Associates who “Do” vs. “Review”
Through my analyst stint, have encountered many different types of associates, broadly those who “Do” versus those who “Review”.
associates who “Do” have no problem taking on modeling, turning difficult comments, building pages, etc.. In my experience more A2As are like this (who would’ve thought). Most of the time when they’re “doing”, it’s because they can do it 4x faster than an analyst (because they’re essentially a super analyst).
then there are the associates who “review” and that’s really it. They never really take initiative on doing things in the weeds, so will often let you fly on your own when modeling, building complicated slides, and just be there to review and answer questions while they handle behind the scenes deal process stuff (e.g. KYC). They often won’t make direct edits (even if small) but will instead chalk you up a comment like they’re an MD. They also assume that any asks from seniors will fall to the analyst
What is the “right” way to approach being an associate? Maybe I’m being naive and the answer is clearly the “doers”, but I also feel like it can vary group-to-group culture-to-culture how responsibilities are divided between anl and aso.
Can an Associate who only 'reviews' make it to VP? How can you properly "review" if you never "do"
Those guys make up 90% of MDs. The ones who can “do” usually go nuts in banking and head elsewhere.
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A few random thoughts, which may or may not be helpful.
The truth is past your first year as an associate, you don’t really get any credit for either building out a model or reviewing it. This seems to only look at the associate job through the analysts viewpoint which kind of misses the point.
Your job as an associate is “idea generation”, talking to clients, proactively managing the process, and making sure everything gets done on time and 100% correct.
If you spend most of your day making pages, you’ll look bad because the assumption is you’re not correctly allocating your time to the items listed above. You’re also seen as incapable of training analysts if you’re constantly doing the analyst job for them.
That being said, it’s absolutely critical that you’re able to jump in if the timeline is very tight. You look terrible if you miss a deadline or send something that’s filled with mistakes to a client, particularly if you’re just giving out orders and not helping to get things across the finish line. In a firedrill, you also look bad if you’re not holding the pen and building out the model or whatever so that it gets done as quickly as possible.
You look a bit foolish at times if the analyst is quicker at building slides or building a model than you are, though this is really secondary to everything listed above and not a critical aspect to doing your job well.
Increasingly, you also get in trouble if analysts are routinely working late on your projects or on weekends, so after midnight there’s a lot of pressure to jump in.
Don't think that the correct answer fits nicely into either the "doer" or "reviewer" category, but will say that doer is not the right way to approach it. I had a very difficult time when I first became an associate being comfortable not doing everything and delegating to the analyst because I had more faith in my ability to do the deliverable 100% correctly than to review the analyst's work and catch a minor mistake. However, the truly good senior associates that I've worked w/ erred more towards the reviewer side, although not as described in the OP. They were comfortable delegating, but were highly aware of each moving piece of a given deliverable to the point that their review was high level but very effective and they were able to clearly articulate what points a given ask should hit before having the analyst get started on it. This approach is also obviously much better for analyst development because they need the reps to get to the point that the associate is w/in the next couple of years. These associates also handled client communication and expectation management very well and were on the analysts' side in terms of having an open line of communication to discuss/clarify questions on deliverables. The only time that these associates really jumped into the "doing" part of the job were on text-heavy thematic pages (exec summaries, process considerations (more complex in RX than M&A), etc.) that they could knock out better and in 1/10 the time that the analyst could, or if there was a complex deliverable on a very compressed timeline. If you trust the analyst, this doesn't mean taking over the Excel, but it does mean having them walk you through it in detail. No decent analyst wants to waste time walking through an a simple operating model w/ their associate, but if you're putting together something complex that you don't regularly have to do that's critically important to a live deal, it is helpful to walk/talk through it w/ a senior associate before it goes out to the broader group.
The hard part about doing the above is that you have to be highly competent, but the secondary part which is also very important is putting yourself in the analyst's shoes (obviously while being highly aware of timeline & process management). Most A2As have a pretty good intuition of when their analyst could use some guidance on something or when they know what they're doing and would rather you fuck off and let them grind. In terms of idea generation and content creation, they also have a good sense of what's important and what is a gigantic waste of time that only MD would think important. They tend not to have analysts create BS content that is in no way important because they've been in the analyst's spot, don't want to create unnecessary work for them, and know what should actually be prioritized.
I used to do a lot of "doing", as you've noted it was much quicker for me to do it than it was for me to instruct the analyst, have them do it slowly, and then go through 1-2 further iterations of comments until it's in the shape I want it. I was told by my MD that I need to do a lot less "doing" and focus on more important tasks, it wasn't an efficient use of my time and it was delaying the analyst's development.
There's several angles to view this from, and "reviewers" aren't necessarily lazy associates not willing to do the hard work. I don't send my comments to an analyst because I'm too lazy to go into the deck and make the changes myself (which in a lot of cases would be quicker to do), I send them so they can see what the changes are so they can hopefully pick them up in the first draft next time. That said, associates should still be pulling their weight on deliverables rather than downstreaming all comments. I liked to divide up the deck with what I thought the analyst was capable of taking on and what I was better suited to doing, giving them more responsibility as time went on.
You are viewing from a narrow analyst perspective, demanding equal contribution from your associate who u see as equal.. the truth is that their KPI is not the same as urs and they don’t get rewarded for doing analyst work once they are associate 2 and up. I used to do the modeling entirely when I have time becuz reviewing an analyst model takes way more/equal effort to me. Not sure why analysts here always think that associates have it easy. Every time u guys are done with your slides at midnight I have to stay up even later to check your work too. Our roles are clearly different which are reflected on our performance review so not sure the hate. If associates’ bonus is based on our ability to model and build slides you think we wouldn’t be doing it?
Analysts create the material (product XYZ - model, decks, CIMs etc.)
Associates review for accuracy and step in to “do” when analysts need the uplift (is XYZ accurate- model ties out, #s on the CIM are correct, etc. + formatting stuff)
VPs review for content (client asked for XYZ, do we actually have XYZ in this deck/model + final check on formatting)
MDs review for messaging (does XYZ align with the value proposition or other message that we want to get across via XYZ)
That’s how I was taught the order of operations and roles/hierarchy and that’s how it has more or less played out in practice thus far. May be different across firms and groups so take that as you will.
Side note- in my personal opinion/experience associates who lean heavy on the “do” versus “review” are doing their analysts and themselves a disfavor. Sure it might be quicker for all involved if the associate steps in and builds out a portion of the model, but the short term benefit of going to sleep at 1 am vs. 3 am is marginal compared to the lack of development the analyst gets at modeling and the lack of development the associate gets at reviewing and managing the deal process. My two cents.
This is a great question. I used to be a former analyst and then post-mba associate. When I was an analyst, I only respected the associates (usually the A2As) who were able to "do" as you described. I hated the associates that only "reviewed" and seemed to only provide dumb, high-level comments which I ascribed to them not knowing anything.
So when I became an associate, I was a "doer". The reason is that I wanted to pitch in as a team member. But more importantly, it was because I knew that I could do whatever the task at hand was in half time and get it right the first time around. Because of this, the analysts all thought highly of me and liked me.
So I thought I was doing an awesome job. I couldn't have been more wrong. In my review, the people above me said that I was too in the weeds and couldn't get out of the analyst work. They thought I was just a super senior analyst, and not leadership material. Meanwhile, I was just dumbfounded. I thought I was going above and beyond to help out the analysts and getting faster, higher-quality work to people above me.
Following that review, I did a complete 180. I dumped all work on the analysts. If it smelled even remotely like something an analysts should do, I didn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. Instead, I sat there in my office and twiddled my thumbs while the analysts pulled all nighters. I went to the gym and became the associate I hated. Since I had all this time on my hands, I spent time doing "VP-level" level work, like talking to clients, going to client meetings, and having lunches with my the MDs and Directors on my teams. In my next review, I got top bucket. They all said that they thought I was doing a fantastic job being a leader, learning how to delegate work and stepping up.
What I realized is that what analyst respect in an associate is not what MD/Directors/VPs respect in an associate. Everything is about perception management. And, frankly, the only perception that matters is from the people who determine your bonus. I'm still dumbfounded by that experience, because I thought I was just being lazy. Maybe it's different for you.