Rich Handler of Jefferies has a quite engaging way with writing folksy, Warren Buffett style letters to his staff on general issues of markets, banking and corporate culture.  The latest one arose from an online Q&A session with second and third year analysts, and it’s in the classic “Things I Wish I’d Known When I Was Your Age” genre.

Handler has 20 things he wishes he’d known as an analyst, and they include some genuinely useful and not necessarily entirely intuitive advice like “cultivate the junior people at your clients, as they will not be junior all their life” or “don’t let yourself get locked into a single product, group or geography”, and make an effort to find out what other people in the bank do.

So far, so good, except the problem giving advice to junior bankers is that there’s a fundamental conflict between different timescales. On the one hand, a far-sighted CEO wants the analyst program to turn out well-rounded professionals who are capable…



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