Struggling SA - Nervous about RO
Im currently interning at a top BB and have been on the desk for about 2.5 weeks now.
Ive been given a super intense workload by pure luck (super high maintenance live deals) and have been working 90 hour weeks and am usually the last out. It seems that for the other interns their workloads aren’t as intense as mine, as they’re all going for coffee chats all the time, socializing with the other analysts, and getting ahead on the intern project.
I don’t know if anyone else has had this experience but I have just felt so stupid ever since I got staffed up because I just don’t know how to do some of the tasks they give me which I’ve never done before. This leaves me feeling like I’m incompetent and makes me think I’m making a bad name for myself by not being efficient early on and making mistakes bc I’m just getting slammed right now and am having to prioritize certain staffings over others.
I have gotten some good feedback on most of the things I’ve been working on, but it’s this one deal in particular that is so complicated/technical and fast paced that there’s just no way for me to provide value other then doing admin tasks (which I am happy to do). I’m worried this team is going to give me bad feedback - but they’re super nice to me and understanding. I will say though I think I’ve been improving since I started.
I really love my bank, group and industry and I’m genuinely interested in the work and want to return.
I’m just worried what’s going on right now is going to cook me: Intense workload, not being able to socialize/network as much, making mistakes on unfamiliar tasks.
Would be grateful for any advice.
Thanks !
In the time it took you to write this post, you could have had a coffee chat.
Idk man, sounds like youre doing fine. As long as you are not making same mistakes twice, no one is expecting you to be able to do anything 100% correctly tbh.
If you don’t get the return offer oh well you’ll find a job dude it’s not the end of the world.
Yea sounds like you’re doing well. Let go of the insecurity of not doing enough. You should have a list of tasks in order from most to least important. Networking with team is on there, but not above deal-related execution workflows.
Make sure you finish the summer having allocated time to each of these buckets, but 90% of your time spent should be allocated to the top two (deal-related tasks & internal work - updating deal tracker, loan/HY data, market pages/graphs - whatever it is that you’re team updates daily or weekly that’s used throughout the group).
Next bucket should be where you have networking & growing your knowledge of the industry/reading through prior decks to get up-to-date with what the team has worked on, what their overall strategy is for winning incremental business, and how they think about both M&A/Cap Markets execution for clients, as well as certain nuances within each deal. Networking comes next.
This is the approach I used to win 2 ROs + Top Bucket for 3 years in two separate groups.
Ended up getting the return for anyone looking at this in the future.
I didn’t have a fantastic start, but I was told my positive attitude/optimism, eagerness to learn, and drive/work ethic really set me apart. Also being a social fit helps.
Totally felt myself improve over the internship so for any future SAs it’s totally ok to suck for the first week and a half. Just make sure you get up to speed quickly, ask questions because it shows them you care/are trying to understand (but don’t ask a question that can be googled and don’t ask the same question twice).
Congrats and totally makes sense. Your associate is kinda wild letting you take on so many tasks. My intern only helps with pulling data + graphing on live deals. I’d do the whole CIM + model myself and let the analyst handle logs / NDAs. IMO attitude and raw smartness is everything, anything else can be taught later.
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