Associate Performance Reviews
Much has been discussed on the topic of analyst performance reviews and what makes a good analyst. So I thought it's time to talk about the performance of investment banking associates and how they are evaluated.
Some questions to get us started:
1) What makes a good investment banking associate
2) On what attributes does your bank evaluate IBD associates
3) In the feedback collecting process at your bank, do the analysts in the same group give feedback to associates?
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1) Project management, truly understanding financial modeling, being able to catch everything the analysts screw up, and depending on the firm, politics
2) Closed deals, training analysts, not letting anything slip through the cracks
3) We give feedback to the VP/MD who will consider the feedback for the evaluation
Assuming by "we" you mean the analysts?
Yes.
1) You truly need to be technically proficient. The post MBA associates (I am one) who don't take the time to get up the curve technically will struggle to do well. Attention to detail is probably the most important attribute. Being able to manage your projects and analysts. Going beyond just what the VP/MD says they want and trying to predict what will happen/come next. Being able to go in front of clients and present well. Knowing your decks inside and out so you can answer any questions that come up. And remember that all mistakes come back to you personally, not the analyst, so you need to be able to catch mistakes and be thorough when checking the work.
2) Pretty much all of the above. People will know if you are doing a good job whether you have a string of bad luck on deals that fall through or whether you close the most in your class. That becomes more self fulfilling than determinative, because the best performers then get the best staffings which leads to the best high profile deals and closings. It's more about being able to demonstrate you can do all of what I said in 1 in a way that impresses your VP/MD.
3) Yes, analyst feedback is part of the review process (HR gets reviews from a bunch of people that worked with you and consolidate them).
On #1. "You truly need to be technically proficient"
What advice can you give to an incoming MBA Associate to become technically proficient? I am assuming that B School Finance classes will not truly prepare you for this, so what should an incoming Associate do? Take Financial modeling courses?
Our group gets 2 MBA associates each year. One of them never really bothered to catch up on technicals, but the other one acted as an analyst for 6 months and did all modelling work himself (sometimes built a second one to compare to the one his analyst built). He actually stayed later than most analysts during that period. Needless to say he is very proficient now.
Best thing you can do is go through every model on Macabacus and be able to build them from scratch by the time you start (you could pay money for something like BIWS, but I don't think you need it with the free resources on Macabacus unless you value the videos). If you end your MBA program in May, spend a month or 6 weeks traveling and partying, then a month learning to do that before you start training. Then when you start, see if you can be staffed as an analyst or at least sit with the analyst to model for the first few months. By the time you hit 6 months in, you should be pretty good and able to start taking a step back into a more advisory role re: modelling.
It's a lot of work in the first few months, but it's a short time frame and you'll be able to step back to better hours relatively quickly.
What type of presenting does the Associate do to clients? I’ve typically only seen VP and above drive those presentations; the associate usually chimes in with a comment or clarification.
Granted every shop is different so curious to know what to potentially prepare for in the future.
1) Managing up and managing down. You need to be technically proficient to earn the respect of your analysts + a good communicator with senior people / clients. 2) This was a black box when i as an associate. Office politics def plays a role here 3) Yeah analysts who worked with me would give feedback anonymously (tho was easy to figure out who said what). Not sure how much that contributed to the final review tho, but I always treated my analysts well (stay late with them and help them develop etc.) and my performance review didn't have negative feedback from analysts.
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