eFinancialCareers

Contrary to general expectations, most of the global investment banks have confirmed that they are still hiring, albeit selectively. The difference between now and 12 months ago is that it is no longer a candidate-driven market. The recruitment bar has risen and it is definitely harder to leap over. IB recruiters are still conducting searches for key roles. Their targets are key talent that is now more likely to consider... Read more

If you are looking for work in today’s banking market, the important thing to remember is that the process has not changed – the need to distinguish yourself matters just as much as it always has. Looking for a job remains a full-time job in itself, and in any job search, you need to concentrate on promoting your strengths. It is quite normal to feel uncomfortable about promoting yourself,... Read more

Never has a good CV been more important. If you’ve lost your job recently, you will probably need to re-brand yourself to get back into the job market, as an exact vacancy similar to the one you’ve left is unlikely to exist elsewhere. Your personal sales brochure Your CV, or résumé, is the vehicle through which you market yourself and gain interviews – it is your sales brochure. In a... Read more

Local firms versus international investment banks. This topic certainly polarises banking enthusiasts. Historically, the global banks have been perceived as a more prestigious, glamorous career choice, with higher earnings potential than the big four domestics – ANZ, CBA, NAB and Westpac. However, during the last five to 10 years I have seen an increasing number of bulge-bracket executives and jobseekers making the switch to the domestics. And the current... Read more

The events of this past weekend – coming six months after Bear Stearns was thrust into the arms of JPMorgan – leave America's financial system in tatters, but not without hope for the emergence of a new order on Wall Street, that will once again return to its main purpose of efficiently allocating capital on a global basis. While the demise of Lehman could have been foreseen in the... Read more

Singapore has openly positioned itself as a private banking hub in Asia, aiming to tap into the region’s population of approximately 2.4 million high-net-worth individuals (ie, people with at least US$1m-worth of fluid assets), who own an amassed fortune of US$7.6 trillion-worth of assets. With these figures exponentially higher than just a few years ago, personal assets within the region are set to further increase with the forecasted growth of... Read more

Career breaks are a growing phenomenon in the financial sector, especially in sales and front-office areas of investment banking and global financial markets. Even though Asia-Pacific is not where the brunt of the credit crisis is, the softening of the markets and a fall-off in deal flow here has resulted in some banks quietly staff letting go, in addition to taking a more cautious approach to hiring. For those... 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

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

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

You may be busy, but are you in control? Now’s the time to get a grip, says ex-author and banker David Charters. It’s back to work time. The holidays are over, the end of year celebrations long forgotten, and the only thing that’s certain in everybody’s mind is that there’s an ambitious budget for the year ahead. However well (or badly) you did last year, this year has to be better.... Read more

Times are tough, but they are going to get tougher, particularly for junior staff, says Hugh Karseras, author and senior banker. In case you hadn't noticed, there has been a torrent of bad news in recent months. Banks’ bonus pools are down and hiring plans for the next year across the Street are being reined in. One consolation is that it does not, for now, look like we are going... Read more

Work hard, network hard, and don’t complain about your bonus. Happy New Year! It’s 2008 and hopefully we can put all of the turmoil of 2007 behind us. Or can we? Although many have made it through the redundancy rounds unscathed, the business environment and recruiting situation in 2008 could also be tricky. So what can you do to make sure that you don’t lose your job in 2008? Work hard... Read more

Whether your bonus is big or small, it is at least a kind of closure, says David Charters. Make the most of this. Everyone is smiling. In the words of the song, it’s another year over, and you’re smiling through the hangover from the team Christmas party, trying vaguely to recall if you really did say to the cute girl from the presentations team what your friends are swearing you did,... Read more

You’ll turn your boss off with slavish devotion and turn him on by doing his bidding. It’s a hard life, says ex-banker and author David Charters. Life at the bottom of any corporate food chain is tough. In investment banking it’s particularly so. Brownie points are hard to come by; excellence, timeliness and hard work are taken for granted. Beneath the gloss of high pay and high living, investment banking has a... Read more

Don’t underplay your achievements, says ex-banker and author David Charters. And don’t high five your boss when your bonus is less derisory than anticipated. It’s that time of year again. Team leaders, senior managing directors and members of the Management Committee are huddling together in glass-walled meeting rooms at the edge of the trading floor, poring over lists of names and numbers. From time to time they pause and look up,... Read more

David Bledin, ex-banker, now author and MBA student, on why he wouldn’t go back into banking if you paid him. I’ve just started an MBA programme and it’s amazing the number of people coming from non-banking industries who have somehow managed to maintain a startling innocence regarding the Street – despite the bleak stories they must have soaked up from their acquaintances. They seem to focus on that starting salary and... Read more

Life as an expat banker will be much simpler if you go into it with your eyes open, says Griselle Cardozo of relocation specialist Reloglobe. Until a few years ago, relocations were a relatively simple business. Banks selected their most career-oriented employees and got them to pack a few belongings and move with their family to the other side of the globe. The relocations and international assignment business has come a long... Read more

Promoted from analyst to associate this year? Our resident banking insider, Hugh Karseras, offers pointers on how to get ahead in your new position. I'm in the fortunate (or not) position of having two director-level friends who manage the analyst and associate pools at different investment banks. I asked them what it takes to progress as a newly appointed associate – and guess what? They came up with identical answers. According... Read more

Brad Hintz, analyst at Sanford Bernstein, says junior bankers need not fear redundancy – top staff will be first to go. Wall Street isn't a kind place – we shoot our wounded and we eat our young. And if today's difficult credit conditions continue, there will likely be cuts in 2007. But this year doesn't look like the 2002 downturn; right now it looks like any cuts will be done with... Read more