Easily the worst analyst in my group.

I think it's a plus that you can acknowledge and accept how bad you are right now. That's actually a big plus, a lot of people can't even get that right and think they're great when they're not. You're just going to have to try harder than the rest. What type of mistakes are you making? Make a note of it, and go over it before you go to sleep so you don't make it again. It's gonna suck but practice during whatever free time you have left until you start catching up. See if you can find a mentor to help you and ask good well thought out questions. Find the best analyst and see if you can pick his brain, if he's a douche then just watch him and pick up some of his habits. You'll get better, you just have to put in more work than other people. At least you want to get better.

Feel free to pm me and we can set up a call and I’ll give you some tips.

Even if you want to be a killer analyst and get top-bucket bonuses, amazing references, etc. (strong assumption that you even do want that), all that matters is developing good relationships with seniors. The random associate who doesn't like working with you doesn't mean anything in the big picture. Get coffee with Directors/MDs, and do the really easy, high-visibility shit and absolutely crush those low hanging fruit. Send out press releases / news articles as soon as they come out, try to participate in meetings, etc.

I was in your shoes (3rd year analyst now and leaving soon) - I was trash at the job and would make stupid mistakes way too often. Soon realized I have two options:

1) Actually try to build those skills from the ground up, gain mentorship from strong associates, become a technical god who always goes above and beyond to produce flawless work (fuck that lol)

2) Just get by on the stuff above but become highly visible and liked by the people who actually matter for my review and in turn get great feedback while doing minimal work 

Obviously I picked option #2 - I don't want to be a career banker nor do I give a flying fuck what the miserable 35-year old MBA associate thinks about me when he catches that I missed a footnote. I have a core group of seniors who will vouch for me, I have waaay less anxiety around my work, and all around just enjoying better vibes. 

Find someone who will mentor you- we've all been there. Just be loyal to them. I made so many mistakes when I first started I just kept trying and stayed humble. The fact you acknowledge that you're not making the cut is half the battle.  Just stick with it and ask for help don't spin your wheels. 

Felt that way when I first started too. One mental model that helped me overcome similiar feelings of anxiety was realizing that my two years as an analyst would eventually end and that I would move on with all the knowledge I had accumulated.

Because your analyst years won't last forever, you should focus your energy on maximizing learning opportunities / asking questions as opposed to stressing over your perceived lack of knowledge. Even if you were incompentent, it would take your boss around 6 months to find that out and another 6 months to do anything about it, at which point you'd be about halfway done with your stint. At the end of the day, just channel that stress you're feeling into intellectual curiosoity and use that to fuel your desire to get better. If you have to spend some extra time on the weekend reviewing stuff you don't understand, that's toally okay. I still allocate a certain portion of my day to read up on things I don't fully understand / poke around models.

The real world doesn't have an instruction manual and your learning experience is probably not a priority for your boss, so try to be your own advocate. If nothing else, you'll gain a sense of agency and shorten the transition from student to professional. Good luck!    

I'm having a similar issue but I'm staffed almost exclusively on deals with our office on the other coast and it feels tough to bounce back. Super hard to prove to someone remotely that you're learning and improving. I never interact with that team outside of them asking me for work so I'm basically a resource that they email when they need shit.

Best of luck man I think you can pull through.

Surprised (and happy) with all these comments so far. It’s a skill to have the awareness to know you might be a little behind the curve starting off.

I was in the same boat. Just practice practice practice and when you start feeling more confident by December maybe have a chat with your staffer (or associate/VP you develop a relationship with). Let them know you might’ve started slow but have been going above and beyond, but still want their input on where you can improve upon.

I’m a slow learner, but realized that and worked extremely hard my first year on the desk to be in a better place. This job isn’t hard - just requires you to put your head down and grind.

Its ok to be a "bad analyst", as long as you have a great attitude and somewhat improve over time. Starting banking is hard and takes time/reps to get better. I would know... I was in your position.

What's not ok is to be a bad analyst and also an unmotivated / shitty culture fit... have dealt with a few of those analysts over time and its mentally exhausting to work with them. 

The other analysts in your group be like:

Don't worry about it bud. I'm A2A and have been in banking for a while (ignore the title) and over the years have seen many straight up bottom bucket analysts get great exit opps (MF PE, cool start ups, etc.). Why? Because no one wants to work with them so they had all the time to network, prep for interviews and BS their way into those jobs. Whereas a few of the top analysts were so crushed that they didn't have the time to really recruit or vet out opportunities and just took the first job they could get. Granted I'm at a top bank so the name in itself helps but nevertheless see it as a blessing in disguise. If you are set on exiting there is 0 incentive to be good at the job.

All of the above plus

Sure it's bad to make mistakes but it's OK if you have the right attitude otherwise.

What I consider really bad analysts are those without initiative, lazy to do anything, pushing back on reasonable requests etc

I think many of us have been there at one point in time. 

Many people come into the job and were previously near the top of their high school, college, and even local bar trivia course and get blind-sided when they join the workforce at an IB and realize that many of the people are also from similar backgrounds. Feeling that pressure to perform and excel amongst your peers is good but you should also set reasonable expectations based on your performance.

Some tips overall:

• Wanting to exit in response to this feeling is the worst thing you can do. The best thing you can do is try to identify what habits and skills you're able to work on so that you address the problem instead of just running away from it. A lot of juniors go into the "I'm going to recruit for the first LMM PE gig that hits me up" mood and don't seem to do that well
• Focus on incremental improvements instead of big improvements. Overall, you're going to continue to have errors as long as you stay in the job. The best thing you can do is try and reduce the error rate to a reasonable level. You can do this with checker models, checking the top left and bottom right cell of a formula range to ensure things flow right, etc. 
• If you're rushing to get work out and it is wrong focus on getting it right. This is key when you're working on other projects and the work comes later than expected as people expect it to be reasonably right. Come in with good quality work - not with fast work

Don’t worry I suck at my job too and I haven’t been fired yet either 

Coming from the former worst analyst in my group to going A2A (which is probably i stuck w banking, jk?). First off, you’re a a month or two on the job, relax. Second, you care enough to make a post about this which to me is a good indicator that you have a good attitude. I’ve worked with bad analysts with good attitudes, and I’ve worked with extremely talented analysts whose attitudes sucked. Will take the former 10/10 times. Third, all the other first years are doing the same dumb shit you’re doing they just don’t advertise it.

Some very simple ways to get a lot better are:

• spend a ton of time making shit look pretty. Perception is reality and you’ll get really fast doing the mundane stuff with enough reps

• print (yes, you heard me) out everything you do, take a 5 minute walk after you finish something. Then force yourself to read AND understand everything that’s on the paper despite how painful before turning it in. I am way less pissed off when I ask about a number and the analyst put some thought into it.

• be positive in the office, don’t complain, respond to people in a timely fashion

• understand that banking is one of the toughest jobs you can do but also one of the most forgiving jobs. You mess up big time? Make sure it never happens again (spoiler it will happen again, just hopefully the time between whoopsies becomes longer)

This post is helpful for juniors including myself. Thanks!

At least you don’t get made fun of via email memes by your bullpen all day

I saw a similar post a month or so ago, so I'll give similar advice as I did before. Overall, it's counter-productive to say you're making a BUNCH of mistakes without trying to specify what mistakes you're making in on certain tasks. My advice would be to isolate where you struggle the most and build from there. 

What specifically are you struggling with? Turning decks? Running Comps? Building operating models? Diligence processes? Buyer lists? Here's some advice for some of those coming from an A3

Turning decks: Slow down. Any senior banker would rather have a deck ~30 min late than ~5 min early and having spelling / grammar errors. Print out your decks and compare it to the markup- a lot of times printed copies turn up more errors than just reviewing your work on a screen. Check things 3+ times when you're starting, with the last time taking a ~1 min walk around the office to reset your eyes

Running comps: leverage other bank's work here. Many IBs publish various industry comps in market updates they provide. Try googling "XXXX investment bank industry updates, "industry whitepapers," etc. If you're aware of a fairness opinion in the space, those almost always publish relevant comps

Building operating models: so much of banker's work is just leveraging prior outputs made from similar processes. If you're making an operating model, many times you don't have to start from scratch. Leverage other work as much as you can from a model skeleton standpoint

Diligence processes: you need to stay hyper organized at all times. Keep a running tally on where documents are published in the data room to start 

Buyer lists: it really depends on the industry, but CIQ buyer screens, pitchbook buyer screens, and just straight up googling can generate ideas. It's always better to have more buyers that are tier 2/3 rather than a handful that are tier 1 and not many additional ones. Be sure to build lots of support into your proposed buyer (how large are they, have they done any recent deals, similar geography, similar customers / end markets served, etc.)

If you're able to tell me what areas you're struggling with perhaps I can assist more 

Lots of really good advice here.

Don't let it get in your head. You'll start to second guess yourself and spiral. Some of the things you've said already make me feel like you're there "associates roll their eyes" etc. Get out of your own head man, this is the part about having a thick skin in IB that you'll always hear of.

When you make a mistake, write it down. Almost like a fuck up journal. You'll likely start to notice patterns and commonalities and will help you internalize what to spend more time on and watch out for when reviewing your own work.

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I'd recommend keeping a log of lessons learned on your job and review them each night or each morning. Going into the more significant errors and do a quick root cause analysis on why you made those erros. 

1) What was the error?

2) What were the contributing factors to that error?

3) Identify a root cause.

4) Identify an instructional fix.

Quick example:

1) Why did I not catch that spelling error on the title slide?

2a) I was too focused on the other content and didn't review the entire slide deck.

2b) I had competing competing priorities and didn't prioritize reviewing before submission. 

2c) I didn't thoroughly review the entire slide deck before submitting.

3) Root cause: I didn't thoroughly review the entire slide deck. 

4) Instruction fix: Review entire slide deck including title and conclusion page before submission. If available, ask a peer to review before submission. 

It’s expected that 75% of analysts with 1 year or less are complete fucking monkeys.

Doesn’t really have implications for your career or perception unless you are tanking to what appears to be an intentional/lazy level. A1 it’s ab putting in the effort and hours and youll be fine

I am also a pretty shit analyst. I can do deliverable/excel/ppt whatever, but when it comes to liaising with ppl/leading calls/leading process or just not being clueless about the deal in general, i pretty much suck at it.

I honestly have no idea whatever is happening on the deal.