Getting Fired Over Performance

Just started as an analyst in August and have been making making little mistakes in decks n excel, but have been trying my best and responding to things on time and delivering things timely. How badly do I have to fuck up to get fired? If I made a mistake in a deck and the more senior people don’t notice it and it gets sent to clients, is it entirely my fault?

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There's two parts to this question.

(1) Though quite unlikely, it is absolutely possible to be let go in your first year. You'd have to be a very poor performer, but headcount reductions do happen, the senior group / team head will need to make decisions, and juniors who are consistently bad can be let go.

(2) Unless it is absolutely absurd, or deliberate, you won't be fired for a mistake in a deck sent to a client that has been reviewed. Seldom is any mistake so bad that it is beyond redemption. I suppose inadvertently leaking MNPI might fall into the category of "pretty damn serious", but that's besides the point. The point is that the book was reviewed. When my, for example, VP / AS hands me a deck, it is their deck. They own every mistake. It is literally in their job description to review work prepared by juniors they are supposed to be managing. Ok we're all human and the blame will realistically be de facto shared, but you shouldn't be fired in any team unless it has a truly toxic culture.

 

I’ve been canned within my first year. It was a pretty shit boutique, they canned me for performance but later found out by my VP that it was due to headcount and encouraged me to seek legal advice. So yes you can get canned as an analyst, and it is likely to happen if you’re not performing well on a team that isn’t doing well. As long as you haven’t gotten any documented emails from your team that insinuate them trying to PiP you covertly you should be ok. The PiP is when you need to start sending resumes.

 

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