I've always been interested to hear if any of you have a preference of the type of co-workers you're on a deal with. Do you prefer an athlete who is less technically advanced, or would you rather have the 4.0 student who lacked extracurriculars. What other activities translate well to IB?
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I assume you’re primarily asking in the context of IB. I’ve worn many hats, including IB, but my answer’s the same regardless.
Someone who is smart (don’t have to be a genius, but someone that takes a thoughtful approach), works hard, is a team player (doesn’t throw others under the bus or pull shady shit to get ahead), and doesn’t take themselves too seriously. Someone you can occasionally shoot the shit with or grab drinks to chill. They don’t have to fit a particular mold or stereotype. Just people that are normal and chill to talk to.
Normal and chill to talk to. cannot be overstated.
This guy gets it. As long as you aren't completely brain dead, normal and pull your weight people don't care.
Absolutely and easy to work with.
.
I would have to add an inquisitive and critical to my favorite coworker's traits.
Critical thinking is important because most of the time your bosses is clearly missing something or had an oversight on a particular issue. Asking why we do X so we could achieve Y is definitely useful as an analyst or any junior position, hopefully your boss doesn't hire you solely because he needs administrative and excel monkey help (if they did, run, i know what goes after it wouldn't be even close to bad).
Also people who aren't afraid to ask questions ("right" kind of questions i might add) are awesome because it really trains you to be very observant and would accelerate your learning process tenfold.
Not IB, but pretty much what equity research 99 said.
I would add that generally besides being able to shoot the shit/banter, being comfortable addressing either to me or someone else when something isn't working.
Also note taking...I absolutely hate and will always hate that crap so if they are more detail oriented than me it helps me when I pull my weight on more strategic actions... if I cannot remember what I ate this morning then guaranteed I am not going to remember what some engineer we interviewed said 2 weeks ago.
Might explain why all my past girlfriends end up being my personal EAs lol
it never hurts to be attractive
also, have some cool interests that could spark up a conversation
the more you can build rapport in interviews the better
One laid back dude I've worked with described himself to me as "reluctantly in finance" and I thought that was a good / funny way to describe the people I've liked most in IB thus far.
If I'm on a deal with them I hope they also have a social life
It helps a ton if your associate/VP also get yeeted on weekends with their friends and push you to grind everything out by 4:30PM on Fridays so they don't have to review your work or respond to your questions in the middle of their plans. Prioritizing grinding Monday - Thursday makes this job so much more reasonable
Worst feeling in the world, having done three drafts "Can you just make this again. It's a slide I used when I was an analyst"
Irony is they probably only had the chance to use it because their MD at the time allowed juniors to have creative input.
If you get the job done, are a nice person, and don't backstab anyone, that would be great.
Personally, I don't care if your interests involve being hung from hooks and whipped by a dude in a leather mask on the weekends.
All I ask is for people who don’t call to ask me something that could have been an e-mail. Ends up taking 15 minutes to get these type of people off the phone and eats up so much of the day
Somebody who’s willing to be in the office 24/7/365.
You're not gonna get far with that attitude, kid
Female, attractive.
someone who knows what they're doing
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