I’ve been writing for this site on and off since 2012, and while I don’t work in the banking business per se, I work in a related field, and I’ve been lucky enough to have employed five great analysts over the years. So at age 43, and having been an employer many times over, I have a few insights as to what makes a good employee. I think WSO puts a bit too much emphasis on how to get a job, and maybe not enough on how to perform well in a job once you have it. So here we go.
Let me give you a few bullet points on my perspective as the employer, and what I’m looking for in a new analyst.
I’m busy. I am constantly putting out fires, and I need someone to make my life easier, rather than harder. That means:
- The money is less important than you think. I’m always willing to pay a little more to work with good people.
- I don’t have time to train you, most days. You have to train yourself.
- I need you to make very few errors. Errors take up my time.
- Time is the most precious resource. Making a mistake that eats up a huge amount of my time is really the worst thing you can do
- If you can get yourself to the point where you can actually take some responsibility and manage stuff yourself, even better.
- How you represent the firm is important. On the phone, with clients, or even if you’re running around in bars at night.
- Don’t look like a slob. Also, extra points for paying attention to your appearance.
- If I can’t put you in front of people, you aren’t much use to me.
- If you remember things that I might be forgetting, and actually anticipate my needs, you will become a much more valued employee.
- I don’t really want to know about your personal life. Not only will I not ask, but you shouldn’t tell me.
- Maturity beyond your years is a huge asset. It’s discouraging to think that you’re working with little kids.
- You might be the best banker/trader/whatever in the world, but if I have to spend 100 hours to get you there, it doesn’t make economic sense.
- My personal life is way more complicated than yours. Kids, sports, pets, house, family, grades, college, wife, in-laws, etc.
- Make me look good, and I’ll hook you up. 90% of bankers will go way out of their way to help someone who helped them.
This should give you some tips for dealing with someone who is a little older, who is a managing director. If I think back, I was probably a bit more high-maintenance than I should have been.
As for getting noticed, it’s not hard to distinguish yourself. Don’t feel like you have to flap your arms and jump around to get attention. Your contributions are valued. If you do want to have a discussion of what a good job you are doing, best to do it in a very subtle way.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, and I’d love to see some input in the comments.
Point 7 is a hug bugbear of mine. If I ate a steak pie every time some intern or junior thought I was their own personal therapist I would be one fat motherfucker.
You'd be amazed at how many people I have seen lose their jobs, get bad marked on performance reviews just for this.
I get #7 too often, it's annoying and I am NOT their THERAPIST. If your life is miserable, don't bring it to work. I could care less. I want to know how to be good at the job and know who not to piss off.
All good points, nonetheless.
(Look at the time; I gotta get back to work)
basically, how to be a standout beta-male.
which is utterly depressing, depending on your perspective.
Most kids nowadays would suck dick for the honor of being viewed as a beta male by a banker.
Hardcore Gangster Putin
Truth
lol
I strongly believe this is the biggest wedge between millenials and the old guard. Senior people give orders with no regard or respect for juniors' time, and essentially dismiss any possible thing that person can be doing (wedding, graduation, kids, doctor) and doesn't want to hear it. But God forbid the junior person dare encroach on a second of a senior banker's personal time! They have complex, important things to do like a (wedding, graduation, kids, doctor)! This mentality is outdated and is both the easiest and hardest fix to make banking more tolerable for analysts and associates to want to stay on with the organization.
Rule #12: Pretend like hypocrisy is nonexistent
In other words, eat shit with a smile... #DoubleStandards
My point exactly. The people who always bitch about "oh, I don't want to hear about your personal life" are always the same people who constantly tell you about theirs. OP doesn't really not care about others personal lives, he just would rather you not talk about yours so that he can talk about his more often.
Thank you for the very enlightening post
This so true specifically these points below. The problem with many new analysts is the lack of self initiative. They should be trying to solve problems themselves first before asking questions, spending their own time learning, and please review your own work first.
"I don't have time to train you, most days. You have to train yourself. I need you to make very few errors. Errors take up my time. Time is the most precious resource. Making a mistake that eats up a huge amount of my time is really the worst thing you can do If you can get yourself to the point where you can actually take some responsibility and manage stuff yourself, even better."
Yeah, yeah, I get it, you're a BSD, I don't talk to you unless you talk to me, I must do whatever it takes to make you happy and if I'll be good you will let me finish your desert, thanks. I'll PCA all of the above: "Don't be an ahole."
I have learnt that this is best done by two things:
1) as an employee; "never complain, if you don't like something, do something to correct it." 2) Always remember you are there to make your managers job easier not harder
Unfortunately you'll have to deal with us. You can keep moaning about the low quality of the juniors all you want, it won't get any better.
If there is one thing that makes me proud of my generation, is giving a hard time to mid-career assholes giving fake advice.
If a recent graduate can do everything in the original post at his entry-level salary and with a smile, what is the point of holding on to employees like OP?
The best employees just do their job and mingle with upper management. The boss always knows who works and who doesn't.
This is a great post two points that stuck out to me are: Regarding point 12- Don't Facebook or text your friends during work hours when you should be doing your job (distractions). Facebook or other social media sites should NEVER be part of your day on company time. Now I really like this: "As for getting noticed, it's not hard to distinguish yourself. Don't feel like you have to flap your arms and jump around to get attention. Your contributions are valued. If you do want to have a discussion of what a good job you are doing, best to do it in a very subtle way." I'm glad to hear an employer reiterating what I've always believed about getting noticed in the workplace.
Just Starting Out Need Help on How to Become a Successful Analyst (Originally Posted: 02/13/2018)
Hello everyone, This is a bit of my background, so you can understand my situation. (I would appreciate the advice and forgive me in advance for the long introduction but I believe it serves vitally to see where I am coming from and currently at)...
I grew up my entire life with a pursuit of becoming a professional soccer player. From the ages of 9 to 19 I sacrificed relentless hours practicing every single day (about 3-4 hours a day). I neglected all of my high school learning with the objective towards becoming pro. Through the age of 9 to 19, I played in the top youth clubs which were ranked in the top nationally. I had graduated high school with a horrendous GPA of 1.9 and SAT scores that are laughable. I went to college with the objective of starting my own graphic design firm and relentlessly focused on my major classes but neglected my electives resulting in my freshman year of a GPA of 1.0. However, during that year following college, I managed at 19 to get an opportunity to go overseas and play professionally in Sweden and Finland where I was on trial. It was a great 1-month opportunity where I played against 8 different professional teams during their offseason. This is where I thought everything paid off and school was pointless and the reality of becoming a professional became obvious. Unfortunately, I was not able to continue the pursuit of becoming professional following the previous year I had sustained four injuries in my ankles (2 hair-line fractures and 2 third-degree sprains) from which I could never recover from. The cause of the injuries was discovered that I had developed CMT Type 2 (a muscular dystrophy disease where your ankles become progressively weaker).
As I was studying graphic design I was considering switching my major to finance or business, so I could learn how the business aspect of art in order to run a successful clothing brand. During the summer a friend of mine reached out with an opportunity to work at Primerica. I took the opportunity at 19 years old where I was stoked towards entering into the finance industry because little fact, from the age of 9 to 19 I had always been interested in stocks and had played stock simulation games with an untapped desire of getting myself into finance.
I was ecstatic that I had found my passion as I enjoyed helping small retail clients with a path towards becoming financially independent. The unfortunate part of my experience was the beginning as the training at our office was terrible. My manager told me the first day to set appointments and with your market and bring your trainer to their house. I called my entire market and set up over 30 appointments within my first week. My manager at the time was very young and just getting involved in the industry. As a result, only 2 individuals decided to do business with us (excluding my parents). My trainer confessed that he did not know how to collect referrals and after my 30 days of training my market of close friends had been exhausted. When this occurred, my managers were stressing to be that now that I hold a life insurance license I should begin to recruit my friends and family and have them take me on appointments, so I have places to go see. I objected because I knew that if I did that I would repeat the process of what occurred with me and all I would have ended up doing was burning through their list and they would either continue what I did to them or quit with a bad taste. I told my manager that I will stop going on appointments until I learn how to do financial planning and collect referrals so that when I recruit, my people who are developing into advisors do not have to worry about burning through their market and quitting.
From 19 to 23 I visited clients spare-time building a small book of business while spending 100% of my income that I had made on books about finance and investing. I had spent over $10,000 buying every single book you can possibly imagine on the topic of personal finance, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, interest rates, central banking, monetary policy, etc. When I was short on cash I would go to the library and gather the books I could not afford to study and master. Over this four-year journey, I had read over 1,000 books, attended investment seminars hosted by various companies such as Invesco, and met with countless advisors from other companies digging into their brains on how to become successful as a financial advisor. With all of these books I thought to myself, why not develop a system that is in both writing and audio that will show people how to become an advisor from A to Z without the risk of burning through their market like I did. By the time I reached 23 I had completed this system and it was 819 pages long with 1,366 references as a bibliography.
During this four-year hiatus of intense reading and studying, I had developed an intense passion for something I had never had an interest before. That was learning, researching, and studying finance. I sincerely developed a passion for the markets and in my free time today I spend studying whatever it is about the markets. I have developed a personal blog specifically devoted to educating people on financial markets and have a little over 900 people following me as of Valentine’s day (it’s only 6 months old). The objective in the blog is to develop almost a think tank organization out of it that focuses on financial markets and Austrian economics.
One issue that I have being a financial advisor is that I despise prospecting. I always had the interest of becoming a portfolio manager and with the developed habit and love for studying and researching the financial markets, and my personality type (INTJ), I feel as though I can fit into the mold of becoming a financial analyst and work my way up towards becoming a portfolio manager someday and write books about the market. My role models that I look up to are Peter Lynch, Sir John Templeton, Jim Rogers, Mohamed A. El-Erian, Peter Schiff, James Grant, Bill Gross, Warren Buffett, and Charlie Munger. I specifically admire Buffett and Munger as how they are in their late 80s and early 90s still working. That brings hope to me at 23 to be able to be competent at that age and continue to manage money.
At this moment 23 years old and I hold a life insurance license, series 6, 63, and 26. I am studying for my series 65 and 7. Even though I was immature, I feel disappointed in myself that I did not take high school or my freshman year in college seriously and pissed away my grades. However, after these 4 years and a love for learning finance and a foundational knowledge already built up I feel more mature and serious towards pursuing college, getting high grades, and becoming an analyst.
I am the type of person that attempts to focus on one thing and become an expert in it. During my youth it was becoming an expert at soccer. Now it is becoming an expert in finance.
I am currently looking towards return back to college to pursue a BA in finance which I shall follow up with a CFA and followed by an MBA. This time I am serious about my education and obtaining a GPA of 3.2 or higher so that I may acquire an internship at some of the big investment firms.
I need help as to what should I do now. As I return back to school which I may be just a freshman again, should I pursue my series 65 and 7 and get that knocked out within the next 3 months. Will my background in financial advising while holding a series 6, 63, 26, 7, and 65, and running a blog of 900 followers be attractive to receive an analyst internship at 24ish if I maintain a GPA of 3.2 or higher?
As well, when I pass my series 65 and 7, I should be enrolled as a freshman in online college (I’m looking towards Penn State). If I land a job that relates to being an analyst while I am in my freshman and sophomore year, will that experience furthered with my time being an adviser holding all of the licenses and running a blog of almost 1k followers help me land a summer internship as an analyst in my junior year at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, or Morgan Stanley? (I do understand that the success rate of being accepted into an internship with these companies are around 2%).
I feel as though I’m beginning late at 23 when people my age are already graduated pursuing their MBAs. In addition to everything I have said, is there any advice you can tell me that I should do in order to land a job as an analyst at one of these big firms and be a successful one?
Thank you guys in advance for those the bore through this long post and provided me with advice. It means the world to me!
Hey pmordasov, the following topics might be helpful:
Calling relevant professionals! Augustin-Hisse dgc12345 parkerspider
I hope those threads give you a bit more insight.
Star Analysts (Originally Posted: 08/22/2011)
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/star-analysts-are-back-no-autogr…
A little behind on the news this weekend so I just noticed this Dealbook article. Do you think any other sectors will see a similar type of demand?
I also thought it was pretty interesting that analyst's average comp is at $700k (compared to $1.45 million in 2001). It still sounds to be much higher than the averages discussed/rumored everywhere else.
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