Bad attention to detail - am I cooked?
I recently started as an AN1 on buyside out of college. My work product has not been great, no matter how much I check there is always at least some tiny mistake. I've fucked up two of the past deliverables I've submitted with number errors. My associate doesn't abuse me or anything but clearly gets pissed and I'm worried this is going to negatively impact my review/bonus/references once I leave. 90% of my job is working with data/numbers. I also didn't get a return offer from junior summer internship cause of this. I was a B student in college despite studying a ton so considering taking the stimulant route. I've tried printing out my work which did help a bit but curious if there are any other tips. I feel like I suck at my job and very frustrated.
Friend he’s mad at you but gets it because you’re new. Tbh first year on the job you’ll make all manner of fuck ups.
Just keep pushing forward
I can solve moderate differential equations in my head and have the meticulousness of a hawk. But I’m unemployed.
So no you’re not cooked. You already have the opportunity, you can always improve.
Build a growth mindset, and work on it with the mentality that it can be improved. Otherwise, you’ll cognitively hinder yourself by your own psychological limitations.
No offense, but how did you manage to land a buyside gig out of college with your resume / track record? Feel like that wouldn’t even be competitive for a middle / back office role at a LMM bank. Genuine question.
This was my first thought as well, but I decided to go the uplifting route.
That’s fair. Just curious to know what the secret sauce to landing buyside roles is these days, if it’s not resume and experience, GPA, high quality work output, attention to detail, etc. Seriously blows my mind seeing the recent shift in what firms prioritize when hiring. Maybe increase in nepotism or DEI program standards? (Note: Not saying I dislike DEI initiatives, I think they are very needed. But crazy to see how many non-qualified candidates are hired through these programs that have ever decreasing standards that interviewees have to meet to get hired on. I think these programs need major restructuring to ensure that there is REAL DEI and not just a corporate front to make firms look like they are progressive, but in fact, just lowered the glass ceiling even lower than it was before through hiring objectively unqualified employees.)
My role is not as sexy as the ones people idolize on here - I don't work in MF PE or anything like that. I had a solid junior summer internship where people were more than willing to put in a good word for me simply because they liked me. I did get some shit about my grades when recruiting full time but nothing too crazy. I am not nepotism or diversity.
it’s a skill. you can practice it. actively make an effort and you’ll get better.
This issue won’t get better unless you address it. You could have some adhd or you could have some detail nazi associates. Everyone makes mistakes but some teams are harsher than others. I don’t know if you’re cooked but unfortunately attention to detail is a skill that’s needed to succeed in this job.
no, you're not cooked. but you'll be cooked if you continue on this path with no improvement and no plan to improve.
Write down every single mistake you make. Turn it into a checklist. Print decks + checklist before you send them and literally check each item off as you go. DO NOT submit work without going through the checklist (unless it's some urgent thing of course)
Even if you spend 45 min tying out every number on the page, that's still less time than it takes for someone to send you comments and you to turn the work.
Part of this is just being new and an AN1, but you have to own it. This is one of those things that takes no talent, just giving enough of a shit to check your own work. Stimulants are not a great thing to start just because you are struggling to check your own work.
Absolutely
Printing, PDF’ing, putting it away for an hour and coming back to it with truly fresh eyes, checklists, tying the numbers from the back of the deck to the front and vice versa, tying the numbers from the footnotes to the taglines and vice versa, make a pact with another analyst to check each other’s numbers in good faith, ask your supervisor how he spotted the error and add it to your checklist, check slower, etc. List is endless and you need to do all of them for a perfect product
I always advise new analysts to take their sweet time on the first turn of models. Never rush through completion and rely on double-checking, which always missed a thing or two.
Compartmentalize your models (financial summary in one tab, revenue build in another tab, etc.) with rows for checks and double-check each piece constantly throughout the model as you build it out. Way easier to find and catch errors that way and ultimately saves you time down to road by minimizing turns.
“Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.”
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