28. Advice

28. Advice

As investment bankers grow in age and title they seem to become sages. They like to impart the great knowledge they have garnered over their fine careers to those beginning in the investment banking world. Every young person seeks the advice of his (or her, but it’s a pain to always write “his or her,” sorry) elders on what to do with life, how to make a good impression, what the right career path is, and anything else that a young person worries about when he starts out in the workplace. All this advice is nice and good, but there is no set path. Sure, it’s great to hear someone older saying you took a great job and it will open many doors, but it is very dependent on the individual. No one can guide you, you just have to take the journey like everyone else and try to avoid too big of bumps in the road. Still, it is always interesting to hear what your elders have done and it allows you to learn from others mistakes and try to avoid similar mistakes.

While the advice of elders is usually sought after and more general life path questions from young people, senior investment bankers take their own path in the advice giving game. Investment bankers, whether they be senior Managing Directors or even just at the associate level, will give analysts advice as well, but most of the time it will be without the young analyst seeking out the advice. That is because the advice of these i-bankers is not real advice, it is more like “you should do things this way or else you will get a lower bonus and not succeed.” They are trying to mold analysts a certain way so that we did not try to be our own person and maintain our personality. Rather, they want you to be like a certain second-year analyst who got the top bonus last year because that analyst is willing to burn himself out to be at the beck and call of his bosses. No thank you, I’d rather be who I am and work as hard as I can at my job, without selling my soul “to the man” and spending my days kissing the behinds of my bosses.

Other times the advice will be like, “Remember to always double-check your work” or “you should really do comps manually for the learning experience.” In the first case, the associate would be giving this “advice” (or “common knowledge”) so that he can have less work to do. He’s not saying this as some wise words that the analyst doesn’t already know, he’s saying this because what he really means is, “I don’t want to have to check over you work closely, so you check it over instead while I go to the gym.” The second little piece of advice in the first sentence could be from any level boss, but once again would likely be from an associate. The analyst will be told it is to be sure that we get the most precise and correct numbers. Which is mostly true, but the real reason is because someone maybe him do it as an analyst so he wants to make you feel the same pain. Nifty concept, eh? The numbers may differ by a tenth, which may make a difference in an M&A situation, but when these comps are just going into a pitch and will not be examined closely, or really at all, by a client, does one million dollars out a few billion really matter? Pocket change my friend.