Things You Should Do On Your First Day On The Job - Analyst
Simple bulleted list. Also to the questions that have been received via email/pm/etc. We will be posting 100+ interview answers over the next month for the cost of ... Free. They will be typical questions unlike the twisted versions posted earlier this week. Anyway so here goes on how to efficiently organize your first day since you won't be doing much. (if you get paired up with a more senior person that is fine but this is for when you're doing nothing)
Beyond being normal and positive here is the list.
1. Take note of all people in the office. Rank them by MD through 1st year analyst in a spread sheet and save this down so you don't have to look it up every time in your company sheet. Now when you send your emails out to people put them in order of importance then alpha order every time. EX. Head of group MD, MD, VP, AA3, A3, A1, etc.
2. Set up your outlook to give you an immediate flash up alert when you receive an email. The last thing you want to do is "miss" an email. Also make sure you know how to conference people or transfer calls on your office line. Answer with "This is [name] speaking".
3. Go find an old basic pitchbook, not a M&A or IPO pitch but a "meeting pitchbook" this will entail much less work. Maybe has a PV chart, comps, intro to firm and some league table info (of course the league table will be cut up to make your bank look better). Anyway you get the idea, get a simple book and go through it so you understand what the lowest level book looks like.
4. For the above step, do NOT open the document off the drive just save a copy on your desktop and delete later so no one freaks out when you flip through it on your spare time. Pay attention to the formatting.
5. Your company will use CAPIQ or FACTSET. If your bank hand spreads everything great, but you still want to know the basic codes for Market Cap, Cash, Debt, and a few valuation metrics dependent on the bank (ebitda, sales metrics etc.)
6. Grab a PIB that is laying around in the bull-pin, don't let people see that you're flipping through a pib so do this discreetly just so you know what people in your bank put in them. Usually just some filings, if it is private you should have some data bases, website info etc. etc. Just have an idea of what is there.
7. Go get a notebook and a highlighter. When you get called in for your tasks take notes. If they seem okay with you typing up the notes on your phone thats fine, always write down what you are being told to do. The highlighter is to check to make sure you made changes to a document that was handed to you.
8. Go find a more recent pitchbook with aforementioned comps. Now you can have an "idea" of where things trade in the space you're placed into. Now you will see glaring errors a bit more or at least be skeptical when you see weird multiples.
9. Begin finding out who is most liked in the group, this is an art.
10. Always ask if people need anything late at night (don't be annoying generally stick with asking analysts first, move up the scale later) and unfortunately face time matters when you begin.
That should be a good to do list.
Oh and for #1 don't use the hot key to reply all and double check when you have attachments. That should be a decent list to get yourself set up on day one. Sure there is more.
Generally good advice but why should said analyst have to look through PIBs and old pitchbooks in secrecy?
Other decent tips:
1) Retrieve a group directory with extensions for everyone in the group. Additionally, make sure the list has other essential numbers (printing, graphics, tech support, black cars, etc.).
2) Print off a sheet with your bank's standard color palette in RGB values for reference when making slides.
3) Familiarize yourself with the group's templates for various models (DCF, LBO, etc.). Even if you know how to model already, your peers are going to want to see everything in their standard template, so it's best to know preferred formatting.
4) Map all the printers nearby your desk (you'll often need to print things on a short notice, and if someone is already using the printer right next to your desk, you'll want a backup). Additionally, note which ones are color vs. black and white.
5) Make sure your conference dial-in works and is set up, you'll be sending out meeting invitations shortly.
6) Ensure that you're familiar with how to access filings quickly and efficiently. Depending on whether your firm uses CapIQ or FactSet, these are usually the fastest methods of grabbing filings.
7) Map all of the network drives related to your group. If you have sub-sectors within your group that have their own drives, make sure you map all of these drives as well.
8) Prepare your email inbox for organization. Start creating folders to categorize emails as they come in.
9) Create an email signature in Outlook with all of your vital contact info (email, phone, mobile, etc.). See emails from fellow analysts for a good format.
That's all I can think of!
excellent, thanks for posting
Great post
You want to go through a PIB in secrecy because people are going to make fun of you since a PIB is a meaningless task.
As you can gather success in Wall St is much more political in nature, the work is quite easy, there is just a lot of it.
The other tips from north sider are on point. Only one I kind of disagree with is the LBO template understanding, people won't hand those over to a kid on his first day.
I don't think anyone would laugh at a 1st year analyst a few days into the job for reading old pitches and PIBs. Shows a better attitude than surfing the web while you wait for IT to finally fucking install all your programs, which should've been done before you got there.
^^^ couldn't have said it better.
Just alluding to the overly ambitious nerd type stuff that occurs. While everyone is a go-getter on day one, the super intense guy is usually the one who gets over worked and gets the same pay as the guy who everyone loves and is funny, cool and interesting (error free of course).
Yeah nothing like every single application crashing on you the first day from built in macro's for coloring templates to calling up CAPIQ/Thomson/FACTSET all day long. That stuff still happens 5+ years down the road when you switch jobs by the way.... This includes the printer mapping.
The first thing I do is attach the document, then start writing the email. If I do rarely forget that I attached something, it's still better to have the attachment with no mention of it then vice versa
Best part of GMail is the popup letting you know if you forgot your attachment. Outlook needs to figure out something like that.
Always save before you attach. Don't want an old version being sent out.
Additional thoughts to add (in no particular order):
1) Make a warm, sincere introduction to your assistant and get to know him/her. Learn about their family and interests. Make them feel like you appreciate them and genuinely show that you do (they will be invaluable to you throughout your tenure).
2) Save down a copy of your group's Master Comps file to your desktop, begin to go through it and write down a list of questions you have about things you don't fully understand. Google these items / try to find explanations for them in the 10-K / 10-Q / Press Releases. If and when you still don't understand certain terms or rationale ask an analyst to explain to you what they mean.
3) Print out a matrix that outlines Moody's, S&P, and Fitch ratings for Long and Short term debt with descriptions for each.
4) Search your group's drive for training materials and print out anything that you deem helpful (including: keyboard shortcuts to hang up in cube, primers, training decks et. al)
5) Find out from an analyst (when they are not busy) which add'l sites / accounts they hold for obtaining relevant info for things like transaction comps, industry research, M&A news, etc. Create a spreadsheet to house all your account information (including personal info if you feel so inclined). Add your own logins for these accounts so that you have one convenient location to reference all login information. You can protect the workbook / sheet if you are concerned about having too much information in one place.
6) Create favorites in your web browser to take you directly to your internal research portal, your graphics / production request portals, relevant company investor relations websites, and any other sites you will frequent. For me, bringing up WSO is as easy as Alt + A + W once I open my browser.
7) Create a shortcut from your desktop to branches on your drive. Ex: I use Ctrl + 2 to bring up my industry drive and then assign additional shortcuts to route to specific project folders. This saves tons of time in navigating the drive to get to your folders.
8) Ask senior analysts what rules they use in Outlook to improve email efficiency. Create rules to filter inbox clutter to personal folders that you can review at a later point in time.
9) Spend time getting comfortable with the layout of your drive and file saving best practices. If you are unsure about naming conventions for saving files, ask before you save anything onto the drive.
10) Create a folder for yourself on your desktop with useful templates. If you have down time, pre-size and format standard benchmarking charts for quad pages, horizontal and vertical split pages, and things like standard index price charts. Save down versions of your groups model templates into this or a sub folder called "Model Templates" so that you can have a quick reference for the most commonly used models your group will utilize.
Before you add any email addresses to the "To:" or "Cc:" parts of an email, type the whole message out and attach any relevant files. This will prevent accidentally sending the message in the middle of typing.
great thread, excellent advice
this stuff is gold. keep em coming i vote to make it a sticky...mods?
also you'll be bombarded with 100 new usernames/passwords. personal preference, but I start an excel doc with all my usernames and passwords, then password protect that document with my usual password
yep
my first day is in about 2 weeks. great advice so far, thank you
Thanks for the list of common sense and job duties,
right... because i'm sure you knew all this stuff already because you have a job in IB
I had an intern start here recently and he sat there without moving for an hour staring at his computer screen...which wasn't even powered on...i bet that's snappleapple
First day as a summer analyst is the week after next and these tips are amazing. Much appreciated reminder on how to cover the basics & get acquainted with a new office.
Buy a pair of knee pads and suppress your gag reflex. This will be invaluable throughout your banking career.
Not kidding
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