You are a bottom bucket analyst if...

Enough coddling: by definition some people are the bottom 15%. For those of you who don't have the self-awareness to recognize you aren't cutting it, here are the signs (real life examples). If you do any of the following, I shouldn't have to explain to you why you are a bottom bucket analyst:

  • You copy and paste data wrong. Like reformatting the buyers page I suddenly see Facebook's ticker is ["IBM"] and is based out of Beijing? That's great.

  • Every time I give you a turn, I have to re-check the entire book because you have a habit of screwing things up that shouldn't change. Like weirdly/stupidly basic stuff. How the hell did a subtitle suddenly disappear off the page? That page didn't even have any comments on it.

  • Oh that's nice. Our meeting is with Facebook in March, but the title page shows ibm in September. Our book also has ibm in five places.

  • You spelled the CEO's name wrong.

  • You give me financial pages with different cases on them. Huh? How come all the numbers in each of the "different" cases are the same? Don't blame "CapIQ" or "embedded links". You screwed up.

  • What a great growth rate! Oh wait, you used the wrong number of years in a CAGR. We're not talking advanced calculus here.

  • A minus 99% growth rate. Interesting. I thought this business was growing. Do you know what the difference is between Billions and Millions? (Bloomberg pulls)

  • Capacity utilization or renewal rates are -5% or 120%? That's awesome. So I'm rolling a (weighted? magical?) dice with 120% probability of getting snake eyes: I'm guaranteed snake eyes at least once with a 20% chance of getting it twice on the same roll.

  • You show a monthly number as an annual number. Oh, interesting. This company trades at 120x? I thought it was only supposed to be 10x. Way to create value and a premium multiple. You deserve a bonus above street.

  • The growth case DCF is lower than the base case? You screwed up. No, not a "labeling issue". You screwed up.

  • Our indicated valuation range is from X to Y. And our football field shows every metric is 2x Y or higher. If your math is right (which it isn't), I'm sure the client will appreciate us selling their business for less than half of what "we think it is worth".

  • Footnote says comps market price as of September of last year. It's f'n February. Quarters have since reported. Also, you have footnote 7 conspicuously floating in the middle of the page, but at the bottom of the page our footnotes only go to 4.

  • Our quals/creds page only has 2016 data. It's 2018 and 2017 numbers have since come in. There was a firm wide email. Update.

  • You listed employees as being in $ millions. Hmm. I know people are our "greatest asset", but this is borderline human trafficking.

  • Steve got promoted to MD this year. There was a firm wide email. The team celebrated with drinks last Friday. You shook his hand and said "Congratulations on the promotion to MD, Steve". He took you out for drinks and then gave you his credit card for the rest of the night. He said, "This will be my first meeting as an MD". I'm sure he'll love that you left him as a Director on the team page.

  • Oh, and you got YOUR OWN PHONE NUMBER WRONG ON THE TEAM PAGE.

  • We are still here late on a Friday because you can't do your job and I write WSO posts while baby sitting you.

G'dmn monkeys on type writers. Guys, this isn't even "IBD is attention to detail" difficult. This would get you fired ANYWHERE.

BTW: [ ] - Clearly made up names, in-case your bottom bucket a$$ didn't get it.

#9 top discussion of 2018

 

Figure i'd add some based on myself... hmm

  • "Please see PDF attachment for..." forgets to attach anything to email
  • "I've cleaned out the model you requested" Has enough #REFS to to supply every soccer match in Africa
  • "Fuck man we've be working some late hours" Spends 10 mins on tinder every 20 mins
What concert costs 45 cents? 50 Cent feat. Nickelback.
 

This is very helpful. At first blush, it seems most of these can be identified by printing out one's work and take a highlighter to track changes between turns (that in itself should be beneficial to a prospective 1st year analyst in ensuring that the truly egregious errors are fleshed out).

In your experience, were these mistakes isolated to new 1st year analysts? Did you see improvement after the first few go arounds where the mistakes were found?

There's a closer meaning to my user name. Try reading it quickly. Perhaps you will then understand ;P
 

As others have previously mentioned, F7 and print/flip would solve most of these pretty quickly.

I remember reading a comment somewhere on WSO that effectively said "if your second/third year analyst and associate aren't telling you to F7 and print and flip everything when you hit the desk, they have failed you."

Probably the single easiest thing to do that will have the largest positive effect.

Maximum effort.
 

Advice for 1st years/bottom buckets: When you receive a turn with changes, please be aware of what these changes are and how they affect your model.

For example, if one small change shouldn't be drastically affecting your numbers from the previous version, then be aware of that. It baffles me how so many people are not cognizant of their work and how anything flows.

Changing the tax rate from 35% to 37% should not make your free cash flows increase by 100000%. You fucked up.

 

Also, I love when you notice these same kids try to spin their way out of their mistakes. I've personally witnessed interactions between them and an associate where the 1st year knows they fucked up, the associate knows the 1st year fucked up, yet the 1st year continues to say things like "oh that's strange! Not sure how that happened". Uh....yes you do know what happened. I know what happened. You fucked up.

 

Hey Friendly Boss Person, Instead of writing posts here, you "could" do a bit more training of your staff. Or, spend the necessary time and $ to recruit proven talent, not just a fresh MBA face.

Humility would have you looking in the mirror mate, b/c being a jerk apparently is not working.

 

For Sales and trading:

1: client wanted my bid. I asked trader for the offer. Executed the trade on offer. Discovered I fucked up, reversed the trade in 3 seconds, hooray! Instant 100k loss on traders book.

  1. Client wanna buy something on trader’s axe list, I didn’t check the latest email and book info and executed the trade and later found out trader got no inventory = trader now is shorting it. I heard from my other friends that the trader stood up yelling my name hysterically and I became a well known super star in London office. (I am based in Asia )

True story. Real experience in the G- bulge bracket. Had to let myself go after 1.5 yrs. that’s my short stint in IB lol

 
Mr.Magau:

Well...I don't really think this is true. The skills required to be a GREAT analyst, college student, and "exit-opp" interviewer at a young age are not quite the same as the skills required to become a GREAT senior banker. As a matter of fact they may be exactly the opposite in many cases.

This is a fair point... what makes a stellar analyst often isn't very correlated with what makes a successful long term banker.

 

Probably depends on the job. I would imagine that for the top firms and groups (eg KKR PE or the like) the good ones stay and get promoted (or maybe start their own company)and everyone else leaves once they know they're not getting offers to move up?

 

Right it still depends on the group. But in your example with KKR and the like, it's a little different because those firms generally hire from the sell-side and generally not from recent grads. Even so, work hours in firms like KKR are all pretty intense, so I anticipate not many would want to stay even there for the rest of their lives.

 
YourWorstEnemy:
Summer analyst. Not FT

Advice: act like you are on the bottom...even below the janitors, graphics shop workers, cafeteria workers, etc.

Your modesty will be noted. I know an analyst in my SA class who did not get an offer because he was constantly rude and condescending to the print shop workers.

 

You have to outperform the guy who's in the spot you want to be. That's going to mean not screwing up, and working much harder. One of the best things you can do is to consistently do part of the guy above you's job. So if you're an analyst, take a first crack at drafting pages, putting together the text slides, or reviewing the work of another product group. If you're an associate, shell the book out for your VP, and don't let any errors make it through to the VP. Things like that.

Don't underestimate the value of the relationship side though. Ultimately bucketing is more about perceived value and how much people like you than who was on the "biggest project". There's definitely some correlation there, but it's not the most important thing.

 

In fairness, a lot of these things happen to most people occasionally. There's a difference between them happening one percent of the time and every time. Also, obviously anything going directly to a client or senior banker ought to be perfect. You can really only get away with a ding on that count very infrequently in my experience without people thinking you suck.

 
TorontoMonkey1328:
- You listed employees as being in $ millions. Hmm. I know people are our "greatest asset", but this is borderline human trafficking.
  • Steve got promoted to MD this year. There was a firm wide email. The team celebrated with drinks last Friday. You shook his hand and said "Congratulations on the promotion to MD, Steve". He took you out for drinks and then gave you his credit card for the rest of the night. He said, "This will be my first meeting as an MD". I'm sure he'll love that you left him as a Director on the team page.

HAHAHA

 

The -100% CAGR's always get me. Different color borders (sometimes blue, sometimes black) and inconsistent print tiles are other examples as well.

“Elections are a futures market for stolen property”
 
Esuric:
Different color borders (sometimes blue, sometimes black) and inconsistent print tiles

I had an analyst who could not, for the life of him, keep his fonts consistent from slide to slide. He would also, somehow, mess with the slide master so that titles and subtitles would jump ever-so-slightly as you thumbed through the deck.

I think he did it on purpose. I hated him.

"Son, life is hard. But it's harder if you're stupid." - my dad
 

Modi temporibus fugiat molestias tenetur. Temporibus molestiae aspernatur nesciunt odio consequatur. Iusto et necessitatibus et eius accusamus hic et. Dolor sit amet aut tempora repudiandae necessitatibus. Et eos voluptates perferendis.

Nemo rem earum voluptatem aut explicabo. Voluptatum est optio consequuntur doloribus consequatur. Omnis eos quasi ut non pariatur explicabo. Repudiandae iure molestiae et et ut. Non officia deserunt provident voluptas cupiditate iste.

Consectetur libero delectus et dicta rerum aut. Asperiores qui consequatur debitis magni. Nulla ut rem maxime aperiam. Ducimus eos est vero necessitatibus temporibus harum. Laborum distinctio aut omnis et aut. Sapiente minima maxime dolores eos pariatur nostrum.

 

Quis officiis voluptatem nam dolor est a. Sit voluptatibus sunt molestiae rerum qui impedit. Aut dicta vel in. Aperiam quos suscipit magni explicabo doloribus voluptatum. Numquam illo alias necessitatibus ipsam unde. Non officiis eaque error optio porro. Accusantium mollitia voluptatum sapiente dicta.

Aspernatur ducimus itaque id hic autem. Molestias nihil et incidunt placeat numquam. Magni aut id non commodi. Id deleniti qui dolorem soluta ullam.

Vero consequatur ut non sed unde. Aliquid harum officiis eius voluptate quo. Sint nihil est at libero officia alias. Architecto et eum eos alias molestiae.

Career Advancement Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Jefferies & Company 02 99.4%
  • Goldman Sachs 19 98.8%
  • Harris Williams & Co. (++) 98.3%
  • Lazard Freres 02 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 03 97.1%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Harris Williams & Co. 18 99.4%
  • JPMorgan Chase 10 98.8%
  • Lazard Freres 05 98.3%
  • Morgan Stanley 07 97.7%
  • William Blair 03 97.1%

Professional Growth Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Lazard Freres 01 99.4%
  • Jefferies & Company 02 98.8%
  • Goldman Sachs 17 98.3%
  • Moelis & Company 07 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 05 97.1%

Total Avg Compensation

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Director/MD (5) $648
  • Vice President (19) $385
  • Associates (85) $262
  • 3rd+ Year Analyst (13) $181
  • Intern/Summer Associate (33) $170
  • 2nd Year Analyst (65) $168
  • 1st Year Analyst (198) $159
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (144) $101
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

1
redever's picture
redever
99.2
2
Betsy Massar's picture
Betsy Massar
99.0
3
BankonBanking's picture
BankonBanking
99.0
4
dosk17's picture
dosk17
98.9
5
GameTheory's picture
GameTheory
98.9
6
Secyh62's picture
Secyh62
98.9
7
CompBanker's picture
CompBanker
98.9
8
kanon's picture
kanon
98.9
9
pudding's picture
pudding
98.8
10
bolo up's picture
bolo up
98.8
success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”