Top bucket in sweaty group?
My group is among the sweatiest on Wall Street (think a tier below / sometimes at Jefferies Houston energy group levels) but also is a top group, and has decent culture. For context on sweaty, all the analysts have pulled multiple all nighters, and whenever we’re up all night (until 6-7am), the expectation is we’re back in the office at 10am latest, and work past midnight (1-3am) that day.
In cases like this, what differentiates top bucket analysts vs middle bucket vs bottom bucket analysts? If our group trended more towards 80 hrs a week, I can see how top bucket would be the person willing to work 90, but if the group trends closer to 100 on average, what can you do to differentiate yourself?
Working hard isn’t the same as working smart boy
I’m well aware of that, that’s why I’m asking how to be top bucket instead of just thinking working 101 hours is top. And news flash, some groups are actually just that busy because they have so much deal flow, if you can’t imagine a scenario for all analysts working 100 hours other than incompetency, maybe take a hard look in the mirror of your own group’s / your own competency.
Side note, why comment at all if your commentary just consists of calling people bottom bucket analysts, saying you don’t give a f, or that they’re rats? Get a life.
All your comments are about working longer is better, professionalism, no emojis don’t make you top bucket dude…..
Work quality and speed and don’t ask dumb questions like this post
I would guess overall work quality, communication skills, professionalism and attitude are something that differentiate between the buckets
Thanks, this is really helpful. I hear professionalism brought up on WSO a decent amount, but could you describe some tangible ways this exists? I struggle with knowing what this means other than the basics (basics being not using emojis in emails, dressing well, etc)
Communicate promptly about work products, deliver on your promises, don't complain publically about work, avoid easy mistakes, avoid making the same mistake twice, dress the way your group prefers, don't do things like vape in the office or zyns, don't gossip/shit-talk. This all sounds easy, but the vast majority of people don't do all these things, especially at the junior level.
Yeah for sure, of course appearance is one side of professionalism (be presentable always) but I more do see it used as being able to communicate with clients, efficiently and effectively share your thoughts and being able to help / lead calls
Good culture and the hours you said do not compute. On the bright side, Apollo would be perfect for you! No reasonable group should expect you to come into the office at 10 AM latest if you pulled an all-nighter the day before unless there is a specific reason for coming in earlier. Additionally, no reasonable group will expect you to work 100-hour weeks on average, 100-hour weeks are not sustainable for analysts and I think that the analysts who work 60-80 end up turning around much better products anyway. Your work product becomes significantly worse once you have a week or two of 100-hour weeks.
You and your broader group need to learn how to be more efficient end of the story. The occasional 80+ hour work week is normal, that being the average simply is not. You are in a toxic group, you should get out. The top bucket is probably going to be determined by the number of hours worked because it seems like your group leadership emphasizes that over efficiency or output of work.
Yeah, I can see that. All the analysts are just pretty close (hang out outside of work, eat food together), and everyone’s nice. So I describe it as decent culture, but maybe I’m using the wrong word. Deal experience and exits are great so I think that’s why we put up with it. From my understanding, people generally self select in - during group placement for me for example, they communicated it was a very busy group. But, some interns inevitably transfer to another group / and on the margin may lose more analysts before 2 years are up than typical.
Many groups have great exits where 100-hour weeks are not the norm, frankly, that's the case for most top groups. I am at one of the BBs, and yes we do have some where our analysts have to work 100-hour weeks but generally, the staffers try to avoid multiple weeks of that in a row, and if more than a few those analysts typically get chiller staffing for the succeeding weeks. I think what you're describing is analyst camaraderie, and that's a thing everywhere except a few especially toxic places, wouldn't define that as being good culture.
There are a bunch of ways to make money in this field, and yes MF exits are very appealing as an analyst. However, a lot of these MFs have no avenue for promotion, business school is increasingly competitive to get into for HBS, and the PE market is very rough for laterals generally even downmarket from MFs, especially in this market condition. If you are sacrificing all this for the hope of an MF offer because you think it guarantees money and prestige (not saying you are, but this is a way I find a lot of young people think), I think you are better off reflecting on what you want to do and are interested in. If that is whatever niche you are in right now, that's great, but if something else would highly think of switching + you get the great benefit of not feeling like crap every week working unhealthy hours both in the short and long run.
With all that being said, this is all just my opinion as someone who went through the analyst stint on the other side of things. Maybe I would have a different opinion if I had ended up going to the buy side and was a better investor than a salesperson, but in my opinion, I don't think those long-hours are ever worth it. Your career is a marathon after all, not a sprint. You don't want to suffer negative health effects and burnout within your first few years.
To respond to your edit: I don’t feel like it’s toxic, because even our staffer will be staying up all night with the analysts, and our group helps analysts with buy side recruiting. It’s also not like we’re doing menial work, we’re never up all night doing pitches, just actual items for live deals that are in the billions, not millions. This is not sustainable for me at all, but I’m one of the people that self selected into the group (during group placement + accepting return offer for my group), so I don’t feel like I have a right to complain about something I knowingly signed up for. Also since my question isn’t about how to get more WLB in sweaty groups but how to be top bucket in such a group I think gives insight into my head. I personally won’t stay though because I would just feel too bad subjecting future analysts to this.
I answered your question and how I think your seniors will approach it given what you described. I am just telling you things I wish I knew when I was in your shoes is all.
I think in your situation it’s really going to come down to whoever produces the best work product once hospitalized. It’s one thing to be doing this from the comfort of your desk, hospital bed is a different story with no monitors / keyboard.
Alternatively, if the avg analyst in your group works ~20 hours a day you can probably differentiate yourself by doing a full 24 M-F and some weekend work.
I would also consider playing the Pokémon theme song as you’re working
I WANNA BE THE VERY BEST, THE BEST THERE EVER WAS
Agree with the ED above — sounds like emphasizing the wrong points. I have seen this as well, especially in some European countries. At the end of the day, people will still judge you by the work product, especially downside-wise… so it doesn’t make sense to produce faulty stuff but say “oh, but I worked 105h this week”, MD won’t care and shit falls down so you’re fkd.
My advice would be to get some breaks in whenever possible and focus on delivering a solid product which needs minimal revisions — this is always how I differentiated top analysts from others, people who actually make my life easier and don’t just spend a ridiculous amount of work at the office but still need tons of handholding and turns…
Hope that helps.
Bottom bucket. You wrote all of that and didn't realize fucking up less is the sole differentiator.
There is not a direct correlation between hours worked and bucket rating. What matters is what your team says about you in reviews. Do you have a good relationship with your associate and VP? Will the associates and VPs reviewing you go out of the way to make you be top bucket because of how great you are? Yes, being a hard worker will help you, but if you’re just taking super long on simple tasks, that’s not going to move the needle in your favor
Are you okay?
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