How to Escape Bottom Bucket

Whatever you do, don't kick the bucket...

Sil covered a lot, which is good. Here to add a few more tips / comments. A lot of these kind of overlap with eachothers, but hopefully this is helpful to people:

• Don't make the same mistake twice - self explanatory (keep a log of all the mistakes you make, who caught it, what program it was, why that mistake happened, etc. and look for patterns if you think this is a problem. I recommend this for everyone hitting the desk for the first time, and yes, that includes post-MBA associates)
• Own up to your mistakes / don't make excuses for mistakes - "I don't know how that happened," "I wasn't the the one to make that error," "oh ECM messed that up," etc. annoys the shit out of people. Just own up to it and say "I'll check into that" and then when you go with a revised product, then you can provide some context such as needed such as "fixed the model, the formula wasn't pulling all the way down the column" or something like that
• Take ownership of your work / job - things aren't just completely off your plate once you finish an assignment. Follow up on next steps and don't do just the bare minimum. Think of ways to improve processes / slides / models, etc. instead of just going through the motions. This extends to non-deal related things too. People notice when you take your time to mentor people, for instance or update some internal process to be more efficient
• Think of the implications of a certain project / event - if there's a model change, don't just sit there and wait for somebody else to then tell you to conform the changes in the pitch deck, for example. Similarly, after you do enough reps, you know that at some point you might have internal committee approvals, background checks, select a data room provider, pulling together certain analysis (e.g. nwc calcs, funds flow analysis, and more), etc. Anticipate these and be proactive, instead of just sitting around and waiting for instruction. This can be as simple as "hey [Associate / VP / MD], do you want me to start working on x as the next step for this deal?" no need to create the entire thing, since sometimes they'll say hold off. Essentially you want to be somebody that the rest of your team can rely on to help be a process manager and be the right hand person for the MD / VP / whoever to lean on - they're super busy too, and sometimes things slip through the cracks, and everyone appreciates you staying on top of things minimizing fire drills for everyone involved

While the two above posts provide a great road map of what to do to not be ranked bottom bucket, I'm not sure they are really answering the question. The concern more lies in perception and changing said perception, which goes beyond merely doing the right things.

Basically, once you know your bottom bucket and that you do in fact want to change and will do whatever it takes, especially the bullets outlined ahead, you're going to really need to be proactive in communicating your goals to become a top analyst. Likely, you'll need to prove yourself with lower level stuff but as time goes on, and assuming no mistakes, you will need to seek out more important work. You might want to have more informal check ups with your staffers, etc. as you make progress. Not only will this make sure you are progressing but it will also force them to be aware of your progression and facilitate being put on more complex projects.

If you merely sit back and do the right things without actively engaging the perception change will take a lot longer, if at all.

lateral

Question: do you really have to be that good to avoid bottom bucket? As a general matter, I felt like analysts at my bank, myself included, made plenty of mistakes, and I was never ranked poorly at all. That's not to say I was careless, but I just don't think there is time for everything to be perfect in the first cut or whatever. I even had MDs get pretty angry at me a couple of times, but I tried hard to work through whatever the problems were.

Ironically, I don't think I really ever became committed to getting things right for any reason except saving my own ass until I left banking. Now I am in a flat organization where my boss's boss is a crazy business titan and doesn't have time to deal with mistakes and bullshit. Likewise, I can't give our bankers or counterparties a screwed up model, etc.. I am given ownership of my work and no one is going to check it. We only find out I was wrong when bad decisions are made and real economic consequences ensue. Accordingly, I make a point of being 100% sure I am directionally correct and not precisely wrong. That's easier to do when you have a few years of experience and know what to look for. Working with only one company also helps a lot.

Plenty of tips here on how to be a solid Analyst, but I would add that before all of that you have to first carefully consider: Do you belong in the bottom bucket? There are plenty of people in banking (in any industry, for that matter) who actually just are not cut out for that industry, and if that is the case for you then you should be thinking of other options instead of trying to be better at something you are not going to stick with anyway.

There isn't any shame in it, either. This forum probably would not be the most sympathetic to a bottom bucket analyst, but if you're there more because you hate numbers/can't function on less than 8 hours of sleep/have a debilitating health issue and less because you can't do basic arithmetic/just don't even bother/are a complete asshole, that's fine. Just pack up and move on, no big deal.