Any advice for incoming juniors?

To those who currently work in the industry or exited to buy-side in the past few years, is there any general advice you would give to someone starting BB sell-side ER out of college? Not really talking about which industries are hot right now, but general things you think are unique to ER that most people aren't aware of when starting out.

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You will likely vastly underestimate the amount of selling on this job.

Sell-side ER is not about stock picking (wait, are they "stock analysts"?) - it's about providing management access (kissing management ass, kissing IR ass, kissing investor ass, kissing everyone's ass), it's about creating products (models that buy-side can build off on, primers that help buy-side understand a sector quickly and analyst day summaries because buy-side cannot attend 5 analyst days that take place simultaneously) that save buy-side time. Some star analysts are pompous idiots but they bring IPO deals to their banks (no, ER and IB are not independent of each other, no matter how many FINRA exams tell you they are) and people enjoy watching them with bow tie on TV talking about mega-cap stock where informational edge is so minimal, because CNBC / Bloomberg don't create audience without these clowns. 

With all that said, you do build an industry expertise and do learn how to pick stocks if your analyst happens to differentiate on that front. But too much time is spent on marketing / selling that if you should make a move to buy-side (if that's your passion) when you feel ready. Cuz it's gonna be a grind. 

 

which sellside ER jobs involve the least ass kissing and the most stock research? Boutiques? Top-ranked firms (JPM/BAML/Evercore)? I’ve heard OpCo and Bernstein comparatively de-emphasize the sales aspect of ER. Any truth to this?
 

(I’m don’t dislike the relationship aspect of the business. It’s refreshing from time-to-time. But, in general, I definitely enjoy the research more)

 

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