As someone who came into RE PE directly after UG and who skipped the IBD chapter of life, I'm interested to hear from people who understand life at a BB on one particular subject: As an associate in a busy group at a BB, how much modelling do you actually do? My impression is that the analysts do 80% of the heavy lifting on the models, and that the associates are responsible for making sure they're accurate (and they take the heat if there's any mistakes).... associates may also help less experienced analysts with tricky parts of the model & give advice on comps, assumptions, etc, but they're not pulling long hours on models. Is this the correct impression?
If I do have the correct impression on this, then why/how do associates pull really long hours? What are they doing for so long? (assuming analysts are slaving away over models and pitchbooks all night...) Just cracking whips and proof-reading? I guess this brings me to another question: what is the split by numbers of analysts vs. associates at BBs in a typical coverage group like industrials or real estate? Meaning: how many analysts are there per associate.
Anyways -- just thinking about whether I want to be an associate in IBD after business school or come back to PE directly... I've heard being an associate in IBD is just as bad as an analyst- but I don't understand why/how (aside from the pressure.... which I'm sure is considerable).
Banking isn't just pitchbooks and models. Writing CIM's, running deals, and waiting on turns from above and below can make for long hours. It's not like the analyst is done with the model when it's convenient for the associate. The associate isn't at home waiting for it. They're in the pit with you on the late nights.
Yeah. I guess I figured that... and of course I understand that all of banking isn't pitchbooks and models. Currently as an associate in PE I have a ton of other responsibilities beyond drafting memos / building models (mostly to do with deal execution, negotiation/structuring agreements, etc.)... but it just seems like banks are SO BIG that this kind of stuff is likely done all by MDs... anyways... I'm just trying to get a feel for IBD associate life.
anyways, I guess this whole forum topic is kind of rambling... now that I look back over it. sorry everyone.
senior associates probably start thinking about getting to the next level, ie when they make VP the need to start bringing in business and clients. which is an addition to the analyst type work they do. but in general i have noticed associates at my bank definitely work better hours than analysts, probably at least two hours less a day than analysts
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