First year analyst, still feel incompetent and like I haven’t learned anything

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Second year analyst here.. feel the exact same way

Also at BB and agree 100%. If someone asked me to build a DCF I would probably shit myself (that’s how little technical exposure I have) and similarly am so busy on other things that I don’t really have time to learn it myself. Wondering if Associates etc realize this is happening?

Same here, I've mostly been put on pitches and although the people I've worked with haven't expressed negative feedback and I'm pretty responsive, I can't help but feel like maybe I'm just the worst analyst, since it seems like other people in my class are on live stuff.

Welcome to Investment Banking.

I see a lot of this same sentiment on WSO all the time, that IB work is essentially editing PowerPoints all day long. If that's the case, why are the interviews typically so technical and why is it so difficult to become an IB analyst? Surely at some point before becoming a senior Banker you're doing more analysis and actually utilizing all the knowledge of financial statements etc?

I'm in wealth management but I've been working on gaining the skills i need to make the transition to corporate finance for a while and from what I see it's either "you're pretty much just doing PowerPoint presentations all day" or "you have a ton of Excel, be prepared to answer a variety of technical questions etc etc" so is it one or the other? Both? Does it depend on the company you work for?

Dude, just do practice LBOs in your own time - you'll learn better doing that vs. scrubbing comps or other "technical" analyses

Also a first year Analyst at a BB, and have also got 0 technical exposure. The most excel I've done is make a few charts with data pulled from Factset to put in a PPT.

Hahaha somebody should make an “expectations vs reality” IB thread. But yeah man, coverage banking is mostly putting slides together on your client and spreading their historical financials, maybe rolling them forward and showing what pro forma would look like if they issue more shares or something. Undergrads seriously overrate the importance of financial modeling. Don’t think my MD would even know how an IRR/NPV excel function would work.

Also, at one of the banks you mentioned and feel similar. Reassuring to hear that it’s not just me that feels that way. 

Also a first year Analyst at a BB that has gotten relatively little technical exposure until recently. When it comes to modeling, I honestly feel like I have no clue what I'm doing. My Associates and VPs assume that I've already had modeling experience before but I'm at a loss and unsure of who to turn to for help. Ordinarily, I would take it upon myself to learn the ins and outs of the model but I'm already doing 95+ hour weeks. The other Analysts and Associates are in the same boat so I'm hesitant to ask them for too much help as I don't want to add to their workload.

I feel like WFH has been a major impediment to the typical learning curve and I'm not sure whether I should try to wait this out and see if these skills come to me over time or just switch careers now. Would definitely appreciate some advice from other people on here who have been or are going through similar experiences.

At an EB and same here. Don't know how to model for shit. 

Hold up– so people cite (with astounding frequency) "financial modeling skills" as one of the main (only) takeaways from IB. And you're saying that's not the case? Would love to get some more opinions on this since it may be important for many students considering IB.

Lmfao I posted a similar thread a few weeks ago asking when I can expect to get any modeling exposure as a first-year, but all the comments were current first-years telling me about how they're running 3 models simultaneously and I'm getting fleeced by my firm. Not sure wtf is going on here but maybe it's a coverage v. m&a thing? 

Also in a BB coverage group. Feel the exact same way. Don't have any completed deals either.

The deal I've been working on for the past six months has just died. Months of hard work down the drain. Definitely looking for new options. 

I wonder what corporate finance / tech strategic finance firms are looking for when they say you should know how to model cuz I barely know how to create a full financial model.

Same. Whenever there’s something technical my associate takes it.. but when are they going to pass it off to us? 

Banking at the end of the day despite all the "glory and praise" that it receives is a broker business - all you're doing is finding a buyer and a seller - the "financial modeling" work is a nice added bonus (putting aside the lending arm of the bank). Echoing everyone else's sentiment that the only way to learn how to model is to do it yourself on your own time - find whoever the best second/third year analysts are and ask them for their best models - start digging through and figuring out what's going on. There are many people who spend 3-4 years in banking and never close anything material - don't get disappointed it's just the way it is. If you really want to "work on interesting modeling" - see if you can somehow become close to your staffer and ask him for the next buyside deal - especially if it's for a strategic - I think that will probably give you the most "modeling experience". If you want a deal to close - dual/track sell-side but 80% of it is managing data rooms    

Note: Edited to reflect a contradictory statement that was called out below

I haven't done anything in excel besides simple graphs and pulling data since the end of November, other people in the same boat. Wouldn't worry. 

I literally feel like a summer analyst.  Whenever there is a model or something complicated, it's like I am a silent observer on the email chain and calls.  Obviously I am trying to follow what's happening and learn but it is not nearly the same as actually working on something.  

Speaking of incompetence, does anyone else feel like even in ppt and lighter stuff like comps they are still lagging?  Or is it just me?  My attention to detail has sharpened up for sure but it still feels like every time I am given a task like "Make X slide" I end up conceptually getting it wrong. Even when I ask for old examples, essentially replicate them, and have my associate review it.  Is this just a normal MD thing?  Makes me feel like even the stuff I should be able to do and is "easier" than modeling I am messing up.

I wonder if my MDs get that I have not been exposed to that kind of work (and no one is teaching me) so that's why I end up sitting most of those tasks out/make technical mistakes when helping, or if I just suck. Is it possible to be fired for being perceived as an incompetent analyst?  At this point I am actually worried. 

That’s why some people try to go EB. It’s totally normal especially if your bank has an m&a/lev fin group 

First year analyst here. It’s alright man and do not feel insecure about it. You’re only 5 months in (same as me). I think the best thing to do is just make sure you execute deliverables well and don’t get coffee orders wrong. It just takes time to get there. No one will trust a kid 5 months into his job working with complex models.

And yes, you learn jack shit in banking, the models are ludicrous at best - if you work for people like I do, learning their behaviourals are very important. How do they get shit done? How do they deal with problems?

Haha I’m a CS major & spent a summer at a BB. I was so afraid of ‘modeling’, thought it was gonna be harder than coding... until I realized it was data entry into a template and random assumptions. Industry is total BS

Unless you're in a product group or an EB/BB or a group that does it's own modeling, that's basically the role of an "Investment Banker." 
There's a reason the finmeme accounts post weekly if not daily about how their job is just 90 hours of bitch work and moving logos around. 

If you did a summer internship, that might have shed some light on it, but I spoke to people I knew as friends in banks and they iterated that this is what they basically do, it's the flashy guys who go back to campus talking about the models & bottles kind of life that distort reality. I think it's also that when you know someone get's paid a lot, works for a brand name firm, is pretty smart/intelligent, and looks disheveled at brunch on sunday as they suddenly say they have to leave to get to the office to work on something, that you think it's cool important shit like corporate finance / modeling / or some important thing, but it's often not the case. Like you might be going to the office on Saturday to print and courier books, they're not going to tell you that but you might assume. 

Plus, it's banking right, it's a sales job, I'm surprised at how many people went in thinking it was going to "make them feel smart" or they would "learn the ins and outs about how a company operates" or "impress their fathers who got them that job"!

Really, follow the finmeme accounts and the ones for law / accounting / consulting, and you'll see a trend where everyone feels like they should be doing what their title and role suggests they do, but they dont. Think if you needed to actually do important super technical important stuff banks could hire so many art history majors who while are great at golf couldnt do a paper LBO? 1/2 joking about that last point

I would say 1 hour of self-study is probably equivalent to what you learn in ~10 hours at work. If you study on your own, it will put a lot more context to your work and vice versa. 

But yeah, I felt exactly as you did in banking. You have to take the reigns and learn things independently, it will pay off.