The First Year in Finance: What to Expect and How to Survive Your Analyst or Associate Debut

Three months into your first banking job, you'll have a dark moment.

It's 2am on a Thursday. You're on your sixth consecutive late night. The model you built has an error you can't find. Your VP is frustrated. Your friends from college are posting about happy hours while you eat dinner at your desk again.

You'll think: I made a terrible mistake.

Almost everyone thinks this. The first year in finance is brutal. The learning curve is vertical. The hours are punishing. The feedback is often harsh. Nothing in your prior life prepared you for this.

But here's what they don't tell you: it gets better. The people who survive the first year often build exceptional careers. The skills you develop compress years of learning into months.

Here's what the first year actually looks like—and how to get through it.

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The First 90 Days

Month 1: Orientation and Overwhelm

What happens: Training programs. Onboarding sessions. Meeting everyone. Learning systems and processes.

How you feel: Excited but anxious. Everything is new. You don't know what you don't know.

The challenges:

• Understanding firm structure and hierarchy
• Learning software and systems
• Building relationships with your team
• Processing massive amounts of information

What to do:

• Take notes on everything
• Ask questions (everyone expects you to)
• Focus on relationship-building
• Stay organized from day one

Month 2: First Real Work

What happens: Training ends. Real assignments begin. You're contributing to live deals.

How you feel: Imposter syndrome peaks. Everything takes longer than expected. You make embarrassing mistakes.

The challenges:

• Understanding what "good" looks like
• Estimating how long tasks take
• Managing feedback (often blunt)
• Performing under time pressure

What to do:

• Accept that you'll be slow initially
• Ask for examples of good work to model
• Request feedback actively
• Don't take criticism personally

Month 3: Finding Your Footing

What happens: Patterns emerge. Some tasks become familiar. You start anticipating needs.

How you feel: Still struggling, but with occasional glimpses of competence.

The challenges:

• The hours start to wear on you
• Fatigue accumulates
• Work starts blurring together
• Still making mistakes, but different ones

What to do:

• Build routines that preserve health
• Celebrate small wins
• Connect with your analyst/associate class
• Remember this phase is temporary

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What You'll Actually Do

The Analyst Experience

Core tasks:

• Building and maintaining financial models
• Creating pitch books and presentations
• Conducting industry and company research
• Processing data and running analyses
• Coordinating logistics and scheduling

Time allocation (typical):

• Modeling and analysis: 40%
• Pitch books and presentations: 30%
• Research and data: 15%
• Administrative and logistics: 15%

The reality: Analyst work is largely execution. You're implementing others' ideas, not generating your own. Creative contribution is limited. Accuracy and speed matter most.

The Associate Experience

Core tasks:

• Reviewing and directing analyst work
• Managing deal execution and workstreams
• Client communication (with supervision)
• Drafting presentations and materials
• Coordinating with other parties (lawyers, accountants)

Time allocation (typical):

• Managing analysts and reviewing work: 30%
• Direct work product creation: 30%
• Client and deal coordination: 25%
• Meetings and communication: 15%

The reality: Associates are player-coaches. You still do substantial work yourself while also directing juniors. The management component is new and often uncomfortable.

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The Learning Curve

What You'll Learn

Technical skills:

• Financial modeling from simple to complex
• Valuation methodologies (DCF, comps, precedents, LBO)
• Accounting and financial statement analysis
• Industry-specific knowledge
• Excel, PowerPoint, and firm-specific tools

Professional skills:

• Working under pressure
• Managing competing priorities
• Communicating with senior people
• Attention to detail under fatigue
• Taking and incorporating feedback

Soft skills:

• Reading room dynamics
• Managing up and down
• Building internal relationships
• Navigating office politics
• Advocating for yourself appropriately

The Compression Effect

A year in finance compresses learning that would take 3-5 years elsewhere.

Why it happens:

• Quantity of work (more reps = faster learning)
• Pressure and stakes (mistakes are visible)
• Smart colleagues (learning from the best)
• Direct feedback (constant course correction)

The result: After one year, you'll have capabilities that peers in other industries won't develop for years. This is part of why finance pays well—they're buying accelerated development.

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Common First-Year Mistakes

The Technical Mistakes

Not checking your work: You're tired. You think you're done. You submit. There are errors. Always check.

Overcomplicating models: Simple and correct beats complex and broken. Build what's needed, not what's impressive.

Missing the forest for the trees: Perfect cell formatting matters less than correct conclusions. Don't polish garbage.

Not saving versions: Before major changes, save a copy. "Model v12 FINAL FINAL" exists for a reason.

The Professional Mistakes

Not asking for help: Spinning for hours on something a peer could explain in minutes wastes everyone's time.

Not communicating status: When you're behind or stuck, say so early. Surprises are worse than bad news.

Committing beyond your authority: Don't promise clients or counterparties anything without checking with seniors.

Complaining to the wrong people: Venting to peers is fine. Visible complaining signals bad attitude.

The Interpersonal Mistakes

Burning bridges: The industry is small. The person you antagonize may be your boss in five years.

Not building relationships: The analysts you befriend become VPs who staff you on good deals.

Ignoring your mental health: Pretending you're fine when you're not leads to crashes.

Skipping team events: Bonding matters. Show up even when tired.

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Feedback and Evaluation

How You'll Be Evaluated

The formal process:

• Mid-year reviews (some firms)
• Year-end reviews (universal)
• Project-specific feedback (varies)
• 360 reviews from multiple stakeholders

The informal reality: You're being evaluated constantly. Senior people form impressions through every interaction. Reputations build quickly.

What Matters Most

Work quality: Is your output accurate and thorough? Can seniors trust your work?

Responsiveness: Do you respond quickly? Do you get things done on time?

Attitude: Do you take feedback well? Are you pleasant to work with? Do you show effort?

Improvement: Are you getting better? Do you make the same mistake twice?

Reliability: Can they count on you? Do you deliver what you promise?

Receiving Feedback

The challenge: Feedback in finance is often blunt. "This is wrong" without softening. It stings.

The right response:

• Don't argue or make excuses
• Ask clarifying questions
• Thank them for the feedback
• Fix the issue and learn from it

The wrong response:

• Getting defensive
• Explaining why you did it wrong
• Taking it personally and sulking
• Making the same mistake again

When Feedback Is Unfair

Sometimes feedback is wrong. Seniors make mistakes. They misunderstand context. They're unfair.

How to handle it:

• Consider if there's any merit (often there is)
• If genuinely unfair, address calmly and privately
• Choose battles carefully (most aren't worth fighting)
• Build reputation that overcomes occasional unfairness

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Managing the Hours

What to Expect

Typical ranges:

• Investment banking analysts: 70-90 hours/week
• Investment banking associates: 60-80 hours/week
• Private equity associates: 60-75 hours/week
• Consulting first-years: 50-65 hours/week

The variation: Live deals mean more hours. Slow periods mean fewer. Some weeks are 60 hours. Some are 100.

Survival Strategies

Sleep protection: Get enough sleep to function. Six hours is usually the minimum for sustained performance. Pulling all-nighters repeatedly destroys quality.

Food discipline: Eat real food. Order food to the office rather than skipping meals. Keep snacks at your desk for emergencies.

Exercise when possible: Even 20 minutes matters. Morning workouts before anything can derail them. Weekend exercise when weeknights don't work.

Social maintenance: Keep some relationships alive. Weekend brunch. Texting friends during gaps. Don't isolate completely.

When to Push, When to Protect

Push through when:

• Live deal with real deadline
• One-time surge (not continuous)
• Stakes are genuinely high
• Finish line is visible

Protect yourself when:

• Endless grind with no end
• Health seriously suffering
• Making mistakes from exhaustion
• Diminishing returns obvious

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Building Relationships

With Peers

Why it matters: Your analyst/associate class becomes lifelong network. They'll be your references, colleagues, and co-investors for decades.

How to build:

• Be genuinely helpful (share knowledge, cover for each other)
• Socialize when possible (even when tired)
• Avoid toxic competition
• Celebrate others' wins

With Seniors

Why it matters: Senior relationships determine staffing, reviews, and opportunities. Good senior advocates change careers.

How to build:

• Deliver excellent work consistently
• Be easy to work with
• Show genuine interest in their guidance
• Don't be sycophantic (they can tell)

With Support Staff

Why it matters: Admins, IT, facilities, and operations staff can make your life easier or harder.

How to build:

• Treat everyone with respect
• Learn names and say thank you
• Don't create unnecessary work for them
• Remember they're people, not services

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When Things Go Wrong

The Spiral

First-year professionals sometimes spiral:

• Bad feedback leads to anxiety
• Anxiety leads to more mistakes
• More mistakes lead to worse feedback
• Confidence collapses
• Performance tanks

Breaking the Cycle

Identify the spiral early: Notice when you're in it. Name it. Acknowledge it.

Get support: Talk to peers experiencing the same. Find mentors who can provide perspective. Use mental health resources if needed.

Narrow your focus: Instead of trying to fix everything, focus on one improvement at a time.

Remember the baseline: They hired you because you're capable. One bad week doesn't undo that.

When to Leave

Not everyone should stay. Signs it's time to go:

• Persistent mental health deterioration
• Complete inability to perform the job
• Clear mismatch with the work itself (not just difficulty)
• No improvement despite genuine effort
• Toxic environment beyond normal tough culture

Leaving isn't failure. Finance isn't for everyone. Better to recognize mismatch early than to suffer for years.

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The Turning Point

When It Gets Better

Somewhere between month 9 and month 15, something shifts.

The signs:

• Tasks that took 8 hours take 2
• You anticipate what's needed before being asked
• Seniors start trusting your judgment
• You help newer people (and feel competent doing it)
• The hours feel manageable (or at least predictable)

What's Changed

You're no longer learning everything: Most tasks are variations of things you've done. Novel situations become rare.

You've built relationships: You know who to ask, who to avoid, how to navigate.

You've calibrated: You know what matters and what doesn't. You work smarter, not just harder.

You've toughened up: Criticism that would have devastated you in month one rolls off now.

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Key Takeaways

The first year is the hardest. Everyone who's succeeded went through what you're experiencing.

What to expect:

• Overwhelming complexity followed by gradual competence
• Hours that seem impossible until they become routine
• Feedback that feels harsh until you learn to use it
• Doubt that you belong—even though you do

What to do:

• Ask for help early and often
• Communicate status and problems proactively
• Build relationships at all levels
• Protect your health within the constraints
• Take feedback seriously, not personally

What to remember:

• The first year compresses years of learning into months
• Everyone feels incompetent initially—it's part of the process
• The skills you're building are valuable and transferable
• It gets better (genuinely, not just platitudes)

The bottom line:

The first year filters people. Some quit. Some flame out. Some survive but hate it.

Those who thrive develop a rhythm. They learn to work within the system while preserving enough of themselves to sustain it. They build relationships that make the work bearable. They find meaning in the learning.

You'll have bad days. Bad weeks. Maybe bad months.

But you'll also have the moment when you realize: I can do this.

When that moment comes—and it will—you'll understand why people build entire careers in this industry.

Get to that moment. Everything else follows.