New 1st Year - No deal flow
Hi All, I’m a new first year (been on the desk about two months) at a MM bank and things have been really slow for me since hitting the desk. I have had a couple syaffings but none have really materialized into anything meaningful. There has been a couple “busy” weeks but the majority of it has been a lot of purely admin and busy work to pass the time. I have only had maybe two nights past midnight so far and overall just don’t feel like I’m getting the true analyst experience.
While it’s nice to have a life outside of work, I’m starting to get very concerned about my growth as an analyst. It seems like my friends at other banks are working quite a bit and getting good transaction experience whereas I’m doing random business development requests and other mundane asks. The last thing I want is to be a bad second year due to a lack of experience, but I’m not sure what is going to realistically change in the near future.
Does anyone have any advice / is anyone else going through this? I have been doing my best to make use of the extra time and learning as much as possible on my own.
Thanks for the insights.
Have you been doing a standout job on the work you’ve been assigned? Focus on that and seniors will notice and pull you into their more “important” staffings
I’ve been trying to yeah. I don’t think it’s a matter of not being staffed but more so a matter of the group just not having a ton of deal flow rn
First question might be whether the team itself has dealflow? If it doesn't, that might be a concern, but you will be able to see their past deals and get comfortable around whether new deals will come - to be honest, it's unlikely that there'll be no deals (the team shouldn't be hiring if there aren't, but of course there are banks and teams that really don't have dealflow). Remember this is a better year than 2023, but by no means a great year for deals. And in particular volume-wise dealflow is slow, which disproportionately affects MMs.
If there's dealflow and you aren't on live deals yet, don't get too concerned. This will come with time and proving your abilities. It's not that unusual for AN1s to spend a lot of lot of time on comps, profiles, marketing, etc., while the AN2s step up more. In the meantime just nail your current tasks.
What shocks me is that MFPEs know this and yet still do their recruiting while candidates have hardly hit the desk.
What’s your advice for AN1 at groups without meaningful deal flows? Starting to realize my group doesn’t contribute a lot even in live mandates (90% of the work is admin). Starting to get concerned like OP since I am not learning much in the past two months. Thanks!
Nice to see there’s at least someone else out there going through this lol. Feels like every friend/peer I speak to is super busy so I’ve been pretty down about it
Hi,
I'll try to respond to you both here (nothing Ghost your other reply).
If my understanding is right, you're both in teams with low dealflow and aren't getting much work yourselves.
Firstly, you're right to want more of a "real" experience (and not to be a hardo but as you both point out, to learn).
Second, I want to caution that my answer here is very high level - I don't know your individual circumstances. If you're in a niche product group for example, you'll need to wait a year or two before getting your hands dirty with really interesting / difficult tasks, because the execution work is so important that you need to earn a lot of trust (@Anonymous I don't know what you mean by "admin" - that sounds really odd)
I'd suggest you speak to other juniors in your team who've been about for at least 2 years. Were they busy last year? How many deals have they seen? Socialise that you're keen (don't be pushy) to learn new skills and get busy. Socialise with your staffer that you're interested in getting more varied and execution-related experience if possible. 2 months is a very small sample size in IB - the market has been tough. In the meantime, nail everything, have a great attitude, and people will remember you when dealflow comes. If you can, try to help with origination (I personally have a lot of origination tasks which I would be thrilled if one of my own AN1s volunteered to do, but where I have so many other staffings out there already I just can't look the staffer in the eye and ask for more).
Then, maybe see this through to January. Other banks will kick off their recruiting (they'll have been through the budgeting process, have a view on their 2025 pipeline, and recruitment targets). This is an opportunity to explore the lateral market with the rationale of getting hands-on experience (or something else but cross that bridge when you come to it).
Changing teams within your firm is an option, but at such a junior level without any internal review / reputation, it's tough. You're still seen essentially as a grad, and you'd need a good year or two of internal heft to try this (in my subjective view).
Good luck both
Hey thanks for the response, I see your name a lot on this site and appreciate your two cents. I don’t think it’s a matter of me not being staffed. More so, the outline just seems very dead right now and there is not a lot of need for me on anything. It’s definitely starting to make me a little concerned as I was hoping to have a traditional analyst experience and get cranked because I know that’s what leads to the most development. Historically the group has done well but I would say the last few years it has become more of a bottom tier group at the firm from a revenue perspective. I don’t really want to leave the firm, but also don’t want to waste my analyst years doing business development. Any further thoughts ?
Dude you’ve been on the job for what… 2 months? Just enjoy the ramp up period and don’t worry about it. The live deals are likely being handled by more experienced analysts, and it’ll be your turn next year.
To someone else’s point, if the broader group has no deal flow, that’s a problem. But if that’s not the case, just be patient and focus on delivering quality work on the work assigned to you.
del
Easy to worry about everything if your first few months. You’re doing fine OP.
Rerum ea et sed perspiciatis provident. Eius ut repellendus itaque odio. Et vitae qui eum suscipit.
Expedita et facere quidem beatae quos. Odit aut earum maxime et nihil aut.
Aut beatae et et. Libero fuga laboriosam velit. Sequi eum laudantium fugiat ut.
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