This is not a productive discussion, just a rant. We've had this new lateral hire analyst for a month and I think he might actually be retarded. Barely knows how to use Excel or Powerpoint. Objectively bad at following directions, takes forever to get things done. At first I tried to uptrain him but everything goes in one ear and out the other. I've essentially stopped asking him to do things because it only adds 3 hours to my day. We've had interns who were twice as productive. Just blows my mind how someone can be so stupid and bad at their job. /rant
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Check with the staffer - everyone else working with them is probably having the same experience. If that's the case then you should have a discussion about going up the chain about it.
sorry i'll try to get better
First, give it some time. Maybe, he's super anxious and nervous and he's fucking up more than he should. There is a reason he was hired, he must have some intellectual capabilities.
If this persists, then reach out to your staffer and be honest about the situation. DO NOT shit on him, but you need to be open about his recurring mistakes / things he should improve on.
How bad is he? Was he in a banking role previously? Try to give benefit of the doubt as internal processes / resources / excel macro keystrokes / factset vs CapIQ / etc etc can be very different between firms. On top of that, compliance is probably busting his ass to complete bullshit trainings and his old bank is clawing back his signing bonus.
if he persists at sucking at his job, do the right thing and sit him down before you go up the ladder. Tell him you’ve had numerous convos and his performance is still lagging, he blatantly repeats mistakes, etc. and will go up the ladder if he doesn’t shape up.
In other words, give him an honest chance before you ruin his reputation at his new firm (assuming he hasn’t already done that himself)
Yeah I honestly think he just lacks the mental horsepower. Again we’ve had interns with less experience who were much brighter and ramped up quicker. Don’t know how he made it this far, I think my MD was just desperate to hire because we had recent turnover.
Right here - if you've got an analyst that is slow or a lateral or a new hire, it's generally because there's some fundamental part of this job they're missing.
I usually have him or her get up out of their chair and I set up their quick access toolbar in excel / powerpoint, make sure their FS settings are set correctly (dumb shit like making sure graphs/tables are importing without outside borders, making it easy to turn their background in MS Office from white-to-grey, keyboard macro setup, stuff like that), and basically show / explain to the noob why I'm setting things up the way I am, at the most basic, foundational level.
Most times analysts like this don't really understand the concept of "micro time savers" that make the seasoned, senior analysts fast / efficient at their job. If a noob analyst lateraled from a "normal job" (B4 FDD, consulting, corp dev, etc), he or she probably doesn't understand to what degree of speed / accuracy you need to be able to do this job.....and still workout / fuck girls / see the sun on a regular basis.
It's way less painful to show them how to be both fast-and-accurate than having them learn it the painfully hard and slow way on their own. I have learned this lesson from experience......
You’re the man wish there were more out there
Might be a dumb question: would you mind specifying what kind of "keyboard macros" do you set up? Also, how do you create graphs without borders automatically?
Are you my doppelganger? Oh wait no, my MD hired FOUR incompetent people, not limited to analysts...
Sign of the times. Hot job market and everyone is stretched for talent
I will protect an unperforming analyst if he/she works hard and I get along with them on a personal level. Allow them sufficient time to develop... if they don't improve then you need to look out for the best interest of the team and should take action.
Is your firm hiring?
nuke that bitch
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