How do you push back against associates?
An associate goes “find out why x or let’s add y” when you are getting crushed and the md didn’t ask for it, how do you push back? It’s kinda bs that I spent half my time on some bs analysis the md never asked for
Quit. Sounds like you’re the issue, not the associate.
Sounds like someone is the associate all the analysts hate to work for (key word for, not with)
we found the associate
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I always just say - I'm working on X deal with X banker (preferably an intense ED/MD), and don't have the capacity to run this in the near-term. I seriously don't understand why analysts don't push back more - you'd be surprised at how much you actually can.
Wouldn’t this just negatively affect your ranking
Potentially, and that is a decision that you have to make. You can mitigate the negative impact of pushing back by actively communicating with your associate maybe you can answer their question without doing the full analysis. Ultimately, you will need to make a decision how you want to balance your career goals like advancement and rating with your own personal life.
I mean the best way to handle this is to say. I can do this for you, but the earliest I can get it to you is 4:00 am. If your associate is a reasonable person they will find another analyst. If every analyst is swamped then you will probably pull an all nighter.
Depends - if you're good at your work you'll get paid.
Sometimes there's not a lot you can do. You have to remember that as an analyst, your "client" is often the associate or VP, and there are good clients and bad clients.
That said, there are plenty of reasons an associate could ask you for work when the MD didnt. If an associate gets asked to build a book, good associates don't need to be told more than that, they'll know the aim of the materials and the corresponding analysis that needs to be performed. As a result, they might ask you to put together materials that haven't been directly asked for. Maybe they're asking you to put together a tracker for a workstream. I can't imagine an MD would ever ask for that, but some processes require them.
To the extent you can, try to keep an open dialog with your associate. I try to do that with folks who I work with, and I try to be honest about why I think something needs to get done and why I think something is urgent. Some associates are open to that (more so if you've got a good attitude). If you do that, I think its easier to ask folks if something can wait for a bit. Of course, it's a balancing act, if you're just always busy or always pushing back on everything, then you're going to piss off your associate.
I wasn't originally gonna respond but your post hits the nail on one of the BIGGEST downers of IB and one of the primary reasons I left the industyr.
No, there are no good assocaites that "create" work out of thin air. They do NOT know what the MD's are thinking and most VP"s don't know either. 80-90% of the time the work is done to cover their own ass in an effort to seem like they've created some value to justify them being in that chain of command. I can elaborate but anyone who has actually done IB for a while knows this to be a fact of 99% of middle managers. It's a key reason why there are slide decks that run to V90 and then on V91 substantially get rolled back.
^^ also one other thing, I run 2 businesses now. one of which get's pitched off by MM banks. What my VP mentor said was true... the good meetings that MD's have, the slide decks aren't even opened. They're used as guides or a simple item to fidget with. Having received multiple marketing decks now from regional MM's, i can tell you they go str8 to recycling.
I guess I'm sorry to hear that that was your experience, but the idea that there aren't any strong associates seems ludicrous on its face no?
It’s easier to push back on fresh MBA associates if they’re truly burying you unnecessarily because they likely are unsure of their ask and if you push back on them their insecurity will likely prevent them from complaining to the VP or MD as they fear they will come off as either like a crybaby that can’t manage talent below them or incompetent because the request may actually be unnecessary. It becomes a battle of bullshitting that you can win, even more so if you’re hearing whispers among other people on your team that your associate isn’t “fitting in” all that well. With that said, if the associate is being courteous and just a little frantic about wanting to do a good job, I’d do your best to compromise a solution.
If the MBA associate has a couple of years behind them or they’re an A2A, it’s not impossible for the ask to be unnecessary but much less likely, especially if they’re an A2A.
I agree you can push back, but I personally think it takes a little time to have the credibility to do so effectively without harming your reputation. When starting out at my firm, I tried to take anything that was thrown my way in stride and always offered to help with any extra work. I got absolutely crushed and it sucked. However, it established my perceived work ethic so that now I feel more comfortable pushing back on false deadlines or unnecessary tasks. If you build up to that level of trust with your superiors, it hopefully shouldn’t be interpreted negatively because they know you aren’t just being lazy.
This - couldn't have put it better myself.
Depends on your relationship w the associate which obviously sucks given it can go in either direction. If it's an amicable healthy relationship, you shouldn't have much pushback if you mention you're slammed on MD asks and have no capacity. But if the associate is a control freak asshole, you may need to acquiesce, even if just a little, to make sure that you're not thrown under the bus during a review or just generally disliked by the person. The latter obviously isn't ideal but you will certainly face characters like this during your career and it is important to understand how to mitigate best
My go-to strat nowadays is to say "MD / VP / senior person asked me to do x. If your request is urgent, I'd be happy to follow-up with the senior person to push back."
Either the request truly is urgent or they'll back off if they don't want to deal with explaining to an MD why they took all of the analyst's time.
This is the right answer. Too many people, myself included, aren't HONEST about what is actually on their plates and thus come off as assholes. You can only do what you can do - be super transparent about what you've got on your plate and tell the person asking that you are working for XYZ other associate/VP on something due [ ]. If it truly is a "now" thing, it's on the associate to reach across teams and work it out.
Coming from the opposite side, the common feeling is that *certain* analysts always exaggerate what they have on their plates. To that my first response is: okay, what else are you working on and for who? I'll reach out to them to free you up. Either A - they really are slammed and I can work something out with the other associate or B, theyre bullshitting.
You have to understand that most (MBA) associates are like cockroaches. They mainly exist to take up space, are made of Teflon cause they survive everything unscathed, and generally don't know what they're doing. There has been a rise in MBA users of this website over the last two years I've noticed where there's a lot of people defending their own kind. At the end of the day, most of them are associates for a reason. Most of them (definitely not all) did some shit like work at Big4 or some other firm you've never heard of and then made the switch after business school. As an analyst, you are smarter than them and you are more integral to the team full stop.
Unfortunately, pushing back is a bit of a dance though since you have to work with these people over and over again. Also since they spend most of their time brown-nosing VPs and MDs, you have to be a bit more strategic. If you work on a small team, you are kinda screwed, but you can probably find some opportunity to undermine them. Small things like if before a call they want to catch up with you so they can seem informed, just tell them you are busy. Don't walk them through the model or do a mediocre job explaining. They will either plug-in a bit more and hopefully carry their weight or they'll just look bad and their natural lack of intelligence will shine through. On a larger team, I think it's completely OK to say you are busy on other projects. More than a few times, I've taken on a slightly heavier load of live deals when I get staffed with the shitty associates. Just don't lie completely about it, make sure there is other work you can be and are doing. Look unless you are deadset you want to stay in banking, being top bucket is overrated. Just get some deal experience (unless you work at Nomura or something there is enough deal flow to get around to more than just a few top bucket analysts in a group), do good work, and move on to something else.
Not going to spend time debating the "useless mba" stereotype, but I just think this is bad advice.
Having the attitude that you're smarter than the people who you work for, and trying to undermine them is just going to make you miserable. People can tell when you don't respect them, and they're going to push back on you in turn. Maybe you're tougher than I am, but I personally hate working on a team of people who hate each other, so I've generally found (at least when I was an analyst) that the carrot just works a lot better than the stick.
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