How much mentorship is there at an MM/pod shop?
As a junior SS ER analyst/assoc, I have obviously considered the pod life many times.
One thing I wonder about: how much mentorship is there once you get there? How do you actually learn? I ask because I feel like when I hear about people from SMs, they talk about the PMs "mentoring" them. You don't hear that so much from pod guys.
Because as I stand right now, I'm not a fully fledged investor, obviously (am I expected to be?). What's the path to get there? When (if) you join a pod team, is it a case of, building up reps by yourself and reflecting on each day? Or is there any sort of collective learning, within a team?
This may sound like the dumbest question ever but I haven't been able to get a good answer yet. Would be great to hear some reflections.
Not in equities so take me with a grain of salt.
I would say that from what I’ve seen + experienced, the amount of mentorship you get is highly variable depending on how much your PM wants to invest in you / how many analysts he has / how many 5yo kids he has / a variety of other factors. I was lucky in that I found a PM who was willing to teach me essentially from scratch. The dynamic changed as 1) we had some turnover, and 2) we had a few large trades that sucked up a massive amount of time. In the end it all gets quite variable.
I would say however that being on the buy side itself is a great learning opportunity. I’ve been forced to make quick decisions, think more about portfolio construction (vs the “how many bps should I charge this client for this trade?” sort of market making thinking), think bigger picture, and build a stronger fundamental view. That you really learn from trial by fire + a lot of reps (which hopefully your team gives you the leeway for), not teaching, and I’m grateful I got the experience. Even if I go back to any of my previous BB roles, I’d be meaningfully more of a powerhouse.
A bit of a tangent there but hopefully helpful.
Have had 2 PMs (did grad program out of school)
other than the training program, and the sessions I have with IPD at the firm who try to give ongoing support, the PMs I’ve worked for haven’t really bothered “taking me under their wing” so to speak.
First guy was reasonably successful, had a process and a senior analyst and just wanted to get the work done. Just needed a junior for mundane tasks and news flow and mainly to support the senior analyst. Senior analyst then left to a T2 PM seat so I worked with my PM for like 6m. Like one time he told me his thought process behind a few names in the book, to be honest kinda felt like he was trading on vibes a bit “this guy said this and last quarter he said this, could be interesting to see if it plays out” -> type of thesis he would describe to me.
Eventually let me pitch names into the book, asked some questions which helped me gauge how he’s thinking about my ideas but never explicitly taught me.
Current PM communicates via symphony with me, sometimes a BBG ping. Asks me to build stuff out and give proper pitches to him every week but gives 0 feedback or pushback and I frankly think he uses me as a market barometer rather than an alpha source.
Damn. Any advice to incoming guys at grad schemes? Also, do you know if your experience is typical/atypical. Going to be at p72/c next summer
I would say it's atypical because of how small the pods are. Usually, people join slightly larger ones from what I've seen. Some people have churned out of the firm, some have been repodded, and some took offers elsewhere.
My advice is to convert your summer, and worry about this stuff later. Try to make a good impression with a PM that has had some levity at the firm and aim to stay in contact when/if you return.
Bruh not trying to dox you but LOL I'm quite sure we went to the same place... (okay tbf most pod shops are like this but it really varies across the pods and is PM-dependent). Short of the IPD people, genuinely the PMs I have encountered couldn't really be bothered. It's a very in-silo kind of job where my PMs/analysts had that sell-side ER or IBD exposure and generally had many many reps in the game. As such, all they wanted was an execution monkey instead of actually trying to mentor/nurture the juniors.
I didn't even interact with my PM much (if at all) because he's a super seasoned one, and I mainly worked with a senior analyst under him. The senior analyst made good money (had 7 figure bonuses years) but mentorship was kinda shitty. Mainly came from "vibes/feels" and just "knowing" if numbers would beat/miss consensus, as well as looking at charts and trends to make calls... LOL whatever. Mine is a bit of an oddity but I felt super lost and even depressed at times because L/S is an apprenticeship business but I was just making my way through it blindly.
My batchmates felt quite similar, though they were a few that lucked out and said they had good mentorship (most of their PMs were new PMs, one guy was a seasoned veteran who was just really kind to juniors). The MMs can sell you whatever story they want, but end of the day most people work by themselves, and your experience is going to differ lots from pod to pod for sure. Oh well, such is the industry.
Regardless, always good to see an analyst from a similar background, and wish you all the best ahead! (Full disclosure: I may have not been cut out for the job, and am no longer in the space, but I definitely do enjoy investing on a personal level myself).
What do you do now? How did you find the process of exiting the HF world?
Full disclosure, fucking hated it man. Being washed out/leaving an industry you are really passionate about sucks. But at that point I wasn't doing well or learning much and the firm/PM didn't have much of a reason to keep me around either. So it was a resignation on paper but officially it was a mutual consensus for me to leave.
PM left a while after: My understanding is he went to a smaller fund on his own accord, but I don't know the full story. I went back to banking at a boutique through a few connections/good friends in the space. Had bunch of IB internships and could model/grind and I was relatively fresh from publics so they were willing to take me. Helped that deal flow was good. But ofc took a setback in base comp (40%?). Just happy I can find a job. Do I like banking? Hell no lmao, monkey work is monkey work. But it pays the bills, though longer term I don't know what exactly to do. I don't really have an online presence since washing out, but still keep in touch with some HH/connections in finance. No clue what to do next. Maybe a smaller, long-biased fund?
Are you thinking of leaving ER?
I got a ton of mentorship
Would you mind elaborating a bit more on your experience?
Was this something you expressly searched for when jumping to HF? Do you see peers getting the same treatment? Who's the mentorship from?
can anyone comment about the credit pods? relatively smaller world so curious if there's a different perspective
Wow reading the comments here makes me feel extremely lucky. I have had the exact opposite experience so far, granted I'm not at what people consider as a tier 1 pod shop.
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