Oh yeah...there are Types:
1. The MBA Grad
Their claim to fame are Generic Comments.
‘This is a good cut, but we still have a long way to go’ [See post, the meaning of We]
'This number seems off’
‘Did you check this report as well’
These guys enter the institution post MBA, meaning they’ve never worked as analysts and often don’t know what they are doing. They spend most of their day organizing conference calls to ‘take stock of where we are at’ a.k.a. see how far the analyst got on the 10 hours of work they just received. Word of advice analyst: They work in fear. You have all the answers. Use this to your advantage.
2. The Nitpicky Associate
Their claim to fame is never allowing an accidental Period at the end of a Bullet point.
Redefines the meaning of OCD(1). The kind that will keep you up till 3 am arguing over titles of slides, the type of bulleting used and complain when documents were not stapled in portrait. Most of their comments do not add real value. They are mostly about formatting and typos. Perfectionists to the point of being mentally crippled. They insist on organizing conference calls to discuss each slide and its formatting in detail. See nothing wrong about discussing the merits of font size 8 over font size 10 at 11pm on a Sunday night. If you always get the sneaking suspicion that it is the first time he is looking at the presentation, then you are probably right. Take Cat Naps during these calls. Nothing of importance is going on. The bulleting will be changed again and so will the damn titles. The signature move of the nitpicky associate is to wait until you've reached your breaking point, tell you you're pretty much there, and then ask you to go back through the doc and reformat all the table titles - if only the windows weren't so god damned hard to open....
3. The paranoid ‘Ex superstar analyst’ associate
These are the future Hobo MDs. The ex-superstar analyst associate was a modeling wiz as an analyst, a ‘lifer’ in the making, loves the recognition that comes along with devoting 100% of his life to his job. Unfortunately, once promoted to associate, realizes his job performance is no longer based on his own ability to crunch numbers, but the ability of his analyst (you) to do so. The paranoid associate starts to feel very vulnerable and insecure. Only way to deal with this insecurity is by micro-managing. This is the most painful type of associate to work with because nothing you do will ever be right. He will make you run countless versions of models and analyses, only to take them away from you and do them himself for his own peace of mind. Just lay low analyst. They are creatures that like to be left alone to their own devices. Soothe them with recorded compliments from your MD.
1. The MBA Grad
Their claim to fame are Generic Comments.
‘This is a good cut, but we still have a long way to go’ [See post, the meaning of We]
'This number seems off’
‘Did you check this report as well’
These guys enter the institution post MBA, meaning they’ve never worked as analysts and often don’t know what they are doing. They spend most of their day organizing conference calls to ‘take stock of where we are at’ a.k.a. see how far the analyst got on the 10 hours of work they just received. Word of advice analyst: They work in fear. You have all the answers. Use this to your advantage.
2. The Nitpicky Associate
Their claim to fame is never allowing an accidental Period at the end of a Bullet point.
Redefines the meaning of OCD(1). The kind that will keep you up till 3 am arguing over titles of slides, the type of bulleting used and complain when documents were not stapled in portrait. Most of their comments do not add real value. They are mostly about formatting and typos. Perfectionists to the point of being mentally crippled. They insist on organizing conference calls to discuss each slide and its formatting in detail. See nothing wrong about discussing the merits of font size 8 over font size 10 at 11pm on a Sunday night. If you always get the sneaking suspicion that it is the first time he is looking at the presentation, then you are probably right. Take Cat Naps during these calls. Nothing of importance is going on. The bulleting will be changed again and so will the damn titles. The signature move of the nitpicky associate is to wait until you've reached your breaking point, tell you you're pretty much there, and then ask you to go back through the doc and reformat all the table titles - if only the windows weren't so god damned hard to open....
3. The paranoid ‘Ex superstar analyst’ associate
These are the future Hobo MDs. The ex-superstar analyst associate was a modeling wiz as an analyst, a ‘lifer’ in the making, loves the recognition that comes along with devoting 100% of his life to his job. Unfortunately, once promoted to associate, realizes his job performance is no longer based on his own ability to crunch numbers, but the ability of his analyst (you) to do so. The paranoid associate starts to feel very vulnerable and insecure. Only way to deal with this insecurity is by micro-managing. This is the most painful type of associate to work with because nothing you do will ever be right. He will make you run countless versions of models and analyses, only to take them away from you and do them himself for his own peace of mind. Just lay low analyst. They are creatures that like to be left alone to their own devices. Soothe them with recorded compliments from your MD.
(1) Obsessive Compulsive Disorder:
Definition 1: OCD: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. In banking, not so much a disease as a fundamental job requirement. Manifests itself in behaviors such as saving a new version of a document every 2.5 minutes, insisting that all staples be parallel to the long edge of the paper, constant fidgeting and need for organizational calls.
Definition 2: OCD: Manifests itself in behaviors such as: 1) filling file folders with printouts of documents that are saved to the network and displaying them on your desk as tangible proof of your contribution to the team; 2) faxing punctuation comments on word documents to analysts in another country so that they can go into the same document that you have saved on your drive to make the changes; 3) never, under any circumstances, allowing a '&' symbol to make it's way into a pitch book; 4) formatting the input pages of an excel model to match the output pages despite the fact that no one but you will ever see the input tabs; and 5) using lists like this one in paragraph format.
Definition 3: OCD: It keeps Bankers interested in the job. For normal people, the 53rd turn of a document would drive them off the ledge but for a banker, it is a necessity. They are so fixated on their idea of perfect, that they will go through any length to achieve it.
Definition 2: OCD: Manifests itself in behaviors such as: 1) filling file folders with printouts of documents that are saved to the network and displaying them on your desk as tangible proof of your contribution to the team; 2) faxing punctuation comments on word documents to analysts in another country so that they can go into the same document that you have saved on your drive to make the changes; 3) never, under any circumstances, allowing a '&' symbol to make it's way into a pitch book; 4) formatting the input pages of an excel model to match the output pages despite the fact that no one but you will ever see the input tabs; and 5) using lists like this one in paragraph format.
Definition 3: OCD: It keeps Bankers interested in the job. For normal people, the 53rd turn of a document would drive them off the ledge but for a banker, it is a necessity. They are so fixated on their idea of perfect, that they will go through any length to achieve it.
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