What type of work does your associate typically do?
Trying to get a pulse check on this - what role does your associate typically play in creating the materials? I get that the associate is responsible for checking the analyst's work, but not sure what the general expectation is for associates in terms of PPT / Excel. From splitting pages, to soley just checking the analyst's work product, what do you guys think is the standard?
Does it depend on how senior the associate is, i.e. 1st year associates tend to split pages more while senior associates do more strategic work like sketching pages out? ...but if there's a VP on the account already doing this type of work, what role does the associate play in that scenario? Just trying to wrap my head around this dynamic...
“Associates” and “doing work” don’t typically go in the same sentence
Edit: MBA Associates. Sorry A2A nerds
I'm at a lifestyle bank, and associates don't do much. It's all VP and analysts. They always complain about having to work late, which rarely happens, yet also complain when bonuses are low. In a truly busy team where associates can add value, associates tend to do a lot of work, just like an analyst would.
Was wondering if you could pm me. curious about lifestyle banks and would love to get some feedbacks on what banks fit that criteria
What would qualify as a “lifestyle bank?”
Lol what
bump, curious as well
In my experience good associates split pages or do substantial upfront work to minimize the lift (shell out deck, proactively push back / simplify the scope with VP/MD, and QB contributions and timelines from product / coverage groups which are valuable contributions to the workload even if they aren't directly in the materials. Shitty (re: mba) associates forward emails from VP/D/MD saying "do this", are "out of pocket" after 6pm and on weekends, and focus on jumping footnotes and font colors...
A2A here and it's been a real focus area / feedback item to not spend so much time doing the materials.
ASOs should not be splitting pages as a norm - sure, if you guys are on a fire drill deadline absolutely split the work, but the general workflow is the analyst does the work and ASO checks it. An ASO splitting pages across their 7-10 deals is going to be deeply behind on all of their work.
MBA ASOs are learning alongside the analysts so they do more of the actual work, but that's not the goal. Tenured ASOs should be helping with heavier lifting like detailed model sanitizing / teaching heavier modeling, but otherwise mostly in a checking role.
VPs check again and "project manage" between junior resources, seniors and client. There are a LOT of layers in IB. Realistically, most decks that go to the client will still have at least one mistake in them even with all of these checkers.
Also A2A at a lean EB and it fluctuates day to day but generally mimics your experience. If my analyst is busy on another account or there is enough work to do on a short timeline then will roll up my sleeves and play down but when capacity isn't an issue will try and shy away from doing the work and occupy my time with reviewing and general process management to ensure we are organized.
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I feel like Associates will still do a lot of slide framing / outlining for Analysts before handing off. Could be wrong though, I smoke a lot of crack.
Depends on the Associate really and to some extent the kind of platform (EB or BB / MMB). You can have associates who are more hands on (drafting slides, working on models especially when the engine room is stretched) to "I don't touch excel and ppt" types. However, truth is that being more of a former dings you the higher up you go the Assoc ranks...
My Associate 1 year was more like Analyst 4 with less air cover - I asked the Analyst to look at the model and prepare the output pages, while I cracked on ahead with the rest of the pages and then do the first set reviews. If you have a Sr Assoc and a VP on the same deal team, it can be tricky, because then really the Sr Assoc has to "do some of the work" whilst also try and convince the VP to step back (prepare call agendas, co-ordinate with advisors, keep track of deliverables, review the output/materials). Again, depends on the intensity of the deal / deal stage - sometimes you have to put aside the ego and roll up your sleeves...
At the bank I work at (BB):
- Associate 1s, especially MBAs, are expected to act like analysts (ie splitting / building pages, etc)
Senior Associates actually get dinged for doing the above… the expectation is you’re spending most of your time shelling out the books, aligning with seniors upfront, coordinating with internal/external teams, and detail reviewing. If you’re doing your job correctly, senior associate is a tough role even without “building” pages.
My view on it is you have to add value somehow. When you first start, you don’t know anything so your only value add is “doing” the work. As you become a more senior associate, you start to add value via the ways above (shell out book, align with seniors, coordinating with clients/other teams, etc). This is basically the role of a VP as well, so there really shouldn’t be a senior associate and VP on the same team.
When I was an analyst, the best associates typically weren’t the ones who “did” a lot of the work. They of course did so in crunch time and were capable of it, but they actually added way more value to me by actually aligning materials with the broader team upfront and having enough knowledge of processes to push back and make workstreams have no surprises.
^^This. This is how I came up.
It's efficient, shit gets done, everyone junior gets responsibility and a progression path, and just works its way up the chain - VPs get time to execute / build coverage, D/MDs can do real coverage.
Very helpful
This is the most MBA-speak, substance-less answer ever, and it's the right answer, because in fact all Associates do is "hop on calls" and spew buzzwords to one another without actually doing anything.
Also, lmao at "Senior associate is a tough role". That shit is cake son.
You’re clearly in the minority lad
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