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That's how most people felt when they first start the role. At least I felt the same way.
Now, two things you can do. One, just sit there, complain and whine like a little b*, and do nothing. Just wait for the dooms day to come.
Two, you know you are not at that level. You know there are smarter kids out there. Most people who succeed in this industry turn these urge into the drive to make themselves better everyday. Now there are still some time. Learn everyday, and try to understand what their expectations are from you on day 1. No one will expect you to make $$$ from day 1. If they do, you are in a wrong place. They'll give you enough guidance and tools so that you can learn how to succeed.
Good luck
If you don't mind, need the name of the firm to try my luck.
Just do your best, the game isn't played nor won on paper.
Everyone feels that way, particularly early in their career. The reality is that investing is not rocket science as much as we like to pretend we're special.
All that is needed is pattern recognition, self awareness, self motivation, a desire to learn, reasonable commercial instincts, and consistently good judgement.
Started my career with a lot of self doubt, didn't help. If they think you belong, you belong man.
Good luck dude.
Just my personal experience, but I have worked with people with varying skills and level of intelligence throughout my career. Not all the “smart” ones have a lasting career, just as not all the “average” ones have short careers. As long as you have the ability to learn and willingness to put in the hard work, you can play an important role on a team. Some people may be weak in some areas but they have other strengths that should be played to. If you have concerns and genuinely want to succeed, talk to your manager and see if he/she can point you in the right direction help you map out a path (assessment on strengths and weaknesses) so you can grow and be an valuable contributor to the team. From what I have observed, those that don’t last are the ones that have little to no desire to improve themselves.
Assuming this is a fundamental role and not a quant role and keep in mind I'm long-only so slightly different - I've worked with many people that are WAAYY smarter on paper than me, but they were/are way worse investors. You don't need to be a MENSA 130 IQ math computer brain to be good at this job. A lot of those people actually suck at fundamental investing because they are too analytical. They try to model everything to the penny and overwhelm themselves on little data points that don't matter and miss the big picture.Some of them lack the intuition and people skills to be good at the qualitative aspects of this job. This is an art not a science. If you saw my models, you would be surprised how simple they are but they are just there to support or test the thesis. If assumption 657 in your model changes your thesis, you need to pass, it is too complex. If you are passionate about investing, work hard, and have some common sense and above average intelligence that is enough.
From an over-analytical guy who is bad at investing because I don't understand the "art" side of it all and I hate taking risks that I don't completely understand, how would I improve?
It is impossible to take a risk that you don't *completely* understand. You are never going to have all the information you need to have 100% confidence in your decision. You can easily go into paralysis by analysis if you try to live this way. Even if you did have complete information, there are so many unpredictable variables that you could still be wrong. This is like baseball, you are shooting for a high batting average with your picks, you can never be 100% right all the time, bad picks are part of the job. A big key is eliminating some of the downside risk if you are wrong and there are a lot of things you can do. Maybe that is position sizing based on your conviction level, maybe that is putting in place an exit strategy such that you sell if certain parts of your thesis change. One thing I have done to remove downside risk is I remove the worst balance sheets from my investable universe. It's a risk I don't need to take because when financial risk goes wrong, it goes wrong fast. Also the amount of conviction I need for a low quality cyclical is much different than a higher quality company. Does a name have too many moving parts? Sometimes I just put a name in the "too hard" pile. The stock could go up and I'll miss it but if I am having a hard time getting a good read and don't feel like I have a grasp on downside, it's just not my pitch. I could hit the curveball breaking off the edge of the plate but why not just wait for a fastball?
Saying IDK and being humble is good in this business. That's the advantage of being just above average intelligence, you know you aren't the smartest. Sometimes the smartest people think they truly can know everything and outsmart everyone, becoming overly confident. OP your self-awareness will serve you well in this industry. Overconfidence is killer because your ego gets in the way and you can't admit mistakes or when you are wrong causing you to behaviorally hold on to losers too long or wait too long for a name to work. If you think you can know everything then good luck. I've given up on trying to predict macro, and making big macro bets - too hard. My investments need to have some company-specific catalysts to help hedge the macro.
Some key parts to the "art" side are:
Management - what is the background and do you think they will do what they say they will do, do they have a history of success? Do you trust them? If I get a slimy feeling about a management team or feel bad energy when I meet them, it's an instant pass. Red flag in background = pass. Not worth it. Overly promotional/confident management teams, are a yellow flag as well. Yellow because sometimes these guys still execute well, but sometimes these are major fraudsters. History is important in this case.
Business and sentiment - What changes are happening in the business, industry and macro to impact forward outlook and what does the street expect? The sell-side can be slow to give credit for changes in the business typically and sentiment can easily swing too negative or too positive. What have you found or do you see that the market doesn't understand or appreciate.
Read - read about the industry, read about successful companies, read about successful managers, read what other good investors do and have done. Reading about these things definitely will give you more context on understanding the "art" side.
Experience - you need to learn from past mistakes and your successes - what did I get wrong here, what did I get right? What can I do to improve my process going forward.
Read books on growth mindset by Carol Dweck
Tell them you’re not smart, that way you don’t worry about the offer!
Some of the most successful people in the business have made careers off of exactly this, you'll be fine man. Just learn how to play firm politics and focus more on not being wrong vs trying to always be right, self-awareness is a great characteristic to have.
FWIW plenty of smart people blew up by acting too smart- see long term capital management, Enron, any of the big MBS and CDS players in ‘08, Archegos, Tiger Global, Melvin? (Can argue they got unlucky), etc. Since you are self aware (and may honestly be underestimating yourself) you may have an advantage there by sticking to what you know. Like how Buffet and others have said to stay within your circle of competence.
You don’t need to be a genius to be disciplined and rational.
The HF clearly believes that you are smart enough -- otherwise you wouldn't have gotten an offer. Unless it's a RenTech type of fund, everyone in this industry just sounds really smart and convicted but is otherwise no smarter than you. Seriously! Don't sell yourself short!
the fact that you have this insight would suggest you're probably smarter than your competition
Sounding smarter than you actually are is a skill that can get you rich. It's a little bit of a gamble, but if you can get money committed to you, and just pick investments that pay a high return with a huge risk, you can collect a huge paycheck until it blows up. And then with the experience on your resume, you can actually get another job. As crazy as it sounds, there are many people out there doing it now. It helps to have good pedigree in general.
But then again, you have figured something out, you kind of see it, right?
Why post this?
If you've landed it next summer you've got plenty of time to get your head down & understand how to improve these shortcomings you self-diagnose.
But making this post to start crying about your competition isn't helping you.
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