Associate vs Analyst Work Battle

This was my experience....When I was a first-year associate, I divided up the work with the analysts because that felt like the fair thing to do. I was a former analyst and hated when my associates would dump work on me and go home. So when I became an associate, I did not want to be one of those "lazy" associates that I hated when I was an analyst. Plus, I figured that if I helped out (division of labor was usually 70/30 with modeling work going to the analyst), the analyst and I would be able to get our work done faster as a team.

Of course, because of this, the analysts all thought I was a great associate. I also thought my VPs and Directors would applaud me for being a team player for helping out the analyst. Nope! I couldn't have been more wrong. In my annual review at the end of my first year, everything was positive except for one major thing. I got blasted for being too in the weeds (i.e., doing work that analysts should be doing). In fact, my manager told me off the record that he knew that I being a "good guy" but if I continued to do that, people above me would have a hard time seeing me as anything more than a "fourth-year" analyst whereas, to get promoted to VP, people needed to see me as an officer.

From that point on, I never again divided up work with analysts. I "dumped" all analyst level work on the analysts and instead spent that time on "bigger picture" VP level work. Not surprisingly, in my subsequent reviews, I was applauded for my big picture thinking and officer potential, not to mention my ability to leverage junior resources. It was truly retarded. But I learned something very important -- the definition of a "good" associate to an analyst is very different than the definition of a "good" associate to more senior people in the firm.

In my experience, most associates in my group go through a similar phase like I did. Most first-year associates tend to help out the analysts and divide up work with them because they either want to be a team player or they want to learn how do it themselves or they do not feel they have the authority to fully direct the analyst. However, by the time they become second years, they tend to step away from the analyst work and try to focus on bigger picture stuff so that they can start transitioning into an officer role (plus, honestly, VP level stuff is much more fun).