Background: work in AM for a brand name shop that has just stepped in to a niche market, they hired a full team to access this market, I was hired 2 months ago from a different shop.
Due to growth my boss is going to hire someone that will report in to me and take over a lot of the admin work I'm responsible for atm. He said he "had someone in mind" so he obviously knows this person (Nepotism probably).
The CV (Resume) landed on my desk today - their experience is in a completely unrelated industry, no degree (they have an accounting qualification), poor grammar, and if I even assume a conservative 20% of the projects/work on this two page atrocity are bullshit, we're in trouble.
Point is, this person will report in to me. I'm going to have to explain how this niche market works and its going to take a year for them to come up the curve. And although they'll be taking the low-touch monotonous stuff, it's not trivial work at all, if they fuck up it will fall back on me.
Interview is next week, if it goes how I expect it to go and if my boss is still keen on them, how do I convince them not to hire this person without potentially burning bridges with my boss or sounding like a dick ? Hopefully they pull it out of the bag and prove me wrong to avoid this.
Anyone had a similar situation?
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ask for a raise
yeah I think I will get a promotion at Y/E anyway but cannot be fucked having to babysit someone.
That sucks. But what if you give the kid a chance and it turns out he's great. It's admin work everyone starts somewhere. People like this who come in can be surprisingly good workers and value adds in the long run and on top of it grateful to people who took a chance on them over the "vanilla" wealth mgt intern-> IB intern kid. If he does suck ask for a raise for sure. I hope the interview goes well dude.
That is great advice.
Treat the interview seriously so that it's not just a meet and greet. Be direct about the key deliverables, skills and outcomes needed to make the role successful - and that candidate should be able to directly tie out their experience and/or skills to those. Afterward deliver your assessment directly to your boss. If you are professional about it, that's about the best you can do. Just be sure to highlight some strengths or competencies (I'd do that up front) and then tie the rest out to what it will take for you, your boss and the team to be successful.
I'm assuming you aren't actually running the hiring process otherwise you might offer up some resumes you think would make a better fit, as that always has a way of helping out.
Great points. I'm thinking about this the wrong way, as if they already have the job and this will just be a laid back chat. Thanks for this perspective.
Give them a skills test. Pretty simple, if they are required for example to assemble deal docs, prep the data room, do initial deck assembly, etc. then make them do that and create an output. If its good and they do okay in the interview then you can hire them but let the boss know that you can't babysit them. If the candidate fails then you can show the boss the work and say look, this just isn't acceptable and I won't make myself responsible for this level of inneptitude.
You have to be fair in your review however, you can't expect them to know exactly how to do the work day 1. Remember you were once an idiot who didn't know anything about your role as well.
Great advice. I'm still an idiot so I should definitely give other idiots a chance.
Hire me bro I'll do that real neat
Interview the kid seriously and if he/she sucks then be honest with your boss that you'd recommend passing and widening the search. If you say that and the boss in insistent on trying to make it work then clearly the kid has an in you can't really fight.
If that's the case and the kid gets hired, just try and be as constructive as you can and assume that he/she isn't incompetent so that you can give them a fair shot. If they underperform consistently after that, then yes you'll be between a rock and a hard place. You should make it abundantly clear to your boss that your report sucks and maybe recommend keeping them within the firm but in a different role or something. I feel like if you're at an asset manager and have a competent boss, the primary focus will be on delivering good work and results so hopefully you don't see too much resistance there. Keep us updated as I've seen this happen once and the kid eventually got fired despite the relationship.
Agreed. Ask for a raise too. Since if he takes over your old admin work then > you are technically at a higher ranking officer now. And do a deep dive hahaha and find if it is really nepotism or not.
Look im not sure which country you're in, but if it is the same as mine, then the accounting qualification is definitely seen as a plus in sell side research at least. He may be worth a shot, give it a look and if the vibe is rlly off in the interview, be candid to your boss.
If they still get hired, then you'll at least know it's nepotism and then you can act accordingly
Ok interview was sprung on me this morning. My boss explained that we didn't have a budget for a specialist when I voiced my concern over him learning the market. I think I'll keep ownership of the stuff that can really go wrong.
I have been in this situation twice. One dude could barely do the work and I had to spend extra time out of my day teaching him and he wouldn’t take notes even though I told him to take notes to remember. He kept messaging me how to do stuff I just told him and I couldn’t get my work done till he left at 5pm everyday and he would ask “do you need any help with anything?” I’d say no and then when he left I could finally get some work done.
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You work in a bakery brah?
Haha yeah it was a bakery factory - big operation
Welcome to the real world, this is where you have to be abit political for your long term career. There must be multiple reasons why your boss wants to hire this unqualified individual. Tread carefully, do not bash the person or you boss will think you are questioning his/her judgment.
coming back to give an update because I just burst out laughing at this dude:
last night I was going on a date, told him I was going to dip early (we're WFH) so he decided to call me immediately and ask me how to claim an expense for a table for WFH, for some reason he had an urgent need to claim an expense for a table at 7pm, I already gave him the link which is self explanatory, he starts asking where to click, sharing his screen, going at a snails pace, and im trying not to be rude while he asks "what shall I put as the business reason for the expense?" im like dude! WFH obviously. and he starts filling out all these fields which are clearly not mandatory or needed. anyways I left it with him to deal with it and told him to work it out.
today im hung over, dealing with a stressful issue on a call at 12pm and im clearly on a call and sharing my screen as my status would show, and he calls me, I hang up on him, call him back after this serious call and he's still trying to work out how to claim an expense lmfao and I still dont know why he has such an urgent need to claim an expense for a table. he doesnt really call me for anything else - the ratio of calls is like 80% table expense, 20% work related.
anyway it made me laugh. not ragging on the guy but its funny to talk about noobs.
and I was on another serious call a couple days ago, he somehow got invited by accident, he joins late and keeps his video, by mistake I imagine because his camera was pointed at the side of him with him in full view hunched over his laptop sitting on the end of his bed lmfao and his room was all messy and he quickly ended the video. made me laugh.
we've all been this guy at one point.
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