Lateraling as an Associate Without Deal Experience
I'm a post-MBA A1 in a coverage group at BAML/CS/Citi.
My Associate class was pretty big, and I haven't had any live deal experience after ~1 year on the desk.
I'm looking to lateral; how should I approach this in interviews when they ask me about deal experience?
Obviously I shouldn't and can't lie outright, but should I be straightforward about not having any live experience or try to play up pitch/bakeoff experience? I've been trying to go more towards the latter in some preliminary phone interviews, but I feel like they'd see right through it in an actual interview.
Bump
Why haven't you gotten any experience? Have your peers? Have you been working for senior guys that are trying to get ramped up on a sector, or that cover a sector that hasn't been active?
Have you worked on any projects that haven't yet gotten to a deal but could, i.e. a bunch of board presentation for a merger?
Limited view but seen a lot of resumes on WSO using that kind of experiences, presumably they didnt have live deals to talk about. As a sidenote I just seen a guy at a more pritheejius bank lateraling as an A1 in Operations to A1 IBD and he definitely didnt have live deal experience to talk about (but supported the desk).
Why do people keep on grouping BAML together with GS and Citi. It is a far better place, really more in line with JPM or MS than with CS (who is struggling big time and is nowhere near what it used to be), and Citi (which does deals, but is an absolute mess). BAML is a top BB, stop treating it like shit you clowns.
I wouldn't let my maid's kids work at BAML.
Haha so funny. Seriously though, jokes like that are just stupid, insulting, and paint an inaccurate picture of the industry to the kids who read this shit and actually act on it. There are certainly a couple of firms with more prestige, but they do a lot of quality work, have great deal flow, some really smart people, and place very well in terms of PE and B-school exits. Why do people hate them? The consumer presence dilute the brand so much that you can't draw your head from your ass and realize that the IB groups there are pretty elite?
What do you do every day
Associate 1 Looking to Lateral - Not much deal experience, help! (Originally Posted: 02/01/2018)
I'm a first year Associate at a middle market bank. I started in the fall so I've been here for 4-5 months. In that time we only finished one deal (and I came in on the tail end of it so didn't do much for it). We've been ongoing with a client this whole time for another one. The rest has just been basically putting together buyer lists and pitches.
I'm looking to lateral ASAP. I have a call with a BB MD next week. I'm just really concerned about my deal experience because I feel like I haven't gotten much, and know that if I stay here longer that I'm not really going to get any. I envision this place only doing 1-2 deals a year, and the stuff we're pursuing really just isn't that good.
I don't know what to do. Should I be embellishing the hell out of my work here? Making stuff up? Would really like to not do the latter if possible.
For Associate lateral interviews how much detail do they expect you to go into on deals? How much experience do A1's typically get in the first 6 months?
So def get the heck out of there. No don't make stuff up, because the MD will be able to check with the other bank on what you actually did there, and as far as embellishing, I would say don't do that either, just be honest and say to the MD that the reason you are lateraling is because you want more deal experience. He should appreciate the honesty, as well as the desire to learn more, and if he dosen't then he isn't worth working for.
Well this is for Associate lateraling, and I know that deal experience, and being able to speak to deal experience, is extremely important in lateral Associate interviews. That's the problem. I can't go in and just say I didn't get much because they're looking for someone with experience.
Granted, I know I can do the job, it's just tough to convince someone of that if you don't have deals under your belt to tell them about. I don't think they would be able to check with my bank, which is literally 25-30 people total. They could simply do a reference check which would just tell them I'm employed here in good standing. But they can't just call up and ask about what I've been working on, because I'm still working here.
But that doesn't change the fact that I don't really want to have to make stuff up or overly embellish things if I don't have to. Also I have no idea what BB Associates' experiences are like in their first couple of months. Maybe having one deal closed and pursuing a few others is par for the course.
Wow your bank is smaller than I thought. You may just have to take it hit and say something like "I can put models together very well, blah blah blah, but the bank I worked at was very small and did not get a lot of deals per year." then figure out what to say to him after that.
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