eFinancialCareers

Abigail Stevens, founder and managing director of Think Global Recruitment, says telephone and video conference interviews need not be scary if you know how. We’re all familiar with the formalities of going for a job interview, but how does that change when the role you’re going for is based overseas? Imagine not being in the same room as the interviewer or not being able to shake their hand? Whether you want... Read more

Top banks are all very well, but the so-called 'second tier' also has plenty to offer, says Chris Mead, regional director at Hays Banking in Asia. Given their size, diversity of products and business lines, global office network, extensive training programmes and budgets, top-tier investment banks have plenty in their favour. They usually offer more opportunities for career mobility and they also offer exposure to a more diverse range of banking... Read more

William D. Cohan, a former managing director at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and former VP at Lazard Frères, explains why M&A bankers don’t merit mega-bucks. The end of the first quarter of 2007 brought the news that global announced M&A deal volume for the three-month period topped US$1.1trillion – making this first quarter the busiest first quarter on record. Not surprisingly, the investment bankers shepherding all these deals are positively giddy,... Read more

Banking's not for wimps, but neither should you tolerate being bullied, says Hugh Karseras, author and senior banker. Does bullying go on in the City? In my experience, yes, but don't expect to see trading floor managers hurling chairs at hapless underlings. Bullying in the City is often a lot more subtle, a lot harder to evidence and a lot more insidious. It's important to differentiate between someone who is normally... Read more

Answer the following multiple choice question. Psychometric assessment is: a) torture b) used if the hiring manager has concerns about a candidate’s mental stability c) already used for both graduate and lateral recruitment and increasingly becoming standard practice in banking recruitment. According to the two key providers of psychometric testing, SHL and Chandler Macleod, the correct answer is c). Of course, in Australia Macquarie Bank is synonymous with pysch testing candidates for... Read more

Locating senior women in private equity funds, hedge funds or investment banks is as rare as finding zebras in Antarctica, says William D. Cohan. Despite their bright smiles and elegant demeanours, the sorry state of professional women in the highbrow world of private equity was on full display in a two-page photographic spread tucked into the middle of the May 2007 issue of Portfolio, Condé Nast's new business monthly. The magazine... Read more

John Bowman, CFA, Head, Educational Products tells us why having ‘Chartered Financial Analyst’ (CFA) after your name will make all the difference to your career. While supervising the examination in Los Angeles last Saturday, it struck me how much growth the CFA Program has experienced in the last decade. Over 126,000 candidates in more than 145 countries enrolled for the June and December 2006 examinations. That compares to about 70,000 only... Read more

It’s getting harder to source talent, therefore anyone would think older and more experienced workers could walk into work more easily than before. Not so, says Peter Tanner, founder and managing director of executive recruitment firm Tanner Menzies. One of the great ironies about the current skills shortage is that so many mature-age workers are finding it hard to get a job. A study by The Australia Institute in August 2006... Read more

Most people employed in banking have experienced the anxiety of returning to work after a holiday of more than three days: it feels like a whole year’s worth of activity has taken place in the time you were away and you have to pedal extremely hard just to catch up. Can you imagine then how it would feel if you have been out of the financial markets raising children... Read more

Brijesh Pande has just finished the master's in finance at London Business School. Previously head of fixed income capital markets at Citigroup in Indonesia, he joined a leading Australian bank in Singapore as head of FX, interest rates and derivatives corporate sales for South Asia after his course finished. We've asked Brijesh a few questions below. Did you always plan to go back to Asia when the course ended? Yes.... Read more

Sarah Butcher, Editor of eFinancialCareers, on why over-egging your attributes in the recruitment game will do more harm than good. There are few things less appealing than a man with generously gelled hair perspiring heavily. One is the same man subjecting you to a seven-minute monologue about how exceptional he is. Both points appear to have escaped the attention of Aleksy Vayner. The 23-year-old has become a laughing stock ever since... Read more

Michael Markiewicz, managing director of Australian search firm Carmichael Fisher, on why Australian bankers just can’t resist moving west. As financial centres, Sydney and Melbourne may not be on a par with London or New York, but their status is rising. Australia is benefiting from its geographical closeness to Asia and from the likes of the AU$15.5bn Telstra share sale bonanza. However, while Sydney’s financial star rises, some of Australia’s best... Read more

Banking has traditionally been an industry in which people retire young. But an early exit is increasingly out of reach, says Nick Deligiannis, senior regional director of Hays Banking. Ask people if they are looking forward to retiring and you usually receive an overwhelming and unwavering response of ‘Yes.’ Yet ask people when they expect to retire and the response is not so certain. We recently asked over 1,300 professionals from... Read more

Want to work in the City of London? Ben Sheldrick, partner at law firm Magrath & Co, gives the lowdown on winners and losers from recent changes to the UK’s Highly Skilled Migrant Programme. Are you a non-EU national hoping to work in the UK financial services industry? If you are, it’s worth being aware of some recent changes to the country’s Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP). Announced by Liam Byrne,... Read more

Rick Jansz, managing consultant at BSI People, on what it really takes to work in the top- tier investment banks. “Christmas is all around me, and so the feelings grow,” is a line sung from the film Love Actually. Christmas may be in the recent past, but with bonus time almost upon us, there is a buzz around investment banking. The atmosphere and feelings are good due to another great year... Read more

Kerry Seymour, client manager at the Centre for High Performance Development, gives advice on what to do when someone else gets promoted and you don’t. Shocked and angry – that’s how you’re likely to be feeling when you find out that you weren’t selected for that great new job you thought was all but in the bag. You are likely to feel this as a very personal rejection, which is understandable.... Read more

Gavin Houchell, managing director of recruitment firm Ambition Finance, on how to put yourself in line for promotion. Plum jobs such as group financial controller and CFO can be very rewarding, both in a financial and a career sense – and almost everyone wants one. However, making that leap from middle-level finance to a senior role is almost always a challenge. As a result, career management is more important than ever before,... Read more

Julia Payne, chief executive of the Centre for High Performance Development, looks at the new methods of measuring cognitive activity used to identify top traders. If trading firms managed money as scientifically as they conduct their hiring, most would soon be out of business. The problem is prevalent throughout the business world. We have sophisticated tools for accounting, process control and marketing, but hiring practices remain stuck in the subjectivity of personal... Read more

It may well be a hot market as Australian banks compete for staff, but that’s no excuse for getting ahead of yourself, says Nick Deligiannis, senior regional director of Hays Banking. The Australian banking employment market remains very tight and specialist skills are in great demand, creating numerous hotspots across the industry. These hotspots are being found in investment and business banking, home lending and financial planning. But despite the huge... Read more

Guy Day, managing director for Asia at recruitment firm Ambition, advises how to react if your bonus doesn’t measure up to expectations. The discussion of bonus is an extremely contentious subject. It’s also an emotional one and quite rightly so. The prestige of working in high-profile financial institutions comes at a price – intensive hours, heavy travel schedules, and stress. At the end of a long year, employees look for their... Read more