Hardest Time in your Analyst Years?

I’m a few months in and it’s gotten harder and harder, I feel like I’m making big mistakes every day and my hours keep going up.

When was your hardest point in banking? I’m not specifically asking about the most hours, because a 70 hour week where you constantly fuck up sounds worse than a 85 hour week where you’re in a groove the whole time. I’m talking about the period where IB was grinding you down the most. 6 months? 1 year? First 3 months? Would love to hear when (in your analyst years) it was the worst for you and maybe when it got better.

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it gets better man don't sweat it. IMO months 5-8, where you know enough of the basics to start getting real analyst responsibility, but dont have the experience yet to know the common pitfalls, or the tried and true methods to avoid making mistakes - that time for me was the worst. But here's what i will say - each time you F up and feel crappy, you can atleast rest assured you'll never make that mistake again. Very few of us started off an analysts who delivered very consistent error free work - we only got here through a lot of trial and error and learning from mistakes. don't beat yourself up. When the new kids arrive by the time you're wrapping up year 1, youll be shocked at how little they know, aka how much you've learned and not even realized. Just think positive thoughts, and view every mistake as a chance to improve, and take pride the next time you catch that same mistake before it gets infront of your MD.

 

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