1st yr analyst at a bank in NYC on the debt side of CRE. Not BB but well known and respected. I’m on month 5 and feel like i barely understand anything in my role. Honestly just doing my best and trying to learn as fast/ much as I can. I was hired out of undergrad, which is what my group wanted. I often feel like people in my office are annoyed i don’t know things and think I’m messing things up. For example we’ll get a deal in with a really complicated structure I don’t fully understand. I ask a VP to clarify some stuff and instead of walking me through it or answering questions they refer me to a previous deal they’ve done that’s similar and basically tell me to figure it out on my own. Inevitably I miss some stuff (because every deal is different) and that’s when shit goes down.
I’ll get a flurry of emails from different VP’s saying I cannot mess these things up and then another VP will come by and say hey VP1 emailed me that you messed this up in the model you cannot do that. It’s gotten to the point where work gives me extreme anxiety to the point where I dread sending in any finished deals for fear of the ridicule I’ll get for missing a tiny tiny detail I didn’t know was a thing. The VP’s email each-other back and forth behind me and the other analysts back talking about our mistakes but don’t help us work through them. Maybe I’m waiting for things to start clicking in my role or maybe my office is just really toxic?
Leave
Super toxic. Anyone above you should be able to, and take the time to explain things. I had an MD from a BB once(after he moved to the buy-side) act similarly when i was an analyst. This was a small structure where there was nobody above me except him, and he expected me to learn similarly. I don't get it, if you don't explain how do you expect the people below you to perform.
I’m in month 5 of my first CRE job and have gotten very comfortable but definitely still ask a lot of questions
Sounds like a toxic culture. You’re 5 months into the role. It’s not you. It’s them. Keep doing your thing. Keep trying to learn. Don’t let it get to you. They should be sitting down with you and saying, ‘Let’s discuss x, y, and z. They should have been in the underwriting. Let’s discuss what they are, teach you the concept, and make sure you understand it.” The people you work for don’t sound nice. If this keeps up, find a better cultural fit. 99% of being successful is being in a culture that allows you to succeed.
I’ll go against the grain here and suggest we’re not hearing both sides of the story. If the firm is a larger firm and hired out of undergrad, chances are the seniors aren’t just saying “go figure this out and come back to me when it’s correct.”
More realistically, they’re probably telling OP to take a stab at it on their own and come back for a follow up discussion with questions / run through it together. The latter situation is extremely common to deal with - I’ve literally never had anyone above me in my career flat out teach me things without having me try on my own first.
agree heavily with pudding above. to answer your question - it takes time for things to really click, especially in your role where you're seeing new things from deals constantly. if you stay with a particular company for a while, i say it'll take at least a year for you to fully ramp and understand the ins and outs. if you jump to a different company, the clock restarts (depending on if within same industry, could be a shorter ramp). cut yourself some slack - you seem like you're doing the best that you can, just in a shitty culture.
I've been in this exact same position before. In my first banking gig I had a managing director who would give me a task, where I had no formal training (or competent mentorship), and he expected every deliverable to be perfect. Inevitably, my work product wouldn't be perfect and he would be upset. I would ask him what I can do better to increase my work product value and he would completely ignore me. Rinse and repeat for 5 months, with me gone by month 6. 4 years and 2 shops later, I realize that his behavior was not constructive or professional in any way and am happy I got out as soon as I did.
Sounds like you should do the same.
what type of tasks
Dip. If you were hired fresh from UG they should know you are going to need guidance and be fully equipped to offer it. Ridiculous to tell you you can't make mistakes - everyone does.
Same as others have said, sounds like it could be a toxic work environment unless you’re completely dropping the ball on your deliverables. My first re job in brokerage had a similar culture of no mistakes / Socratic method of figuring out what you did wrong (total bs) and looking back it caused more problems than it solved. Am now at an institutional shop, with a more difficult job (development issues require way more brainpower than any in brokerage) and my current bosses have the courtesy and professionalism to sit me down and explain mistakes if/when made. All comes down to culture and how smart the people you work with are.
Your toxic work environment aside (as others have said, leave...now) I'd say it takes about a year to have a solid, close to full, understanding of your role and how your role affects others
Definitely toxic. Sounds like you’ve put in the effort to try and learn from old memos and deliverables. But honestly, there’s only so much you can pick up without context or guidance. What they should do is make time for you (even if it’s like 10-15 mins) every now and then to answer your questions. It’s silly they wouldn’t do that - the sooner you get up to speed on little things, the more efficient you’d be, the more enjoyable your job, and the more they can delegate to free up their time.
Some or what you mentioned - VPs and MDs being short with you or condescension - definitely happened in my IB days. And now, as I think back, it’s so immature and unnecessary for a bunch of grown adults to cut down someone in their 20s.
Besides recommending keeping an eye out for external opportunities… is there a sr analyst / associate / VP or other that is not an asshole, or at least is an ok enough person that you can ask for some general guidance? Like “hey, I do a lot of reading on the side, but I’m still learning… can I run a few q’s by you sometime in a quick call?”
That sounds like a very toxic environment to be in. Things started to click for me around month 5 or 6 but I’m under great leadership who is extremely supportive. Made it a lot easier because when I messed things up they’d walk me through what happened and I never would make the mistakes again because I knew what to look for. Don’t think of this as it’s your fault or you’re not understanding, it’s your managers fault. They should be supporting and clarifying, criticism is fine as long as it’s constructive
Super toxic like other people said - I'm at Moelis and even Directors are open to answering any questions regarding complicated models, so it really depends on the team. If I was OP I would definitely start lateralling soon because you can't learn a lot in that environment.
I feel this is normal for most entry level roles especially in some of these firms that foster this sort of culture. I think this will start changing soon, both for you as you gain more experience and confidence (things like these will just have less of an effect in you), but also in the industry in general. These toxic environments are counterproductive and the bank will likely start feeling the consequences of burnout or high rotation.
Your VPs are assholes. If an analyst makes a mistake I don't email blast the other VPs to let them know, I walk them through why it's a mistake and what the correct approach / answer is. If they repeatedly make the same mistake, then that's an issue but that still doesn't warrant telling other VPs, it's a 1 on 1 discussion on greater effort and care being put in.
You're not going to learn in that environment, and you're going to feel shit while you're there because of the anxiety. I'd look into lateralling, if someone wants to lateral in <6 months on the job there's a clear issue with their current role (typically culture) so I wouldn't worry about perception of looking to lateral. Can turn the negatives into positives in interviews, i.e. you're looking for a team which you can grow in with the support of more experienced members.
So, first a caveat.... I generally agree with the above responses above that say you are in a toxic work environment. TBH, most banks in NYC are, just some are shittier than others. You could also be uniquely sensitive to the situation, and taking worse than is reasonable (which is understandable first job out, colleges treat kids too nice, then they hit the real world, and get rekt for a bit until they figure out how to swim with the big kids.... to be clear, I'm not saying this is you, just saying it happens...).
One way to judge is to assess how much turn over the firm has, if few people are staying past two years..... its prob an uber shitty toxic place... and you shouldn't stay longer than you have to!
All that aside. First year (or even first 2 to 3 years) in a competitive field like banking can royally suck, you do get treated shitty and are often 'hazed' in semi-professional ways. This happens in banking, law, and I'm sure lots of fields (don't have to be high paid either). So, the reality is, the best strategy is often to stick it out and survive. The pressure can actually make you learn and grow, and overcoming it can be a great personal achievement.
In fact OP, I think by the way you titled and wrote your post.... you totally get this and see it also! So, I wouldn't necessarily run too fast, you can actually learn a shit ton from a place like this. Including how to do with (and even sustain) toxic shitty assholes (guess what... they are all over this industry, won't change, and NYC is over allocated with them!). Should you make a long career there? Probably not, but can figure that out later. I'd stick it out, and hopefully you do legit "get it".
A final note, kinda unrelated, but maybe offers some value...... I'm in late 30s, and one common trait of people I've known (both as peers and people who came to me for advice) who seem to be "sub-optimal" in their careers (like under achieving vs. what you think they should/could do), is they seem to leave jobs quickly and often. And many have said things to me like "they didn't teach me enough", "I wasn't being given real work", or "they just expected me to learn on my own", or "I wasn't supported enough". Those are all paraphrases, but you get the picture. Part of being successful in this field is just doing what ever it takes. Again, not really sure this is you, but just wanted to drop it here as something to consider.
I agree with the above, this is toxic. You could leave and the job market is on fire right now, you will probably get 5,000 interviews
That said, you'll have to learn to deal with office politics BS at some point so it could be worthwhile
i was expecting this to be about so much more than a couple bitchy VPs making a big deal out of some modeling mishap. i 'got it' in this industry when i realized that the majority of the people making millions would never sit there and be shat on like this.
Read your organizations credit policy or job guides etc.
VPs aren't getting mad at you for asking questions, they're mad at you for not being resourceful.
Self sufficiency is extremely important. If you're asking anything that can be figured out by simply doing some digging/research on your part through training materials or policy its a bad look.
Shows laziness and that you value VP time less than your time by taking time out their days to need to give you reassurance or explain things that are clearly outlined by policy.
Do the dirty work. Dig. Research. You'll find you aren't dumb and you can answer 90% of your questions by yourself.
And if you still can't figure out the answer, then you could reach out to a colleague and state "i read x which stated y, but i wasnt sure if z was applicable because abc"
Which is infinitely better than "how do i do x" "where do i get y".
Trust me. You're not as dumb as you may think. Just gotta dig deep, be resourceful and have confidence. You will be wrong way less. And in the event you are wrong, you have policy to back up your choice.
Good luck. Don't be so anxious. You got it.
That’s just generally a bad response. Obviously I do my best to figure stuff out on my own before asking anyone a question. Regardless as a new analyst out of undergrad there are things I won’t know and can’t just “figure out on my own”. If that were the case I would work a remote job, but I’m in my office every day for the reason of being with my superiors to ask questions.
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