Asking for Early Promote + Staffing Improvements at BB?
I'm an Analyst at a BB and am up for A2A this winter (I've been promised to be promoted). I'd like to stay in banking for the medium term, but will need major changes to proceed at my current firm as I am burnt out. High-level, I'd like to ask for staffing improvements and immediate promotion (with A2A bonus), but am trying to gauge how realistic this is.
My situation is unique to most and is outlined below:
- Spent the first 1.5 years at a different BB in the midst of turmoil (UBS/Barclays/Citi) and moved to my current BB with 4 MDs/Ds on my team (no VPs/Associates were asked over). We've been here for ~6-months
- Top performer who is not staffed with other juniors; I've been working the most hours in my department for months now (more details below)
- The MDs/Ds I came over with have only been willing to work with me (i.e. they don't work with any other VPs/Associates/Analysts)
- Work in an emerging space doing esoteric work; no coworkers of mine have the training to date to replicate the analysis / modeling I'm asked to produce for the MDs/Ds I came over with
- I'm also staffed away from my original team and am the only junior on those accounts (albeit typically with a VP as well)
- Have very strong deal flow aligned for the second half of the year; counter argument is I've yet to close anything meaningful at the new firm (haven't been here long enough)
- I have strong senior support from the MDs/Ds I came over with and have been held in high regards among the existing senior banking team at my current BB
- Seniors/VPs have begun taking notice of my overstaffing and have begun offering solutions to decrease my workload long-term, but I'm in need of a short-term solution if I am to stay at my current firm. My team does not use a staffer system (my old firm did and I've pitched this idea, but to no avail)
- Given I have some political stickiness here and am new I would prefer not to leave as to not get the "job-hopper" label too early into my career
With the above, I'd like to 1) be promoted A2A this summer and 2) get in writing formal protections to improve my WLB (I don't have any mechanism to noticeably push back on senior asks). How realistic are these asks and how would I best go about asking for them (if at all)?
Based on the most helpful WSO content, here are some insights and advice for your situation:
Realism of Your Asks:
Immediate Promotion (A2A) with Bonus:
Staffing Improvements and Work-Life Balance (WLB) Protections:
Steps to Take:
Document Your Achievements:
Propose Solutions:
Seek Senior Support:
Formalize Your Requests:
Additional Tips:
By following these steps and leveraging your strong performance and senior support, you can increase the likelihood of achieving your goals. Good luck!
Sources: 20 Most Frequently Asked Questions - London Edition, 10 Friendly Reminders While Networking for SA Programs (from a BB Analyst Perspective), Need advice on asking for promotion, Q&A: Disadvantaged Background to A2A Promote at Elite Boutique, https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/consulting/just-got-promoted-how-to-negotiate-salary?customgpt=1
The short answer is these asks are not realistic and there’s no easy way to request them. BUT that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try for it all the same. If you’re truly willing to walk away, then it makes sense to ask for what you want. If you don’t ask, you won’t receive - fundamental rule in career and life.
If you go about making these requests, you should be ready for rejection. I would suggest you not frame it as a take it or leave it, because a lot of times even your MD even your Group Head does not have the power to grant these things. Things like promotions and formal mechanisms to limit work are often escalated to the head of division for final sign off and even if your team is willing to go that far, there’s nothing they can do to guarantee that outcome. It’s not easy for large BBs to make decisions like this for single analysts. You might be the most important analyst in the world to your 4 MDs and Ds, but when the head of your division is receiving an off-timed, off-cycle, one-off, immediate request to promote one of 900 analysts, and a recent hire from a spiraling bank at that, you may quickly find out how special exactly any one employee is to the firm.
If you do ask, the way these things get done would be to get another offer at the associate level elsewhere first. Without any leverage you’re just standing there with nothing but your in your hands making big requests. I would say to frame it positively. Say you’re enjoying the work and the team and are looking forward to being a part of its growth, but the work load is just not sustainable for you at the moment and is damaging your health from sleep deprivation and inability to exercise and eat on time, and you think your contributions are more in line with an associate because x, y, and z. To continue performing at a high level over the long run it would help to get the A2A promotion in the coming weeks and a way to keep your workload at or below a z hour per week level, which you track with the team. When they inevitably say no or punt it down the line with no set date for response, you say awww man that one is tough for me because I actually have this associate offer on the table (I wasn’t looking it just came to me) and without a better work life balance and promotion I really can’t justify staying even though I want to stay really badly. After that move I give you a 25% chance of success (astronomically higher than if you go in there with no offer in hand). I think you might be able to get it since you sound like a killer, good luck.
OP Here. Thank you for the input and I tend to agree that my asks are unlikely to yield meaningful results. Regardless, this has been quite helpful in weighing my decision/options.
Through some introspection the money up-front is not worth the continued drag on my wlb and health. I'm planning to take your advice and push on getting improvements (if any) to my workload. Otherwise it will be time to walk away. Best of luck to you!
Assume this is a vent to some extent. Agree with above, these are not realistic and I think making these asks to a senior would make them question your maturity / understanding of the broader business a bit. There are ways you can phrase staffing help, but no one is going to give you an early promote or offer you a get out of jail free staffing card in writing.
1. Assuming your firm is on a winter cycle - BBs won't do an early promote, especially for A2A. The schedule is rigid, everyone gets promoted at the same time, laterals typically get kind of screwed with extra years, so if you're getting it 2.5 years call it a win. No dice here.
2. No one is giving you something in writing to protect you. Restaff one deal you hate or ask not to work with a senior you really dislike, fine, but getting shit from seniors is just how it works in IB. The way to approach this is with your staffer, say you're really interested in XYZ accounts with ABC senior and want to focus more on that coverage as an associate if opportunities come up. If you have juniors starting this summer, maybe offer to take one or two on your deals and train them up (an initial time investment, but you'll have solid working juniors soon enough)
Honestly, it sounds like the best path for you might not be at this firm. They'll restaff a project if a good analyst asks for it, but that's about it - they are not going to make major structural changes to keep an analyst around, even if you feel you are at VP level/irreplaceable/somehow drive BB-level deal flow as an analyst (?). Truthfully, they will hire someone in 5 seconds if you leave.
OP here. Thanks, appreciate the insight. Felt the early promote ask was unrealistic and this seems to confirm my assumption. Focusing more on workload, part of my staffing issue is that I do not have a staffer or anyone to manage incoming asks from seniors. I do push back as much as possible, but it has been difficult given my unique modeling skillset compared to my peers.
One thought I have had is getting an Analyst to slot-in below me. The thought is to have them shadow me on all staffings as I train them-up until they are able to operate on their own. Do you have any thoughts on this idea? Or how to push on this ask? Otherwise, I'm leaving my firm and the industry,
You won't get your own dedicated analyst as an associate 1. Even MDs don't get their own, they want to give a mix of exposure to everyone. It's staffing dependent and in the best case scenario, you'll get a rotation of analysts on various deals, but you might still be running solo on some. Given the rotation of analysts in/out of your deals and the firm, you should expect to most of your time as an ASO training and checking their work. That'll give you some leverage on *actual* work, but it doesn't relly eliminate late nights or lower hours.
I went A2A and worked way more as an ASO than analyst (more deals that could blow up on a given night, more checking, more responsibility; A2A expectations are also much higher than MBA ASOs)
Again, a lot of these things are just not going to change at a large BB. It sounds like you know that - it's okay to leave for WLB reasons even if you like the work itself.
I was in a similar place earlier this year feeling super burned out. Assuming you’ve already gone through reviews (don’t want to get screwed), I would do the following.
1. Request a Friday off / protected weekend or whatever your bank will give you. Put it on for sometime in the next 3 months
2. Take a full week off for summer vacation if you haven’t taken any PTO in the last year (the team will be fine, I promise. You aren’t that important. If you were to quit, everything would be restaffed and they’d forget you anyway)
3. Delegate delegate delegate - send as much to the offshore team as possible. If they suck, invest the time now (30 minutes a day on zoom) until you can ship them entire decks and just have to quality check
4. In excel, create a table with every project, senior, other juniors, internal work streams, etc. Then have a column of low, medium, high impacting your personal well-being, low, medium, high, how much you care about the client, and low, medium, high how time consuming the workstream it is. Then sit down with your staffer, or your group head, whoever runs the show and discuss what projects you can roll off of (* when I did this, I discussed with a senior mentor ahead of time and he was able to help me phrase why certain clients were more important for me when I spoke to my seniors. “I was on the pitch and did the last deal and have spent a lot of time with the client and they email me one-off and I have a relationship” vs “I got staffed on this client when Joe quit and given the new structure of the team and new hires, it may be a good for x to help me with, or for x to have a chance to work with vp/md”
5. Don’t answer any emails before 10am on Saturday and recover from your night out. Someone will call you if they really need you
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