I just received my analyst reviews from my bank and thought they were unthoughtful and generic. The review listed things that we hear all the time in investment banking like "more attention to detail", "better execution of financial analysis", "more expertise in industry specific sub verticals", etc. These are obviously helpful tips for an extended career in Investment Banking but, in reality, they are not going to make your work better. I have been a top bucket analyst for the past two years and wanted to share a couple things that have helped me produce better than average work, including:
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Double check everything on paper and separating myself from work before turning back and reviewing
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Subscribing and using online investment banking tools like BAM~SEC and MEMO~FI (www.memo~fi.co) to have an edge on your competition
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Adhering to your superiors demands regardless of whether you have better ideas or believe you have a more correct way of doing things
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Practicing financial analysis outside of typical staffings as you will not be given a model in a long time and need to be ready when you are
What is some of the feedback you guys hear from your 360 reviews? And, what is some real life advise that helped you be a BETTER ANALYST?
I was able to survive as an analyst until now by being able to effectively manage stress levels during the job. Your energy levels are directly related to stress and thus your work product is also related to it. If you are able to keep steadiness through the job you will be a better analyst and your work product will benefit.
How does separating yourself from your work help when reviewing..? I am confused.
In my experience, I am able to catch more errors after setting my PPT or Excel down for a while. Think about it. When you build something you begin to gravitate what is already on the page but if you take a break and look back later you catch things that you wouldn't have before if you were continuously working.
First tip I got during my internship. Works so well.
When I was interning the top analyst at my firm had a rule that you print everything before you send it to anyone. You will catch way more errors reviewing printed stuff with a pen rather than clicking through the deck/model on your laptop. It'll cost you a few minutes every time but will typically save you entire iterations of the project.
100% agree with this and coupled with taking a step back from work it really does help like a charm
Printing it out seems to be common advice on this site. Would you say most analysts do that or are most too lazy and trust that their work is fully accurate?
I printed stuff out a lot my first couple years because everyone says to do it, but then you learn what to look for on the screen and get accustomed to catching mistakes without wasting the time waiting for something to print - always a good tip though
Wouldn't suggest printing stuff out unless you're a real clutz. Look for font, double spaces, right color usage, spell check, right alignment, no typos, whether something looks right, etc. Teh more you do it, the easier it becomes, Guerro
Agreed, there are things that you can do to naturally make your checking on a computer better like command+f for double spaces or for common spelling mistakes that you make etc..
common spellin gmistakes, good pint. Use spell check. F7. Do you konw where that is on the computer? Happy to help out and show you. Where do you live? Can I remote in? Perpahs we can see each other on Zoom? Teryai
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You visibly didn’t print this post before posting
I could use a pint
Call FactSet about everything instead of spending hours trying to figure something out on your own when the support line can help you find what you are looking for in minutes (usually)
Can do the same with CIQ too. Can we get this post to 10,000 SB? If this post gets 5 SBs, I will do a sequel to this post.
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What are some online investment banking tools you use? Asking for a friend
There are a lot of posts about this
As if the search function isn't completely fucked on this website
Some are mentioned in the post - there are a bunch though
I remember that everyone in my analyst class almost got the same exact suggestions on their reviews... deff just means MDs are lazy and dont care to put in meaningful reviews for their team
My VP deff gave me brutal reviews
Maybe its time to think of other career paths then hot shot
He's a second year, will be leaving anyways. Don't b mean
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To be a good analyst the main factors that you need to have are: A high level of mathematical ability, Programming languages, such as SQL, Oracle and Python, the ability to analyse, model and interpret data, Problem-solving skills, a methodical and logical approach, the ability to plan work and meet deadlines, accuracy and attention to detail.
The only programming you'll ever do is mayyyybe making an excel macro in VBA. You definitely don't need coding expertise
You obviously have never worked in any front office capacity lmao
Terrible first comment. You don't need programming knowledge.
I have good programming knowledge (Python, R, C++) and when interviewing a MD told me it was useless for banking.
Just get drunk with your bosses and you will be promoted faster... duh
Hmmm - thinking that this could backfire easily lol
following
1) Highlight comments once you've turned them, making it a lot easier to visually see the comments that you missed or didn't hit yet 2) Take advantage of the outside resources available to you so that you can focus your time on the important details. Whether it's using FactSet support to create a complex chart for you, your bank's graphics team to do a full slide graphic, or Logo Intern, those all reduce time spent on less meaningful tasks
Are people actually abiding by the rules in WFH? Seems hard to print a whole deck after every turn on your own printer.
how do you practice financial analysis? do you use your company’s existing models or build from scratch?
There are a bunch of resources that you can use to better your financial modeling. Some of the things that I did in order to practice was to search my local shared drive for models on projects that I was interested in and reach out to the team that was involved in building it if I had any questions. Macabacus is also great.
When do you have time to search through the drive...
“Adhering to your superiors demands regardless of whether you have better ideas or believe you have a more correct way of doing things”
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