I can’t be the only one who thinks this right?
Where does their sense of entitlement come from? Let’s face reality, you’re in your early thirties but have the seniority of someone 24-25. Except that 24 year old can literally do your job better.
I don’t care that you were a VP in S&T or AM and did your MBA at Dartmouth, Booth or some other shitty M7. Be nice, don’t be a elitist douchebag to Analysts.
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I think they're just super insecure and try and approach with a strategy of douchebaggery to hide it.
I was an MBA associate and the first shit I did was just listen and learn to the guys who actually did the work, definitely got me up the curve way faster and they respected me for it - made things so much easier.
You look like the one with a sense of entitlement working in IB. I don't blame your associate for treating you like that given how immature you are with your comments - you must be a real dickhead to deal with. What is the purpose of your post? Even if your associate is a real douchebag, there is no need to stir things up and trash all the other MBA associates. There are douchebag analysts all over the place as well, but do you see us posting shit posts like yours?
And really, what makes you think you really could do a better job than a first year associate? Seriously, even if your MBA associate has 0 prior background in finance, he/she would still bring more to the table that you would fresh out of undergraduate. Keep your ego in check and perhaps your associate will start treating you with respect.
Yeah and every analyst is just so wonderful!
Devil's advocate -- can't get much more arrogant than some 25 year old A-A who hasn't left his desk for 3 years looking down on someone with 10 years of work/life experience outside the bank. Post MBA Associates should be humble and nice, but so should A-A's, nobody cares if you can model fast, it doesn't make up for lack of perspective.
Eh, they have earned their badge of fury imo.
You say yourself that they’ve been chained to their desks for three years. So they have given up thousands of hours and a chunk of their early 20s only to have someone come in from a two-year vacation with zero relevant work experience telling them to quickly whip up X, Y, or Z without having any idea how long those tasks take (or why they are being done, really). Having to report to, and often indirectly train, someone who has little clue as to what they are doing is thankless and infuriating.
There are plenty of good post-MBA associates but there are pleeeeenty of weak ones, and the latter are usually the ones wielding huge egos despite their ineptitude because, wow, look at them and how far they’ve fallen upward.
We really need to stop hiring people with no front office finance or finance-adjacent backgrounds. Let’s be real, the vast majority of people who worked in advertising or fashion or HR for 5 years were let into their MBAs as filler diversity applicants because the finance/consulting/tech quotas were full. No need to let them practice playing grownup at the juniors’ expense. It is getting ridiculous at this point.
"We really need to stop hiring people with no front office finance or finance-adjacent backgrounds"
its because people with legit front office finance experience want NOTHING to do with IB. NOTHING
If every analyst wanted to stay in IB and/or come back to IB after an MBA stint, then yes, you would likely not have any no prior experience post MBAs
Think of PE. They don't hire post MBAs without PE experience. Why? Because there is demand from PE analysts and associates to come back to the industry after biz school. You can bet your life if all PE associates bailed and never wanted to return firms would also be hiring no experience MBAs like IBs.
Not great when the person responsible for training new associates and giving them proper guidance has written them off before they even hit the desk.
Can’t imagine how hard it is to step into that kind of environment for anyone.
winning business is about being an interesting person. post mba associates are more interesting simply because they've done more things in life. they might not model efficiently but that was never the deciding factor in client relationships
Pretty disheartening to see so many of these post trashing MBA associates, telling them what they need to do to be a proper/qualified associate etc... Just so you know, there are equally as many bad analysts around. Just because you don't see us ranting about analysts here on WSO doesn't mean we think all the analysts on wall st are doing an amazing job. we just don't have time to post all these useless things ranting and complaining all-day long. There are top analysts that we would love to work with and there are immature analyst like you that we constantly have to deal with.
There are many useless, entitled, lazy analysts but… they are analysts. The whole point is that they are newborns needing to be trained. I don’t expect an analyst or SA to be much more than a burden for their first 6 months, and I make room for them to make mistakes for the first year. It should be expected that a subset of them went the IB route on autopilot because how much does a 19/20 year old really know about what they want to do once they graduate?
If someone is coming into IB in their late 20s or early 30s with purportedly wide breadth and depth of professional experience, I expect more of them. They have been hired specifically to make everyone’s lives easier because of their supposed managerial skills and corporate know-how. Many of them cause even more waves than a bad analyst would because of their lack of relevant training and understanding, and then become even more grating when they try to blame the kid with a decade less experience for their mistakes.
If we must insist on hiring MBAs who don’t know how to use excel or can’t even build a coherent slide, they should come in as analysts. They get the career change they believe they deserve while we don’t have to keep pretending they can manage jack shit. Win win
its because of this attitude your analysts all bail on IB and never want to return.
try not working them 100 hrs a week and perhaps they might want to return/stay at the bank and build on their experience
The reason you get low quality MBA associates is because less and less MBA students want to go into banking so quality of hires suffers. If you changed so they came in as analysts you’d make the problem worse - ppl with audit, consulting, other finance experience wouldn’t be interested and you’d be stuck with a bunch of previous teachers and journalists who decided they want to make money and have no relevant skills. Also banks haven’t figured out how to design an effective program to retain analysts into associate years. Even CVP started hiring MBA associates and increases the number each year.
The lack of self-awareness is astonishing.
i love my mba associates
Just interviewed for FT yesterday and all my interviewers started off as post MBA associates. Of the 4, 1 was enjoyable and the others seemed like entitled, “we’re superior because we work at xyz bank” assholes.
some of you should realize your interviewers also read wso.
Yeah, ik. I hope they see this
Pretty hilarious that in your career the only relevant thing you can contribute to this thread is "I had an interview with an MBA associate once! He seemed like a jerk!" Go play with your toys, the adults are talking.
Wanna come w/? We can make it a play date:)
JFC, associates man lol. Just remember that if you were good, you’d be in PE.
Yeah, there are no analysts like that. Are you really dumb enough to make that kind of generalization after 1 interview? Good luck w that offer
Thought I’d chime in as another analyst. I’d like to point out that despite the hyperbole and venting, this isn’t a unique/controversial opinion.
It’s pretty joked about amongst analysts and VPs that MBA associates are usually a lot more technically unprepared.
I wouldn’t go so far to say that they’re douchebags / bad people though. I’ve definitely experienced elitist / unpleasant A2As - wouldn’t say it’s just MBA associates.
That said, I can see it being more frustrating when the person is also technically unprepared on top of being unpleasant tk work with
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Idk why associates just seem to be D-bags in general. From my experience, always have fantastic interviews with analysts, VPs can be intense, but fair, and MDs are usually really nice and fit focused... Associates in my interviews were always AS$$es bragging about their analyst years or MBA, the sick deals they did, etc...pure arrogance and just generally unpleasant feel.
What is it in IB that makes associates the worst of the totem pole?
Because they’re finally not on the bottom of the totem pole
Would it be better if they went to a top M7 like Wharton? Lol. Why even make that distinction
Ah yes, Tuck & Booth - scum among the rest of the shitty M7/T10's. How elitist of them to mention 5 years of experience before you graduated from freshman year.
Don’t even understand what you mean here boss.
An MBA is literally a bullshit degree you pay for. I would be much more happy for someone with 1-2 years of consulting -> HBS/GSB to be an associate than someone with 10 years in marketing.
There are just different levels imo
That’s true, but not my point.
Tuck is not an M7...
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This thread is a shit show lol, MBA associates on absolute suicide watch
Completely agree with another user - for those MBA associates who don’t know your analysts and VPs do in fact absolutely take the piss out of you.
That’s just objectively true - unless you come in very well prepared for the job, i.e. Big 4 deal advisory / top audit / consultants / top lawyers etc.
Couple HBS/GSB MBAs joined us over the summer and they were useless. They cannot model, cannot definitely tell you whether your work is right or wrong, will throw you under the bus to the VP your staffed with.
I personally believe that MBA associates need to be thoroughly technically trained before joining, whether that means 2-3 months training, modelling tests etc. Otherwise they just come in and are less useful than an analyst.
GSB has ~3 people go into IB per year. HBS has more but still far far fewer than almost any other top program, especially on a % basis. Maybe you worked with one GSBer but I never encountered one during all of recruiting or at my entire firm.
.
Yep. At a top BB in London at a top coverage group. A couple of the best associates were former Big 4 previously. Naturally they’re also a couple years older
This thread is fucking sad man, just a bunch of panzies arguing about who is worse - snot nosed 22 year olds marching into PPT / excel monkey work or egghead 28 year olds being sucked in to replace all the bodies that are leaving.
This shit doesn’t fucking matter stop having a hissy fit over this stupid ass career path.
have you tried throwing a stapler at them when they're not looking? its very easy and i highly suggest you give it a try
Should’ve said the MBA Associates you’ve dealt with are douchebags. It doesn’t imply they all are. But since you decided to throw them all under the bus, that’s why it’s raining monkey shit on you.
Should’ve said the MBA Associates you’ve dealt with are douchebags. It doesn’t imply they all are. But since you decided to throw them all under the bus, that’s why it’s raining monkey shit on you.
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i’m an mba associate and even i think there are so many issues with what you said. viewing analysts as people who “report” to you for one. at a minimum first 6 months on the job you should consider yourself junior to 2nd year analysts. desire to help them develop? what gives you the expertise in this area? your overall tone is condescending and would bet anything your analysts are posting this these threads after working with you.
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Man. I’m MBA associate myself but the way you talk, not to mention the tone, is awful. You really seem like a typical MBA associate whom many analysts shit on.
Here’s a tip bud: analysts don’t report to you. You’re one team.
MBA Associates get too much hate lmao. It is tough for 22 year old trust-fund, privately educated kids be told what to do by someone with unconventional background.
Is it that common for analysts out of undergrad to be from that privileged or trust fund background? I am most certainly the opposite.
I’m flattered to be described this way lmao
Banking is full of people I dislike and like, some are MBAs and some are non-MBAs.
I have my master’s, does that make me a half douchebag? 😂
Am MBA associate and maybe because of relevant/similar work experience pre-IB (ER) ramped quickly and running circles around senior analysts at the risk of sounding arrogant and despite still of course learning certain elements of the job.
I’m actually often frustrated with senior analysts’ inability to transition from executing discrete tasks and applying initiative and judgement on certain analyses/book sections. I have also seen the learning pace deteriorate rapidly with new incoming classes in WFH environment.
All to say, not all MBA associates are cut from the same cloth.
There's a sweet spot for Associates/VPs of being able to hop in the materials when necessary and push something over the line but also being able to give enough guidance while allowing the juniors to do their job without nit picking them to death. A2As tend to be better at the former but worse at the latter, *seasoned* MBA associates (because we can't do anything that well in the beginning) tend to be better at the latter but worse at the former.
Ha, felt the same way as you and then I saw Birdman's post and can definitely see where the OP is coming from.
Lol you worked in ER no one is talking about you. You are rare and welcome and much needed.
For what it's worth, my comments on MBA associates do not apply to people like you with relevant experience that dramatically shifts the learning curve.
Lmao very true, we got one mba associate at my job with literally only one summer internship under his belt and he’s the biggest most arrogant prick I’ve ever met
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