Analyst/Associate Training

I've been hearing a lot of negativity about training, not only from my own bank but from people in other banks as well. I find this to be quite a misfortune. Training ought to be a real treat for hungry analysts and associates.

The two most common complaints I hear are "they try to go through so much material I can't possibly learn it all" and "I'm never going to use this anyway, so I don't care." These are both shitty ways to look at training. First of all, if there's too much material, look over it at night instead of partying every night. I know training's all about partying while life is good (I did it too, but trust me, life gets better), but if that's the case you can't complain about the information overload. Second, there is no such thing as useless information.

The key to taking advantage of training is paying full attention during class (stop playing those sudoku puzzles during class, quit checking your e-mail or facebook accounts, don't read your favorite magazine during class) and just soak up everything you can. You might not remember everything five years later, but you might remember a lot of it. I know the only time I've ever learned accounting is from training, but I can still identify cashflow statements, balance sheets and income statements as well as produce one from a combination of the others. Do I use this in my day job? No. Do I think it's useful information? YES! If I ever start a company I'll certainly need to know my accounting, and when I talk to the credit folks it helps to be able to speak their language. I even sometimes help the credit analysts with their analysis when the new folks don't remember some of the details. You don't necessarily have to study every detail if it's not going to be terribly important for your job, but you should certainly learn what you can.

That being said, as a new analyst or associate you never know where you career will take you. You might be going into M&A, but five years down the line you might transfer to a credit structuring desk where it'll suddenly be real important that you know what a reverse repo is. You might be going into trading, but you may well end up at a PE firm having to deal with the operations and accounting of a firm. The skys the limit for a smart person who is open to learning everything.

Of course I've heard a good bit of support for training as well. I give kudos to the usual firms, Training the Street and Adkins, Matchett and Toy, for their good work again this year. I hear the TTS record for that formatting exercise was broken again this year (while I mock the formatting exercise because I believe good information is good information no matter how it is formatted, I have to admit aesthetics are a large part of the human experience and thus it is important to a good many respectable professions.). For those of you engaged in these trainings and topping the class, hats off to you.