Covid kids as Analysts
Alright, as a former Asso that recently left banking, I was a witness to the first and second year analysts that completed their HS upperclassman years during Covid. Sure, there are studs in the A1 and A2 classes right now. However, the average analyst nowadays is significantly worse at their job than the older classes who are now senior analysts and associates. The new “Analyst” is pretty brutal at figuring out things themselves, heavily rely on AI (understand that this is not always a bad thing), and are generally more oblivious to random shit.
My two cents.
Inability to figure things out independently or even with breadcrumbs tracks with my experience.
The timing on that doesnt quite work bud.
the virus can not have children!!!!!!!
Short form content has atrophied people's instincts to conduct primary research and it is not isolated to banking or finance. (or Covid) How do we teach people technical subjects if we can't get them to practice developing logical, reasoning, and applied subject skills while competing for attention for their time?
Yes this is true for the average person but I think there are plenty of people out there who still read 50 page papers for enjoyment and have brains that function. Is IB not able to find those people?
Agreed - think the phenomenon got turbocharged by covid when everybody got stuck at home with no work/school to do for a while
Wtf is going on with these bots crazy man
Fully agree and the scary part about this is that these kids are supposed to be the cream of the crop of their class.
Imagine what the sub 3.5 GPA crowd looks like.
As others have noted I think short-form content, voluntary social isolation, and chronic social media usage is largely to blame for this.
The AI usage isn't inherently bad, but using it as a crutch during your SA stint will not serve you well long-term.
Killers in every gen. They are limited by the tools at their disposal brah.
As such the killers in this gen would drag it over the face of all peers apart from the WW2 Gen. (Respec)
Do you think that this cohort is just a one off and the generation after is going to be better off? You can write this cohort off as COVID era much like we wrote off the lead era cohort where IQs radically dropped due to lead exposure. Pretty fucked up to say this I won’t lie, but I think Covid era effects are reversible where as lead effects aren’t.
Yes but it will require a fundamental shift in society to rid of this behavior collectively. Covid kids turn into covid adults who will have screen addicted socially inept kids etc. there’s needs to be intervention at the earliest development stages.
I mean shit primary schools with NO screens. Socially shun parents who shove iPads in their face as it’s practically child abuse at this point. Start holding kids that don’t perform back with zero exceptions. It doesn’t help that today’s kids just don’t seem to have a lot to do in person these days that we had growing up. Beyond organized sports, it’s not like it’s normal for kids to collect at the movie theaters on weekends, meet up at the bowling alley, bike throughout the neighborhood unsupervised without being harassed by Karen’s or cops, hang out after school at the local cafes etc.
In short you get around it by banning the screens and AI usage until proven competent with enough sense to use it responsibly - then have a curriculum to have it as an enhancement rather than a crutch (when thinking about getting at the root issue of preventing another generation from being like Covid teens).
Younger kids test scores keep dropping. Kids are getting IPhone's / IPad's even younger. Local and State Government's across the country continue to lower standards and remove graduation requirements.
These issues will only continue.
Just wait until the first iPad babies start hitting the desk. Western civilization sure was nice while it lasted, boys.
MS this if you are a dweeb.
Let’s talk about the assos who started their careers/ended college in covid, who never learned to delegate/take time to teach.
I fit the description you provided, and I know I’m not performing well, but also killing myself trying to improve - the associate version of this is giving guidance like “just figure it out by poking around the backup” or saying “I’ll just do it myself” instead of providing comments / feedback.
If I can’t even ask questions or get proper comments on how to improve, then obviously I’m going to rely on AI to teach me. What’s the alternative when on a time crunch?
What about the analysts who refuse to do any digging and just fire off every question to the associate without doing any critical thinking?
As an Associate, I think it is harder to give comments then you realize. Its absolutely a skill at the end of the day that needs to be trained. I will also say to some level the associates are also retained since they have proven they can do the job, not because they were good teachers.
When it comes push to shove and I can work on something for an hour and get it done to a 90-95% level or have an analyst work on something for 4 hours and get it to a 75% level. I am just going to jump in to save us all time. If we have time on things, I am absolutely going to give the analyst the run way to handle things and learn, but not every time is the right time to do that.
I have the opposite experience at my top 3 BB's. Associates fall under 2 buckets: 1) doesn't know how to do everything and you have to do anything and everything or 2) sets very unrealistic deadlines, micromanages, and. is hyper-aggressive. The assoicate 0/1 classes are cooked (espeically A2A's) because of COVID as well.
^^^ this.
I do agree with this for the most part. I will generalize and say (at decent banks) that Assos who began their careers during Covid are cracked. They entered banking as analysts during a market high and were smoked, and the virtual WFH policy off the bat instigated an environment where they had to teach themselves everything. Thus, they were never nurtured / taught well by their older peers, so they became great at their jobs because they worked insane hours and taught everything to themselves along the way. Also agree that the commonality is that Assos are either cracked or they know nothing. It’s so true, because in either instance right, both types of Assos are not in a position to teach / delegate well because (1) they never received that mentoring themselves or (2) they suck
Spot on - the associates who started in 2020-2021 (now VPs) are absolute goats, in my experience. They started during a red hot market, while at the same time, all the experienced analysts/associates that were supposed to train them were either quitting or not showing up. These associates worked insane hours doing everything themselves… ask an associate who started during this time and they’ll have at least a few horror stories. Hell, look at the thread from 2021 “how to deal with 2nd year analysts who refuse to work” and you’ll see how insane it was. Associates were getting so much vitriol literally asking analysts to split grunt work on things like comps, PIBs, etc.
To answer the OP - yes I think the effects of covid (or more accurately, the effects of heightened screen time) is the main cause of your gripes. It’s not just analysts that are affected by this… but they have been the most exposed given they’re the youngest. People these days just have much shorter attention spans and don’t spend as much time really reflecting and thinking.
However, don’t lose sight of the fact that every cohort has issues and there are still gems out there. You just need to find them.
I own this thread.
You are the fungus of this thread that keeps multiplying but everyone wants gone
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