What makes a bad senior banker

Unless you are one of or the most senior banker in a group, here are some things that makes us hate some senior bankers:

  • Incapable or unwilling to get accustomed to very basic computer skills, like using the drive, let alone PPT or Excel
  • Random response times
  • Comments that aren’t useful, really vague, and / or comments on things that will never be sent anywhere 
  • Not telling people even remotely why “x” thing needs to be done (We know it’s more marketing - or shall we say “pre-marketing” because you can’t get a real meeting with anyone)
  • Giving off the attitude that your time is 50 times more important to junior bankers and that junior bankers are at fault for lack of success in a deal or with pitches (Degrading and wrong - your inability to understand any of the weeds or mechanics only hurts you in the long run)
  • Vague instructions because they don’t actually know how to really DO anything they ask juniors to do, they just have an IDEA of what it should look like in a final PDF (It’s fine if you aren’t a doer anymore, but people have way less respect for people that aren’t as mechanically seasoned as the person you’re bossing around) 
  • Act like their opinions on things makes them super valuable or smart (Don’t confuse liking to hear yourself talk with adding value to the firm if it isn’t tied to deals and knowing how to get deals done as smoothly as possible)
  • Loves to kiss the ass of their superiors and play favorites
  • The type to not understand or be sympathetic to why people buy-side recruit (ownership mentality is really toxic. You don’t have to care about what your analysts or associates want to do with their careers, but don’t make it impossible for them to ultimately decide what’s best for them)

Curious to hear other thoughts.

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