Apologies for the rant
Longtime lurker posting from a new account.
Apologies for the coming rant. I could use some perspective / advice.
First a bit of background - graduated from M7 MBA ~year and half ago, 2nd year associate in TMT coverage group at BB in NYC. Group is well regarded, but not GS-level well-regarded. Ranked middle bucket, with good support in the group / decent mentorship.
Rant: I've been on ~1.5 - 2 live deals in the last 6 months, and frankly on 1 of those deals, the analyst did most of the "interesting" work, and we were both micromanaged pretty heavily by a VP. I get it - didn't go to B school to be the analyst, but I struggle to see where I'm adding value when squeezed between a strong VP and strong analyst...
That wouldn't be so bad if we weren't constantly churning out mindless pitches & "discussion materials". Seriously what software company needs 20+ pages of generic appendix info? Is that a good use of anyone's time? On these pitches, I generally have an analyst under me, but as a more junior associate, oftentimes I'm getting dumped with the work. I'm a team player, and I get it -- live deal takes priority -- but some days I'm sitting here wondering WTF I'm spending my 30s on... assembling pitch pages that no one reads? massaging / reordering logos? Making mindless / endless profiles? Even when the analyst can make the pages, I'm still checking them / helping assemble.
I don't want to complain internally, because don't want to be seen as a whiner. Posting here instead. Anyone else in a similar boat? Whats up folks?
EDIT: Removing some of my background to be less identifiable ;)
There's a lot to digest here - below are some clarification questions / scattered advice...
You said past 6 months have been bad? What about the year before? Is the overall group activity down, or are you just being shafted with staffings?
Are these pitches with MDs who you worked with heavily in year 1, or are you being passed around to handle the shitty work?
Do you have a mentor VP / director that you can grab coffee with and discuss more tactfully?
Sometimes, it pays to be proactive. Go around to some of the busier (deals) MDs and say you'd like to work with them and to keep you in mind for their next sell side... maybe one will bite
RE the endless pitching - are you using your resources efficiently? Making use of the graphics team? For logos, use Logo Intern Dot com. Will save you a ton of time.
Likewise, if you find yourself grinding out the same pages over and over again, you can work with the analysts to assemble / organize some "best of" templates. I've done this, and it saves way more time than you'd expect.
Seasoned pitch monkey here -- agree there's a lot you can do to improve efficiency here. It's not fun or glamorous work (not saying that in a judgmental way), but you can do a lot to make this less painful.
Agree with this. Not trying to be a dick, but OP sounds a little whiny.
Yeah you're not closing deals on the PJ yet, my dude. Grab a shovel and starting mucking out the pen.
Some people will understand your frustration and they, as well as you, probably have other options to make good money and do interesting work.
I am a back office bitch applying for MBA programs and hopefully I'm lucky enough to be in your position in 4 years. If at that time the VP told me to smell the analyst's balls for 80 hours a week, for 300k a year, I would without hesitating (I say that now...). Right now I do uninteresting, boring, mind numbing work, for a forth of that wage. Yeah the hours will be different and the work might be frustrating but someone like me with no real skills being able to make that kind of money because I am good at coffee chats? I'll take it every time.
I realize what I said probably isn't that helpful but just a reminder that it's all about perspective. You have the skills, background, and degree to pivot to something more interesting and still make good money. My guess is you will soon start getting more and more responsibilities just as all MBA bankers do at some point. They want to see if you are VP material so you will get your chance. I would say tough it out one more year and you will either get the VP promote and be forced to do more interesting work or will get pushed out with more experience. Tough it out! You got this!
I went from FO to BO to running my own $100mm+ deals with BX/KKR/Citadel/Sequoia. I cannot tell you how much this fucking made me laugh.
Finance -- until you get to the top -- is just different flavors and salary levels of mind numbing, juvenile, ultimately meaningless bitch work that you don't realize is totally just bitch work until you are the one running the show.
Oh STFU
I think part of your issue is this:
“ didn't go to B school to be the analyst, but I struggle to see where I'm adding value when squeezed between a strong VP and strong analyst...”
You have an entitlement issue. As a senior analyst the new associates drove me nuts, they thought they somehow were valuable because they got a MBA, but I could do both their job and my job better and had the confidence of the more senior people. This is a huge issue in banking. I was directly asked at one point to “mentor” 3 associates who were making more money than me, wtf is that about. Junior people don’t mentor more senior people in any other industry than banking.
If I were you, I would take a hard loo at what the VPs do and emulate that. I would also treat any 3rd year analyst in reach like gold. They often can do anything from newbie to director level work.
After leaving banking (after more than a decade), I’ve learned a few things...get to know an industry vertical really well. The bankers I talk to now know all of my competitors and what they are doing because they are focused. Pick some industry sub-segment and learn all about it and then, more importantly, get to know all of the people from execs to Corp dev folks. That’s really where a banker starts to add value.
I used to be a VP at MS. Be happy that you have a VP in front of you and a strong analyst beneath you. It makes your life easier. When I was a second-year associate, I never had a VP in front of me and had relatively weak analysts beneath me. I wound up doing all of the VP, associate, and quite a bit of analyst work -- and got reamed out when something went wrong at any one of those three levels. If I screwed something up at the VP level, I was not being proactive and stepping up. If some number was wrong in the analysis, I was not being a good associate and triple checking number. If I spent too much time doing analyst-level work, because I was working with relatively weak analysts, I was being too in the weeds and not delegating enough. And, when all things did go perfectly, nobody gave me extra credit for it at the end of the year. It was just expected. So my advice to you is -- enjoy your setup while you can. At some point, speak to your staffer about getting on projects where there is nobody above you. It will happen soon enough. Just be patient. Then you can deal with the hell I described above.
So a bunch of years ago I was in your shoes, and made an early jump into PE. Do NOT leave the bank too early. You need to recognize that you're getting paid a lot of money which will buy you freedom to make moves later, it's getting a brand on your CV, and it's letting you network with software companies - any one of which might go unicorn and hire you over. No one cares if you're intellectually stimulated. Try to learn what you can, find a mentor, and if you find yourself with slack time use it to study and make yourself a stronger finance professional.