I'm a few weeks into an analyst role at a BB after working a summer in PE and I find being an analyst very difficult.
The work definitely isn't mentally challenging but starting at a screen and listening in on calls - I feel like I don't retain information and I make so many mistakes.
Theres a lot of nuance in deliverables that I dont catch and my associates have to turn comments for me average twice because I'll fix one set of comments and there are other things that were messed up after that turn of comments.
Idk I always felt I was detail oriented but after a week in banking i feel like I'm so brute and cannot see any of the mistakes that the seniors catch.
Has anyone felt this??? Like I'm genuinely trying to collect data points cause I feel like such a terrible analyst
not an analyst but from what I've read you guys tend to be "useless" sponges until 6 months - 1 year into your position lol.
idk tho thats just based on what I've seen other posters say. Wouldn't worry abt it
You’re fine. Im top tier analyst and was like that at first. You need to relax. Take good notes. Write everything down, no matter how silly or small and ask yourself does this make sense? Before you send it. Also make sure you turned every comment before you send to associates. Relax you are doing fine. Noone will fire you before your first year.
Coming out of the woodwork for this since I am a senior who has dealt with this before in analysts.
On the one hand don't beat yourself up too much if all you need is more reps. Understanding comes with time and repetition.
That said, you need to improve in time, and the sooner the better. There are 2nd+ year analysts who are decent enough on excel/ppt but seem not to "get it", or lack common sense when it comes to putting materials together. Keep in mind that most of the analyses you put together are highly-calibrated persuasive argumentation, and not just expository writing. As a general matter, if you're putting comments through blindly but not thinking holistically about whether and how those changes have enhanced the persuasiveness of the pitch deck / model / memo / etc., you need to do so.
There are lots of potential reasons why your work diverges from the expectations of your seniors. Maybe you don't understand the purpose or internal logic of the particular analysis you're doing. Maybe you haven't adapted yourself to the team you are on, and need to work on understanding and anticipating the team's preferences as you draft materials. Maybe you don't understand the high-level view your team is taking (and the counterarguments to it) well enough to be able to navigate the task of preparing materials that take a position on these issues. The list goes on.
Bottom line - just focus in the beginning on being methodical and getting it right. Dont avoid asking questions if it's going to result in bad work product, but ask questions efficiently and preferably not the same one twice. With time you will become fast and good, but for now I would advise you to focus on being good and thorough so that you can develop the proper foundation.
Lots of constructive comments here already, but FWIW I used to be a VP and a middle market IB and got pinned with an analyst who was right out of school on several consecutive projects. He was an all star student but completely incompetent in the real world. He suffered from many of the symptoms you describe, but far worse. As far as 4-5 months in he literally added zero value - I had to explain things twice, redo all of his work, then double back and explain what I fixed....on every. single. thing.
Fortunately, like you he was self-aware. He knew he wasn’t getting it done and he gave serious consideration to if it was the right path for him. Ultimately he really doubled down and just made the tiny incremental adjustments to improve an inch at a time. He got his own systems to stay organized, learned when to ask questions, started seeing the bigger picture of his granular work etc. 6 months in he proactively sought me out to have a more detailed year-end review, where I have him a fair but fucking brutal assessment of how far behind he was. I honestly didn’t think he was going to make it.
But low and behold…over the next few months those inches added up to feet, then yards, then miles. By month 9-10 he was just barely behind the group – still making mistakes, but not the same stuff over and over. And that’s all it really took – by his second year he was killing it.
The moral of this tale of bourgeoisie evolution? Everyone is different. There is undoubtedly a learning curve that everyone feels daunted by at some point or another. If you are being introspective, that’s half the battle. If the job is not for you, certainly no shame in that – most paths are happier than that of banking. If you do stick with it, improvement comes with i) repetition, ii) developing a stronger sense for context (of process/execution, perspective of seniors, etc.), and iii) never making the same mistake twice.