go from working 80 hours a week to 60 (or 100 to 75), you do 25% less things in a year. this adds up... And whilst there was and still is a debauchery of wasted work in banking, it contributes to the learning experience
I don't disagree with this notion, because I think it's widely acknowledged there has been something of a talent drain from IB into other fields (Tech, Straight to Buyside, etc.)
But isn't it also pretty possible that this is largely a function of the time-honored tradition of shitting on the generation that comes after you no matter what? "Back in my day...." type of thinking?
"Kids these days are so spoiled"-John, 48, raised 3 kids to be spoiled
You think the 100 hour weeks for a $34k mid-bucket bonus is going to help this imaginary situation?
i've seen several comments about this throughout the thread so it's tough to write off as just another "kids these days" rant-- in which case, what is driving this talent decline?
are the sharp and hard-working kids not going into banking as much? (or not into your groups at least...)
is the recruiting pipeline broken?
or do you believe that the past few classes of new grads as a whole are just lower quality (due to some rebalancing of life priorities post-COVID or some general societal decline or whatever)
1) Talent drain to other industries and professions. Lots of opportunities with more upside working in tech, startups, running an Amazon FBA business, or being an influencer. The value of internet fame, eyeballs, and content creation has increased exponentially in a very short amount of time. It's never been easier to monetize viewership. Quite a few kids I know are crushing it as influencers, making bank creating content on Tik Tok, Youtube, etc. Some are doing very well even with low hanging fruit, selling courses, day in the life of content, etc.
2) Current generation just doesn't work as hard relative to predecessors. And why would they? Especially in light of the alternative opportunities which provide more upside.
3) Forced diversity hiring. Kids who are receiving offers coming from a community college with a 40% graduation rate and unable to spell or write proper English are being set up to fail.
4) For those who are dead set on going PE route, there's less incentive to deliver good work if you know you're on your way out. I've seen quite a few kids who were terrible at their job get into good PE shops.
No one takes ownership anymore. If you want to drive top notch work product you have to be a dick. I get crap work all the time from junior bankers these last few months
Spoken like a textbook poor leader("you have to be a dick")
Glad I don't work for you (I hope)
Op take responsibility. If your juniors are producing garbage work you are a garbage vp. Stop blaming people under you.
I was in the military before and if a commander EVER said his soldiers below him were garbage or blamed them for screwing something up he'd be fired on the spot. Leaders always take responsibility. If they are producing poor work you haven't properly trained them or have given them too much work on too short a timeline(that's YOUR issue).
Be a leader for once in your life and take responsibility vs blaming 22 year olds for your problems.
And the fact you think that the solution is to be an asshole to drive better work product shows me you have never been a true leader and probably never will(no offense).
I did not read OP's post as "well, gotta be an a**hole now." More that he's seeing this issue and is looking for help on it.
I like your message (be more of a leader and anything that's wrong is on you), but quite frankly, it only goes so far. That message is 99% accurate for a CEO, but only 30% applicable for a banking VP. They can be a leader for their analyst and associate, but they are part of a larger organization - the way the larger organization does things (e.g. protected hours, even if some folks are unproductive), the people that are hired (not everyone is competent / trainable), the people who can be fired. OP's analyst may already have another job lined up.
OP is drowning. No support below. No support from the top to fix it (we don't care enough, just get the job done - poor leadership). You have to acknowledge that more leadership only gets you so far. I'm not saying it's this bad, but this is a key reason why folks leave to go work somewhere else - an untenable situation they actually can't fully control
This is a bullshit take. Maybe OP's leadership is disinterested/trying to squeeze every last cent out of the bottom line, but that is just an excuse. OP needs to take extreme ownership of his responsibilities - the buck stops with him. If he is getting garbage work, he has provided garbage direction, or training. My company could give two shits about staffing coverage, and seems to be doing everything they can to sell the business. So that means any tasks I delegate, I have to be extra clear on what I am looking for, so as to not cause delays for clients. Sometimes receiving error prone deliverables is unavoidable, but that is on me to either train better, provide better direction, or do the work myself if support staff is incapable.
OP shows he is (currently) no leader by coming here to complain. Maybe they can change that.
It’s because they don’t like you, nor respect you
Thanks everyone for all your thoughts. All the VPs in my group went out for a quick drink tonight and we’ve come to the conclusion that there is no solution to the problem. MDs don’t want to fire anyone. They fired one of the analysts who literally couldn’t take notes on client calls and turn any verbal comments, but HR wasn’t happy about that one (one of the other VPs absolutely hated this guy). One of the VPs is quitting banking after the director promotion, the other two have kids and are literally dying at home and work. He Told me last night his baby was crying on the ground non stop next to his feet at 1 am as he was fixing a model. Luckily I don’t have kids yet, but the only solution is to keep training the current analysts/associates to become average ones or wait till some leave and hire better analysts/associates. As mentioned by others on this forum and after having worked with 100s of analysts over my time in IB, some analysts are just untrainable even after all the time you spend with them. You often know very quickly as well if someone will be a good banker or not based on their mannerism, the way they approach work, attitude, etc.
Why did the VP hate that kid? Purely incompetence-related?
damn is this real? wow haha
Mid-level banking with kids is about as difficult as it gets. There are many times a month it makes you think about leaving for a boring ass corporate finance gig. Then you get the next pitch, receive a slew of IOIs well above your pitch range, etc. and you are sucked back in.
Great thread. I think it's a good point about the problems posed by acceleration programs for backgrounds the firm has decided it should select for for PR purposes. When I was in college IB was regarded as this really challenging, fast-paced job that could make things very tricky on just about anyone. Just don't think it is a job that lends itself well at all to the diversity quotas etc. Someone said "setting folks up for failure" and I think that is on the money. Once the type of work you get from someone who cannot succeed in the job is tolerated, all goes downhill. Definitely a diluted level of talent in firms.
You can already tell what a dickhead OP is already by referring it to "garbage". If you're a garbage senior, you deserve garbage work
Shut up and fix it.
That's your job as their senior.
They're just kiddies. Give them a break.
Junior level work product and quality has definitely diminished since COVID started. It's objectively just a fact. And the level of ownership and pride for one's work product has all but disappeared. I think it's also a generational thing. I feel like most young Gen Zers do not want to grind in an office until the wee hours of the morning, even if that's what they signed up for.
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