What to focus on when giving guidance to new analysts?

How detailed of guidance do you provide to new analysts who don’t know anything? I just started as an associate and realized analysts often ask me follow up questions after I provide some initial instruction or task. 
 

Shohld I just give more detailed guidance from the start so I don’t get randomly asked a dozen questions sporadically? What do you guys typically focus on when giving guidance? 

2 Comments
 
Most Helpful

Hi I think giving more detail on the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ is more important than on the what

You could say refresh comps, change xyz assumptions to model, fix whatever etc but if you don’t explain why then the analyst won’t know in future instances what to do bc he doesn’t actually grasp the purpose or importance of what you’re asking.
 

Or if you ask them to do some extensive research in a database like CapitalIQ precedent transactions, you could explain how the database works during a short meeting so the analyst moving forward can better utilize their time when looking for similar information. 
 

Also I found it helpful when I was an analyst when guidance is given in sequential order. Like here are 5 tasks, but in order to do task/step 5, you may need to complete task/steps 1-3 first, and the reason why is because __

 

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