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There is a difference in working cultures but what exactly that means depends on what exactly which area you are in. You can still work long hours in the UK, its somewhat more about mindset/approach. As a gross generalization: US: very aggressive, culturally never want to be seen as negative, reasonably respect for authority subject to personal agendas. UK: less aggressive, culturally a bit more subtler than americans. EU: conservative in many respects. They know how to play but will play a bit slower and will rarely put their neck out. Asia: hierarchy is very important. Americans never say anything bad, but will cut you in your sleep and call it playing the game. UK people know stuff is bad but are too polite to say, will also cut you in your sleep but will take some care to ensure blood does not splatter too far. Europeans know stuff is bad but dont want to be seen as undermining their managers. APAC, theres probably something there but really who cares about apac.
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Aug 10, 2013 18:17
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Swingline posted:In the US: So there are cases where accounting grads with Big 4 TS experience just lateral to banking?
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Aug 11, 2013 04:35
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Ladies and Gents, I've got another "get me into I-banking from a non-target" situation. I'm graduating in May and I'm looking into I-banking as a possible stepping stone in my career. I understand the value of grinding away for two or three years in order to learn valuable skills and open up further opportunities. I attend a non-target school that, while not prestigious, usually manages to push some ultra-motivated/connected kids into Trading/I-banking positions every year. I'm a Finance major with an additional liberal arts major. My GPA sits around 3.6 and I'm currently doing an internship on a trading desk at a BB, though on a less "sexy" desk. I've realized that trading isn't what I want in a career for a variety of reasons I won't bore you with. Before taking this internship I was offered an analyst internship at a Venture Debt firm that I now somewhat regret not taking. I've realized I have more interest in analyzing/researching individual companies/deals and presenting/selling to clients on longer term projects than trading. I realize that the day to day life of an I-banking analyst is more excel wizard/PP bitch than client dinners and board room meetings (or completely the former), but it offers me the chance to learn the skills that can take me where I want to be. Now that my graduation approaches I want to start making moves in that direction. I realize how extremely competitive it is and that networking is key, but I'd like a push in the right direction and a better understanding of the landscape I'll be maneuvering through and how to best sell myself. I'm a non-traditional student having spent 4 years in the military. I'm the President of my school's veteran's organization and on the board of a national veteran organization. This offers me some solid connections and so far, what seems to be a good selling point. I've spent a long time researching the world of finance through friendly sites like Wall Street Oasis, but my situation is a little bit unique. I know plenty of former military officers in Banking but no former enlisted. I know plenty of target school kids in I-banking but very few non-target. Hell, I don't even know if my previous experience will make an iota of difference. My plan is to shoot for the stars while maintaining a realistic understanding of what I'm trying to accomplish. I plan on applying to BB and MM firms as well as a few consulting firms. If I don't get any bites from this (which is highly likely) I plan on looking at F500 Corporate Development programs and maybe some risk positions, and then trying to slingshot myself with an MBA. I know this is vague, broad, and highly cliché, but I'd love a little insight/advice. Thanks
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Aug 11, 2013 18:34
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Muffin Top posted:So there are cases where accounting grads with Big 4 TS experience just lateral to banking? in other news, gently caress it, I signed my third-year offer yesterday. And may God have mercy on my soul. --------------- On culture, I would say it is more dependent on the individuals involved than anything else. I have Associates who are tyrannical assholes, refuse to touch excel / powerpoint and won't send anything to the group until its perfect with them. I have VPs that will work til 4AM right along with or let me carry on the correspondence with the deal team myself. I have MDs who let me put decks together myself and give me wide discretion over scope, content, and style, coming in at the end to move some pages around and write the exec sum (or edit my exec sum). I have Directors who won't look at the materials until 24hrs before the meeting and then force a rewrite from scratch. At least in my experience, working culture / chain of command is entirely dependent on the individuals not just in your group, but on your project teams. I doubt the situation is different anywhere in the world--it all depends on how much of a raging toolbag your boss decides to be today. tolerabletariff fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Aug 13, 2013 |
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Aug 13, 2013 15:59
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Thanks for clearing that up. I assume if one decides to lateral after gaining the experience in advisory/valuation, alma matter would have some weight on your resume?
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Aug 13, 2013 18:51
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Muffin Top posted:Thanks for clearing that up. I assume if one decides to lateral after gaining the experience in advisory/valuation, alma matter would have some weight on your resume? Alma matter would be your foot in the door for networking.
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Aug 14, 2013 04:21
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Do any of you have a read on the current legislative environment on carried interest?
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Aug 14, 2013 12:05
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unixbeard posted:There is a difference in working cultures but what exactly that means depends on what exactly which area you are in. You can still work long hours in the UK, its somewhat more about mindset/approach. As a gross generalization: well, reasonably aggressive enough to want to work yourself to death http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2397527/Bank-America-Merrill-Lynch-intern-Moritz-Erhardt-dead-working-long-hours.html
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Aug 20, 2013 17:33
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Yeah that is really horrible.
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Aug 20, 2013 23:22
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When I was  in NYC in the late '90s, 100 hour weeks would have earned you little more than a "dude that sucks" comment. They were sadly far too common. Looking back it's amazing anyone keeps that pace up for years at a time.Although it's probably worth remembering that while IB analysts spend huge chunks of their time "at work", days are often not very busy, with the real work starting at 5:00 pm once the senior folks give you the task list to be completed for the morning and then head off home. 
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Aug 21, 2013 02:37
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Hypation posted:You have exposure to a c[deal size rounded to the nearest $50m], [sell-side / buy-side], [public markets / private company], [acquisition / spinoff / cap raising / other deal] in the [XXX sector] where I assisted the deal team by: Thanks for the advice. Could you elaborate on the "how IB processes work" ? I'm trying to get an understanding of what I'd reasonably be able to put down for my experience here that isn't necessarily embellishing to a large degree, but will also be useful in trying to land an SA offer...thanks!
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Aug 21, 2013 04:02
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IB processes consist of an MD making GBS threads in a VP's mouth, who throws up into an Associate's mouth, who then shits and throws up on an Analyst. It's basically 2 girls 1 cup in $1500 suits
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Aug 21, 2013 05:46
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The jellybean covered in poo poo metaphor. It's great when you finally get there, but you kinda wish you hadn't spent the last x years eating poo poo
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Aug 21, 2013 10:24
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The Investment Banking Thread: 2 girls 1 cup in $1500 suits Amirite?
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Aug 22, 2013 04:12
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Ani posted:Thanks. You're Australian, right - does that apply to Australia? Yes this applies to Australia. The banks in Australia are either US or European and basically use the same titles globally. The one Australian IB uses US based titles. If you work in an overseas branch of an IB then you will possibly have 2 titles - a public one that describes what you do - ie head of 'nothing much in particular, some division'..... The Gnome posted:Thanks for the advice. Could you elaborate on the "how IB processes work" ? I'm trying to get an understanding of what I'd reasonably be able to put down for my experience here that isn't necessarily embellishing to a large degree, but will also be useful in trying to land an SA offer...thanks! IB processes means the way in which a deal in the real world gets done. It refers to how each of the different pieces of work gets used in a transaction - ie how you do demonstrate to a client a deal is good, how do you use a financial model or comps to come up with a indicative proposal, how do you organise due diligence and feed in the findings to the valuation, create negotiation talking points etc..... Another aspect is process work: This is everything from writing up meeting minutes and managing action item lists, seeing what is on the action item lists and how they are prioritised; Then there is what is normally referred to as 'transaction services' which includes a bunch of low level grunt work quite often done by an analyst or two: This work involves routing information to and from the data room (ie managing the Q&A process which takes way more work than you can ever imagine until you have done it yourself.... A third element to this is knowing the who does what - what parts are handled by the IB, client business team , client deal team, lawyers etc. The interesting thing is that on a CV 'how IB processes work' does not need to be explained in great detail. A line item in the covering letter along the lines of [....I gained direct exposure to a [XXXXX transaction type] by participating in a [transaction description]. Then in the CV you put in the detail about what you did in the transaction. The line in the covering letter will 'arm' anyone's BS detector; but a granular, factual and unembellished description of what you did in the XXXXX transaction will be better then fine. tolerabletariff posted:The Investment Banking Thread: 2 girls 1 cup in $1500 suits No. Firstly its the accountants who can only afford to wear $1500 off the rack suits- Second this is only true if you work for the wrong bank- this is the outsider's perception about the normal of investment banking not how everyone behaves.
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Aug 23, 2013 04:19
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unixbeard posted:APAC, theres probably something there but really who cares about apac. Yes... What's in APAC right now is growth and stability. We're bitching because our unemployment level reached 5.7% and we only have 3.4% GDP growth with 1.6% inflation. Although most of the bitching is about the possibility of losing our AAA credit rating because not withstanding our debt to GDP is decreasing, it has grown to 21% over the last 5 years. How's that all working out for you?
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Aug 23, 2013 04:28
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It wasn't really about bad/good, it's more about where the action is.
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Aug 23, 2013 05:43
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Hypation posted:No. I've actually never paid more than $850 for a suit, maybe $1000 all-in with tailoring. Not an issue of the wrong bank just the wrong team / wrong client. Some clients have their poo poo together and make a process smooth. Some have no idea what they're doing. Same goes all the way up the value chain.
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Aug 30, 2013 05:24
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Most of my work comes from two seniors. One pitches like crazy and demands more volume in materials, but does a great job planning ahead and not screwing your entire weekend. The other not so much on the volume but will definitely do a Friday drive-by or ask for something while forgetting/not caring that I'm on vacation.
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Aug 31, 2013 18:11
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loving FactSet add-in is a piece of poo poo
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Sep 4, 2013 19:16
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tolerabletariff posted:loving FactSet add-in is a piece of poo poo Alt s r t (or alt y 2 r t if you have another add-in before it), go take a dump, come back, wait a while longer..."excel has stopped working" is pretty much my life.
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Sep 5, 2013 03:06
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All I use is Alt s r s, keeps it from trying to do too much That reminds me. We don't spend nearly enough time in this thread talking about favorite shortcuts. So to begin: Ctrl Shift t - transpose formula across selection, needs FactSet Alt e s l - paste as link, great in combination with above Alt d g g / Alt d g u - group / ungroup rows or columns Alt a h / Alt a j - hide / show grouped tolerabletariff fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Sep 5, 2013 |
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Sep 5, 2013 04:36
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tolerabletariff posted:All I use is Alt s r s, keeps it from trying to do too much F4
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Sep 5, 2013 05:14
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I use a weird mix of 2003 and 2007 shortcuts since I really learned excel at my internship on 2003 but got forced to start using 2010 FT where I had to learn more shortcuts. That said, some of my favorites: Alt D S for sorting Alt J T F A for refreshing all pivots is satisfying Alt A T for filtering F5 Alt S B to select all objects, useful when you've got a bunch of company logos you need to move/align And who can forget Alt D E to delimit data you pulled from a database that dumps everything in one cell. I honestly couldn't even tell you where to find the delimit option without the shortcut Some powerpoint love: The whole Alt H G A family for aligning - L, C, R, M, B - all great Alt H FF to get the font to conform to your bank's rules  Alt H F S to bring the font size down to fit in revisions which comically will never fit. Ever had a whole page filled to the brim in tiny font and a senior banker asks for another bullet point or two to be put in? I love that Edit because I can't resist: Alt O R E and Alt H O W to change row/column measurements Alt H U N in powerpoint to change a circle bullet to a square bullet, or vice versa And mind you I'm home since tonight was pretty quiet. Its really sad to realize I know all of these and many more by heart but can only speak one language... Swingline fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Sep 5, 2013 |
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Sep 5, 2013 05:42
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Delimiting is found under data > text to columns.
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Sep 6, 2013 07:42
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Mandalay posted:Delimiting is found under data > text to columns. You mean, like, you have to find it with the mouse?
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Sep 6, 2013 17:34
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bam thwok posted:You mean, like, you have to find it with the mouse? Look, I took this stupid MS Office Specialist exam for a reason 
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Sep 6, 2013 22:17
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^^ Nice avatar, definitely remember that which review is it from again? Was poking fun at EVE right? I also use a mix of '03 and '07 but mainly because a lot of the '03 ones are shorter by one key. I don't use pivots like, ever but probably should learn. There is a particular spreadsheet published weekly by one of my clients that runs off pivots and I'm comicly bad at it. I basically redo using LOOKUPs because those actually make sense. Swingline posted:The whole Alt H G A family for aligning - L, C, R, M, B - all great I love those tools but hate the traditional shortcuts, which blow pretty royally (6 key presses total--gently caress that). It's a little hard to find, but you can add the Align menu to your quick access bar, you can pull it from one of the Format Tab menus (doesn't matter which). So Alt HGAAL becomes Alt 1 L. Brings in the Distribute commands too so adding another colored text box to your MD's great "conceptual" slide becomes pretty easy. I also removed Save and Undo / Redo from quick access and replaced with Superscript (for all your footnoting needs) and Format Painter. Also those of you without FactSet (or working on your own computers) should check out the Maccabus add-in for Excel, even the free version contains a lot of the same functionality and shortcuts. Installs via a macro with no exe / setup so you can use even if your firm has a lot of controls on your PC. Can't imagine modeling without Smart Trace...
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Sep 8, 2013 01:58
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We have massive deal databases going back to like 2002. So when an MD is like "hey lets make bar charts summarizing all deals from this industry between these sizes with these other characteristics" pivots are the only way to go.
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Sep 9, 2013 01:51
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Swingline posted:We have massive deal databases going back to like 2002. So when an MD is like "hey lets make bar charts summarizing all deals from this industry between these sizes with these other characteristics" pivots are the only way to go. SumIf. I avoid pivots whenever possible, since you'll get occasionally bullshit around source data changes, refreshes, missed check-boxes when recreating views, etc.
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Sep 9, 2013 17:21
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bam thwok posted:SumIf. I avoid pivots whenever possible, since you'll get occasionally bullshit around source data changes, refreshes, missed check-boxes when recreating views, etc. sumproduct((range1=criteria1)*(range2=criteria2)*etcetcetc) if you need to sumif across multiple columns pivots feel like cheating, really :excellyfe: e: and if you use vlookup rather than index/match you are literally subhuman
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Sep 10, 2013 12:59
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Nam Taf posted:e: and if you use vlookup rather than index/match you are literally subhuman I use LOOKUPs largely because I have an associate who claims they're easier to audit Rarely use VLOOKUP anymore, but find HLOOKUP easier than the INDEX / MATCH alternative (less nesting esp. when I usually have nested MATCHes anyway).
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Sep 10, 2013 14:47
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Nam Taf posted:sumproduct((range1=criteria1)*(range2=criteria2)*etcetcetc) if you need to sumif across multiple columns I live on the wild side. I don't even use ",false" in my vlookups.
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Sep 10, 2013 17:08
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bam thwok posted:I live on the wild side. I don't even use ",false" in my vlookups. Well there are valid reasons to do use TRUE, but not even including that as a parameter 
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Sep 10, 2013 19:09
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bam thwok posted:I live on the wild side. I don't even use ",false" in my vlookups. You're the reason the GFC happened.
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Sep 11, 2013 01:46
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Nam Taf posted:sumproduct((range1=criteria1)*(range2=criteria2)*etcetcetc) if you need to sumif across multiple columns Why not just use SUMIFS? EDIT: Here is what I do, define a named range for the data and for each column. Remember, named ranges can take ".", so I use that to create a poor-mans name space for my data. Then it is =sumifs(table.data, table.year, 2013, table.location, "HATS", etc....). Quick and easy to change the criteria to references and create the equivalent of a pivot without all the icky-pivotness. And supposedly even over selected criteria like that are supposed to be faster than array based functions. FunOne fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Sep 11, 2013 |
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Sep 11, 2013 02:08
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If you need to take 10 years worth of data and poop out 16 different bar graphs of completely different things based on that data pivots are absolutely the best practice to get you there. Just insert rows in between your data set to add new data points and your pivot ranges will be fine
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Sep 11, 2013 02:24
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FunOne posted:Why not just use SUMIFS? Because most of my company still has office 2003. Also, SUMIFS works on a boolean AND function between all of the criteria whereas you can use SUMPRODUCT to do AND and OR boolean functions between the operators. It's more flexible because it's an arbitary mathematical function rather than assumed to be a summation of a bunch of criteria being true or false. take for example, SUMPRODUCT(volume)*((shape="Cube")+(shape="Cylinder"))*(height>100)) That'll sum the volumes of all objects with a height of over 100 that are either Cubes or Cylinders. It distills each criteria down to a 0 or 1, so you're able to chain them together in boolean maths in any way you like.
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Sep 11, 2013 09:24
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Mandalay posted:Well there are valid reasons to do use TRUE, but not even including that as a parameter Yeah I mean I can't even imagine a situation where it would be better to use TRUE than a MATCH function... I have no idea why it defaults to TRUE, I feel like this is the root of most LOOKUP busts
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Sep 11, 2013 14:41
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tolerabletariff posted:Yeah I mean I can't even imagine a situation where it would be better to use TRUE than a MATCH function... I have no idea why it defaults to TRUE, I feel like this is the root of most LOOKUP busts The classic example to use TRUE is converting test scores into grades (i.e. converting a range of values). Why it defaults to TRUE, I have no idea.
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Sep 11, 2013 21:07
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