Do analysts have more power now?

I was wondering... at least in my group there is an undersupply of juniors to fill the ranks. This seems to be the case across the street, with a supply crunch for warm analyst bodies. Does this inherently give the current juniors who have been at the firm a few months to a year more power over their WLB? The post-covid environment is shaping up to shed the face-time norms of old and compete with other high-paying industries ie. tech, PE.

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Analysts with few months experience will likely always be a drag in the short term, as you’re training for something greater. This limits your advantage a bit because you’re still kinda replaceable during that process.

The supply crunch definitely makes senior analysts and associates more valuable though, as long as you can actually execute.

 

Yep exactly - someone a more-experienced banker can actually trust to run workstreams, produce high quality deliverables, take initiative, etc.

Those people can emerge at the 1-2 year mark and are extremely valuable to any platform. I think good banks are focused on recognizing the impact of these relatively junior (but very important) folks too

 

Hypothetically it should, given how hard laterals are to come by, but have not seen it in reality. Every time I've seen someone well known to be struggling/close to quitting, the group doesn't make any big effort to keep them. Maybe a 2nd year analyst who has been through the last year could push back, but not any more than they used to, and certainly not a new analyst starting up. Besides the pay raises, there haven't been any real efforts to improve WLB. 

 

The thing is, if you really wanted better work life balance, you could always move to corp dev or a bank with less active deal flow. The job is just as interesting, but pace is slower, so comp and career trajectory is slower. 

The pandemic was the perfect storm of a challenging environment to learn, huge spike in dealflow and groups caught flatfooted with reduced headcount given expectation of upcoming cuts.

Headcounts now up across the board, dealflow has normalized and people have the option to go back to the office. This years' crop of first years knew exactly what they were getting themselves into and only have themselves to.

 

Yes and no. As the above commenter mentioned, work has picked up with WFH (though I'm new so I didn't get to see the difference), but banks are also very worried about losing talent right now and are trying to make adjustments to retain analysts, which many may not realize, but is still an example of our indirect influence. Who knew it was important to keep the guy around that's made multiple 20-tab+ models on a project that's heating up, with formulas so complex it'd make an MBA associate drop their ego.

 

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