What can I do to become a Top Bucket Analyst? (willing to do anything)

I really want to be a top bucket analyst. I don't mind working every day of the week and sleeping 5 hours every night. Is being top bucket all about who takes on the most work? Also, what are some benefits of being a top bucket analyst besides the huge bonus?

28 Comments
 

Good energy, but wrong energy. Being a top bucket first year analyst is about onboarding fast, doing the work that people you want to work with give you well and consistently, and not being a giant hardo loser. 

Also, being top bucket means nothing unless you want to be promoted (I'd argue 1st year top bucket doesn't matter much in that conversation either). Monetarily, it's also not a big deal. I'd probably take sleeping more and having weekends than 20k post tax.

 

It’s not worth it.

At a top MM and our first bonus cycle is completely flat for all analysts to try to avoid the whole luck in ranking stuff (6 month stub) and the 1.5 year full bonus was something like 10k difference between top and middle. Very few people get bottom, you have to really suck to end up there.

So I probably worked 5-10ish extra hours a week for 1.5 years and made 6k more than my peers after tax. That’s like $6 an hour to substantially change your quality of life.

Agree it’s only worth it if your gunning for associate, but at my bank middle buckets still get promoted so it’s probably not even worth it then.

 

As a new analyst, could you shed some light on what would exactly be a bottom bucket analyst or as you said you would "have to really suck to end up there"? Maybe OP is just a lot smarter than me but my concern is more so just trying to stay afloat and be middle bucket because it takes me awhile to understand things, but I can certainly work hard. Getting that associate promotion would surely be great too but didn't know it was that competitive? I figured if you stayed on you just got it as long as you weren't terrible? 

 

Yeah, I’m working with a bottom bucket kid right now. Here’s what this kid does:

  • Consistently takes longer than 30 minutes to respond and at times several hours
  • Frequently fails to follow directions. For example, if he is told to use something as an example, he won’t look at the example and will instead try to freewheel it
  • Makes frequent tiny errors despite being scalded for them time and time again. For example, he bats about .600 in terms of getting the time correct for a calendar invite and frequently blames time zones as the issue, despite me showing him how to utilize outlooks timezone feature on multiple occasions
  • A lack of understanding of Office culture. For example, he complains and frequently tells other individuals in the firm I am an abusive person to work with. Unfortunately, I’m known in my office for being one of the nicest people and throughout the years (>2 years at the firm) consistent freedback has been people loving to work with me and me having a positive attitude. As a result, every time he complains people walk away with the understanding that he doesn’t have the ability to take feedback and also won’t take accountability for errors. I’m literally known as “the nice guy” on my office I don’t understand why this kid continues to try to badmouth me to other analysts and seniors when my rep is literally the opposite with years supporting that fact
  • Very arrogant and refuses to ask questions. He frequently acts like tasks are below him and will assert himself in areas that don’t make sense.
  • Lies—if I ask if something is done he will say yes even if he hasn’t done it
  • Just generally slow to pickup on things with little ability to anticipate requests unless asked to do it. For example, he won’t take notes on a call unless he is told to etc.

realistically, if you are conscientious you will be fine. You just need to keep showing up and trying and you will get better at anything hence why everyone is kinda solid as long as they don’t do the above.

 

Top bucket is a waste of your time. The pay is marginally different and it’s overrated. Spend the time recruiting for a buyside job, sleeping, building a new skillset, etc. Banking is bad in general, but being top bucket is miserable. I honestly think it’s a negative for your long term development. 
 

You also don’t need to be too bucket if you want to be promoted internally. I worked at a top BB, and if you can take crap, you can make VP (and ED really). You need to bring business in after ED, but being a top bucket analyst isn’t going to help you with that…

 

To try to answer your first question, I’m not sure if those who had the worst hours all automatically got top bucket from what I know. Not sure if the ones with worst hours period got top bucket at all. The hours are just kinda the hours. 
 

to try to answer your second question I think some recruiters / other employers may like to know / hear that a candidate was a top peformer in the banking class. It’s like being a top performer in your school / academic setting or whatever else you do. I think people may like that. Otherwise, it might help with some extra pay / deal placement / group placement if you are known around the firm as being a top performer but I don’t know for sure. For what it’s worth, reputation around the firm can make a difference. I do recall as a junior hearing about some seniors that were a bit less attractive to work with and eventually those people have seemed to either leave the firm or hopefully change up the way they worked as generally it seemed like juniors were more hesitant to work with them

 

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