not necessarily who will get the MF gigs but more so who has some combination of underlying leadership capabilities (?) and/or relationship leveraging skills that are conducive to being a future rainmaker in some capacity or field
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No. Absolutely not. Most MDs don't even know the names of their analysts. Moreover, there's a self selection process where 90% of the analysts chose to leave banking. No one is looking for future rainmakers in the analyst class. The only thing they're looking for is someone who can crank 18-22 hours/day
I always thought potential to become an MD was far more of a focus in MBA associate recruiting, since they’re more likely to become career bankers than analysts all else equal.
Based on my friends in banking who are staying, it feels like a bell-curve where the best and worst analysts leave and the middle of the pack stays. Typically the absolute rock-star analysts go to PE/HF/etc and the bad ones get pushed out, and of the remaining middle-of-the-pack analysts is where many of the associates come from (though many of these leave as well).
Anyway, I’ve found you typically get a sense of the future MDs at the associate / early VP level. It’s nearly impossible to sense which analysts either want to make MD or are good enough to because everyone is just trying not to drown as an analyst, but at the associate+ level you can start to differentiate who is just there to review PPT slides and who actually is good at the job, can interact with clients, etc.
Also found that the best senior bankers isn’t correlated at all with junior talent. It’s a well-known fact that my former group head was a bottom bucket associate his first few years (didn’t know how to use excel, wasn’t detail oriented, etc) and barely made VP, but once he got in front of clients he was awesome at sales and was a huge rain maker.
Great points. Where I work there is a huge gap between some VPs. Wow I really dislike the term rockstar analyst though
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