GUEST COMMENT: The importance of doing meaningless grunt work incredibly well

I'm a first-year research associate in an equity research department. I've just spent several weeks putting together charts and data analysis for my boss. Building easy-to-understand Excel charts, graphs, statistics analysis and PowerPoint presentations is what I do every day.

Is it worth it? Will it really help my career? I'd like to think so.

A lot of newcomers (and even experienced people) have the wrong impression about banking careers. They think: "I should be doing something more meaningful, not just Excel and Bloomberg data piling."

But I believe this type of number-crunching research is crucial to future success. Without it, junior bankers are just too "green" to give face-to-face presentations, or have direct dialogue with clients.

If you want to climb the banking ladder, you must do your research tasks well in order to impress your line manager. It's vital to put your boss's interests in front of yours. When my former manager was about to do marketing trips, I would spend days and nights doing marketing materials.

On one occasion, I spent two weeks on a 20-page PowerPoint presentation with another analyst. We wanted to make sure that the slides were up-to-date and easy to read, even for investment novices.

Always produce your best work when it can make your boss's job easier. I learnt from senior analysts that they wanted to work with juniors who could share their workload.

From time to time, senior analysts might reward you with some guidance, but only if you do a high quality job. For example, I double check each of my PowerPoint slides to make sure every font size is correct.

A small glitch, such as a typo, looks unprofessional on a big screen. And eventually, the presenter (i.e. your boss) looks unconvincing because of the glitch. That's not exactly helpful for your career!