Senior Associate Masterclass: How to Do Nothing and Still Take Credit
Ever seen a senior associate so useless that a first-year analyst has to teach them modeling? Yeah, that’s my life right now.
We’ve got a senior associate on our team who has turned doing nothing into an art form — all while making sure he’s “in the loop” on everything so he can claim credit later.
Modeling? Forget it. Every request is like asking him to solve quantum physics in Mandarin. Says he “wants to improve” but hasn’t taken a single step toward learning.
Pages? Not his thing. But he’ll happily hit send on the final deck so he can take credit for “sending it to the client.”
Daytime productivity? Zero. Spends the day on his phone, then “works late” to look dedicated — really just catching up on what he ignored all day.
Team player? Only if the team is senior leadership. Rude to juniors, never raises Saturday exceptions, and avoids helping with deliverables.
Career strategy? Upward-only. No interest in learning the model or supporting the team — just wants “senior exposure” and to kiss the right asses.
Reputation? Below VP level, no one can stand him. Above VP level, he’s somehow golden.
FOMO mode: Needs to be CC’d on every email, dialed into every call, and included on every thread — not to contribute, but so he can say “we” when talking about the work others did.
Have you guys worked with someone like this? What do you do about it?
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That’s really funny that my first full year bonus is higher than his second year bonus. But yes I’m the second year Becky
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We actually have a newly joined Asian becky MBA associate like this. She is ridiculous
Hope it’s not GS. They like to cherry pick the most useless Asian Beckies and turn them into staffers.
FIG is filled with Asian becky associates. Somehow they always manage to recruit these even though not one of them turned out to be successful
I know it sucks but cynically this is the personality type that succeeds in finance, especially IBD. That's why people in IB are generally horrendous managers because they really just need to worry about winning clients and managing up (read sucking up) to their bosses.
Fwiw, PE also has a lot of politics but it's a little bit better than IB as there's less places to hide if you're just riding off of others (lean deal teams, better attribution of deals, etc).
Very helpful to know, thanks very much!
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