Looking back at 2016 already? Maybe you shouldn’t wind down just yet. While investment banks ended 2015 looking to cut costs and reduce headcount, there are still jobs cropping up in the front office in the build up to Christmas this year. What’s more, in most cases they’re closing to applications in the first few weeks of January. Put down the mince pie and spruce up your CV.

1. Goldman Sachs is hiring a credit trading analyst/associate for its credit trading strats group

As we’ve mentioned numerous times, if there’s one place to work in Goldman Sachs, it’s within its vast and sprawling strats group, which houses highly quantitative people who straddle both software development and financial modelling. This role sits within its credit trading group in London and is at the junior end of the hierarchy. It requires an understanding of machine learning, stochastic calculus and financial derivatives.

2. Citi is hiring for a vice president in equity capital markets syndicate

2016 has not been a good year for equity capital markets bankers, nor has hit been particularly favourable for mid-ranking investment bankers. Nonetheless, of the two current London vacancies in Citi’s investment bank, one is for a VP in equity capital markets syndicate to execute deals. Prior execution experience is required.

3. J.P. Morgan is hiring a TMT investment banking analyst

Most banks have been hiring senior TMT investment bankers this year as technology remained the biggest sector for M&A with $605bn worth of deals this year, according to Dealogic. J.P. Morgan is looking for an analyst – ideally with TMT experience – as 2016 draws to a close. Other M&A or leveraged finance experience is also OK.

4. Morgan Stanley is hiring an associate counterparty desk strat

Again, quants are required in investment banking. Morgan Stanley is looking for a junior with an advanced maths or physics degree to develop tools and analytics for the strats desk and help sales and traders understand the market. You need an understanding of derivatives in at least one asset class as well as programming skills in either C++ , Java or Scala.

5. Deutsche Bank is hiring a head of technology change

Technology is one of the areas that continues to slip through Deutsche Bank’s hiring freeze and it’s currently looking for a senior role. A programme manager overseeing the changes across the bank’s trading platforms, this is not a job for the faint-hearted. Deutsche is making both huge rationalisation to its tech infrastructure and overhauling its risk and pricing systems.

6. Bank of America Merrill Lynch is hiring a associate salesperson in electronic trading

BAML is hiring for sales in electronic trading and wants someone who can turn their hand to a diverse range of products across various divisions, but primarily equities. They will be working with algo trading, prime brokerage, Delta 1 and swaps as part of the role. You’ll need to be able to manage existing relationships and bring in new business.

7. Jefferies is hiring a research associate focused on industrials 

Jefferies has been one of a handful of investment banks hiring research analysts at both the senior and junior ranks this year. Right now, it’s looking for an associate researcher to join its European industrials team to support the senior analyst on the team. A completed CFA charterholder is required along with experience in research at either a fund manager or investment bank.

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How much can you earn outside of the ‘glamour’ roles of M&A within the investment banking division? While M&A teams and debt capital markets divisions have enjoyed a decent 2016, competition for deals in sectors like leveraged finance, restructuring, project finance and syndicated loans have made life tough for bankers in these areas.

Leveraged finance recruitment this year has focused largely on the junior end, according to recruiters Michael Page. For senior bankers in leveraged finance, the axe has been swung, with a number of managing director exits in the past few months alone. Loan syndication teams have continued to shrink, and it’s only recently that there’s been any signs of life in the restructuring recruitment market.

Life has been tough for bankers in these sectors this year, but what are they likely to earn? Figures from Michael Page’s new 2017 UK salary survey suggests that leveraged finance remains the most lucrative of these areas in 2016 – particularly at the senior end. First year analysts come in on £45k – a standard starting salary for IBD – while it’s possible to earn £500k at MD level. Restructuring jobs start out at £40k, and base salaries don’t head north of £300k at the senior end, the figures suggest.

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What to do if you’re a trader in investment banking facing potential extinction? Can’t code? You may be increasingly marginalised and open outcry traders have long moved on to other vocations.

“In my 21 years working in recruitment this is a problem that has stumped me – trading is a unique skill and not readily transferable,” said Peter Laughter, the CEO of Wall Street Services, a recruitment firm. “Many former traders find other venues that can deploy the same skills but, truth be told, it is a difficult transition.”

So if you’re a trader looking for work, where do you go from here?

1. Start your own firm

Obviously, it’s easier said than done and not possible for everyone, but starting your own firm may be your best option if you can swing it.

“You could always start your own business, say, come up with a new concept in the investment world and open a hedge fund,” said Anna Shtromberg, a principal at ViableMkts and a former director, credit trader and senior portfolio manager at National Australia Bank.

2. Go to the buy side

Daniel Gramza is a trader, the founder and president of Gramza Capital Management and a trading coach and consultant for hedge funds and other financial institutions. He doesn’t buy the line that traders’ skills aren’t transferrable.

“My feeling and experience is that traders in investment banks have numerous skill sets that can be utilized in other positions,” Gramza said. “They may decide to use their trading skills with proprietary trading firms, buy-side institutions, corporate hedging departments and trading desks at financial banks.”

Investment banking traders making the switch over to the buy side can become an execution trader or head up an execution team at an asset management firm, according to Shtromberg.

“Eventually, down the road once traders have proved their performance on execution they could certainly move into a portfolio manager role, or even be hired as a PM to start off, depending on their background,” Shtromberg said.

3. Work in sales or client services

If you’re a trader at an investment bank and you have had a good amount of contact with professionals on the buy side, you can move into sales or relationship management, Shtromberg said.

Investment bank traders are a good fit for servicing and sales to a bank’s corporate or asset management customers, Gramza agreed.

4. Move into the middle office

Traders and structurers with deep knowledge of financial products are moving into complex risk management roles.

“These are very helpful skill sets to mid-office and back-office operations, because they have an appreciation of why the front office may make certain trading decisions,” he said. “This understanding can be key and not only the management of mid- and back-office systems, but also in the design of these systems.”

5. Work for a regulator

Regulators are also very interested in traders with experience, Gramza said.

“They can be key to identifying weaknesses at an institution in a field audit or reviewing information that has come back from a field audit and as an expert witness if a case goes to trial,” he said.

6. Work in private equity

This has a higher degree of difficulty, but traders have broken into private equity before.

“It depends on what area of the sell side you were trading,” Shtromberg said. “If you were trading investment grade or high yield, difficult, but if you concentrated on the distressed part of the market, private equity would certainly be an option

7. Work in management consulting or professional services

Neither management consulting nor professional services would be an easy shift for a trader, but it’s certainly possible.

“If you’re a phenomenal trader but more quant- or research-oriented, it wouldn’t translate well,” Shtromberg said. “It depends on skill set of individual, but certain former traders would do well in management consulting or professional services.”

8. Work in fintech

Senior traders have been starting their own fintech firms for years now. Obviously it’s a hot area, but how many good jobs are there?

“A lot of people would like to make that switch to fintech,” Shtromberg said. “You would need to be experienced in that area enough to be impactful – you would have needed to be exposed to different fintech platforms.

“As a sell-side trader, you’d need to know the backbone of the platform and what makes it up, or you could partner with people who have direct work experience with that,” she said. “The institutional side of fintech is definitely an area many people feel would take up the slack as the sell side is shrinking.”
Follow @danbutchrwrites

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When I was coming out of undergrad, I didn’t have the recruiting opportunities that would lead to banking, but I did coming out of graduate school. I joined Goldman Sachs after getting my MBA from [a prestigious non-Ivy-League private university in the Northeast U.S.] through the campus recruiting process, and I’ve been there more than five years. Here’s what I wish I knew on my first day working at the bank.

Is a two-year analyst program mandatory for aspiring bankers?

It is a huge stepping stone for your career to have that banking experience on your resume. If you do the two-year investment banking analyst program and get that experience, you can continue down the banking path or use that fungible experience that is a core resume-builder.

That said, the industry is changing a bit. Now the two-year banking or consulting analyst program is not as necessary, as it’s become more SME-based. The idea of the two-year analyst program is either to build on it or go do something else, like jump to the buy side. If you’re looking to be a banker, then that’s the way to go. If you’re looking to go into finance, then working at an SME rather than a general banking program is more valuable.

People who’ve been spending time doing coding or some type of technical training are becoming more valuable. To me what you learn in a banking analyst program is an easier skill set to master than technology skills, and the latter are becoming more valued here at Goldman and other big banks. I’m not saying that you’re going to be able to get hired by a bank after working just two years as a technologist, but the two-year analyst program is not as essential as it used to be.

I’ve had conversations with folks at Goldman who are willing to serve in a mentorship capacity, and they say if you’re looking for a very traditional investment banking career path, then you have to put in the requisite two years – the two-year analyst program is vital. But if you’re going into business development, technology, operations or another non-traditional career path working in more nuanced roles like I’ve done, it’s not as necessary. That said, whenever you take a less-traveled path, there are likely to be more bumps in the road. You have to be prepared for ups and downs.

Seek out mentors and build a professional network

Mentorship becomes more impactful the farther you go in your career. Finding sponsorship from senior executives and having a key network of peers and higher-ups is obviously important, so you should know to start building it out as soon as you can. You need to find a sponsor, not the day you walk into a job, but it needs to be top of mind.

It’s something Goldman focuses on – be the best whatever. Find someone who can help you become the best in the area you focus on. In the financial services industry, most people are interchangeable. For example, there are a lot of people who can build a really good model. Starting in your first job, find sponsors at various levels, and make sure you develop those relationships and make that a key part of your job as much as doing your day-to-day job. Taking 30 minutes to have coffee with whomever at the bank or networking in general isn’t taking time away from your job to meet with people, it is part of your job. As an analyst or associate, it’s tough to see, but it is part of your job to network.

You’re not going to get 30 minutes on the calendar with a senior partner, but some MDs would be happy to chat with you. The way to make that happen is through your network. Build your network through to their network, and talk to someone who knows them. They’ll be happy to fit you in if you’re being referred by someone, say a VP who has a relationship with an MD. If that person refers you to them it’ll get you in the door to have that conversation. For senior executives, it’s not a matter of them not wanting to meet with juniors necessarily, but you have to network your way into your conversation with them – a referral makes it more visible for them, “Hm, maybe I should block out 30 minutes for so-and-so.”

Build the network at your level, the level just above you and the level above that. By building a relationship with a VP, as you progress through your career, maybe by the time you’re a VP that person with be a senior VP or MD. Network with peers and people above you.

Banking versus a fintech startup

To be honest, I have considered leaving banking for a startup, potentially a fintech company. There are pros and cons on both sides.

One factor to consider is funding. If you’re working at a firm like Goldman, you don’t have to worry about keeping the lights on. We have a budget, but we were able to build a new platform with few constraints. What I mean is that we had an opportunity to build it in a controlled manner without having to show revenue or a profit right away. We have to focus on delivering a product that’s going to make money, but over more of a long-tail period, so we can focus on things that others at a startup might not.

Firms like Lending Club and SoFi are now having regulatory issues, and they have to worry about making money and returning value to shareholders immediately.

At Goldman, an individual project or initiative is not going to make or break the firm, so rather than rushing and building a platform out in a quicker period of time, we have the luxury of taking our time to build it properly and make sure the necessary infrastructure is all there.

Also, there are conveniences that you might not think about. If you go to a smaller place, might not have a help desk, so if there’s an issue you’d have to figure it out yourself. If you go to a smaller or medium-sized company, it may have a tech team that you know personally, and they could help you, but my point is that a takes a certain type of person to go to a smaller place and not have the infrastructure in place that they’ve become accustomed to at a big bank. A fintech startup employee is prepared for bootstrapping and wearing many hats versus someone who prefers to have that infrastructure and support in place and focus on just delivering.

From a compensation perspective, it’s a risk-reward calculation. It’s less risky to come to a big firm, but it will take longer to get that big reward. At most financial services companies, when you get to a senior level, you’re making a lot of money. A big bank’s corporate organization is kind of like a pyramid scheme. If you bring in 100 analysts, how many will become an MD or a partner eventually? At Goldman, maybe two or three, but you’re still going to do pretty well as a VP. It’s a less risky but more competitive path compared to joining a startup.

This is an anonymous blog post by a Goldman Sachs employee. James Chapman is a pseudonym.

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The festive season is upon us and banking professionals are finally taking a break from the stresses of deal-making and regulatory updates.

But if you plan to look for a new banking job in 2017, don’t get too relaxed over Christmas. The next week could be the only time-off you have before banks start ramping up recruitment in the first quarter – so spend some time preparing for your job search now rather than waiting until you’re bogged down with work in January.

We’re not suggesting you focus your whole holiday on your career, but try to do some of the following:

1. Make sure you’re really happy to be working in banking

“Use the holiday and the symbolism of the new year to reconnect with your purpose in life,” says Fabrice Desmarescaux, a managing partner at search firm Eric Salmon & Partners Executive Search. “Many went into finance because it was glamorous and paid well, but other industries are overtaking it now. So if you’re going to stay and be actually happy, make sure banking connects with your values and gives you purpose beyond pride and greed. Take a quiet morning walk in nature and think: how am I helping my clients and colleagues? How am I helping to build an institution that I’m proud of? Who benefits from me doing a great job, and do I like the thought of them benefiting?”

2. Organise January catch-ups

Don’t just focus on formal preparation – use the break to organise informal catch-ups with your industry contacts in the early new year, says Anton Murray, director of search firm Anton Murray Consulting. “January is an excellent time for coffee meetings or quick catch-ups for a beer. Everyone is gradually getting back into work, so calendars are often more relaxed. And in January managers are considering who in their team is likely to move on, and how they will grow their business in the year ahead. You could end up meeting your next boss.”

3. Get your target list together 

It’s the first thing recruiters will ask you when you meet them early next year: which banks do you want to work for, and why? Don’t fall into the common trap of being unprepared – start your employers-of-choice list over the festive season. “Take time to investigate your competitors and potential new employers by reading up online,” says Nick Lambe, group managing director at recruitment company Links International. “Only once you’ve done your due diligence can you begin your target list and, more importantly, explain why you want to work there.”

4. Then look at how safe these banks are

“The last person in will be the first out when banks change their strategy, so when you’re researching banks over the holidays, look at their employment numbers for the last few years – see whether they’ve increased or decreased in your region,” says Kyle Blockley, managing partner of recruitment firm KS Internatonal. “I always get frustrated with candidates who’ve had, say, three roles in five years all due to restructuring. This shows a lack of research and commercial awareness.”

5. Add job descriptions to your profile

Expecting banks to poach you in 2017 on the strength of your online profile? Recruiters say candidates sometimes miss out on roles because their profiles only include job titles. “Your work history should also have a brief description about your role,” says Dylan Pany, head of sales trading at recruiters Selby Jennings. “For example, instead of writing just ‘equity derivatives trader”, write ‘equity derivatives trader: trading single stock options in the telecom, media and technology sectors.’ This allows recruiters and banks to see exactly what you do and makes it much easier for them to target you.”

6. Map your market 

If you plan to contact people in potential employers directly rather than through recruiters next year, don’t pester them with holiday-season emails – but do research their names and contact details. Market mapping now will save you valuable time when your job search heats up in Q1. “Always send your email and CV to a specific person within the bank,” says Blockley.

7. Look beyond 2017

Don’t get too narrow in your job-search preparation over Christmas. Briefly free from the daily grind, you now have a chance to develop a long-term career plan to cope with that inevitable ‘where do you see yourself in X years?’ question. “Establish where you want your career to go longer term,” says Ben Batten, a general manager at recruiters Volt. “Banks you talk to next year will want to see you have a plan and goals, and are not moving for overly fickle reasons like money or not liking your boss.”

8. Research recruiters over the holidays

You may already know a few recruiters, but are they really the best ones in your specialist field? Now is the time to find out. Do your research online or by talking to industry counterparts who’ve recently moved jobs using a recruiter, says Vince Natteri, a director at search firm Pinpoint.

9. Decide on your approach to counter offers

“Counter offers are increasingly common – retaining good staff is higher on banks’ agendas because it’s hard to get headcount approved to hire replacements,” says Pany. “Taking time to consider whether you’d accept a counter offer if you were presented one is important. If your answer is ‘yes’ then potentially your motivations for a move are not the correct ones.”

10. Set yourself a content goal for 2017

“One of the best ways to build your professional brand online with potential employers is to share and develop your own content that is relevant to your part of banking,” says Chai Leng Lim, a director of banking at recruitment firm Randstad. “This could be sharing your thoughts about an industry update or creating your own content to position yourself as a thought leader. Make it a goal for 2017 to create a list of articles you’d like to share or write about.”

11. Plan your networking over the festive season

“Come up with a new year resolution to join a certain group or initiative that would benefit your career and your contact base,” says Richard Aldridge, a director at recruitment company Black Swan Group. “Over the break research industry forums or groups of like-minded people. If you can’t find something then look up at friends from different banks and form your own group.”

12. Don’t do all of the above

If you do everything on this list you probably won’t have much of a holiday – so prioritise the preparation you think will be most helpful to your job search.

Follow @simonmortlock

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Shhh, we have a plan. Never let it be said that the UK government doesn’t know what it’s doing when it comes to Brexit. Or, if you’re thinking that they need a little advice to help avoid the UK falling off a cliff, don’t let it find out your views.

Deloitte has now implemented self-imposed six-month ban from lucrative government consulting work after its leaked memo about Westminster’s Brexit headaches. If it’s locked out of key Brexit negotiation work, Deloitte has just lost a lot money. Management consultants were being hired on rates of £1,000 ($1,235) a day to assist the government on Brexit and the final bill is expected to reach £5bn over the next decade.

“Over the next few months, the main departments tackling Brexit — the Department for Exiting the EU, the Department for International Trade and the Treasury — will tender for advice on a wide range of policies, such as leaving the customs union, management of UK borders and reform of the Prison Service. What Deloitte will lose here could be major,” a consulting competitor told the Financial Times.

Right now, however, the Big Four consulting firms are also advising large financial services organisation on what, exactly, they’re going to do with their UK operations if they’re forced to move functions to the EU after Brexit.

KPMG’s global chairman John Veihmeyer remains relatively relaxed about the whole scenario. Companies are “wanting to wait” before making any decisions about actually moving staff, whatever the recent posturing might suggest, he says.

“I wouldn’t say we are seeing a lot of companies that are aggressively and actively moving in that direction [relocating staff, units, or setting up subsidiaries] but companies that are sensitive to sector investment flows [due to the Single Market access and passporting], like financial services, are working on contingency plans,” he told Business Insider.

Maybe so, but Citi and UBS have already said that they’re seriously contemplating moving London jobs to Frankfurt.

Separately, Donald Trump has continued his gathering of billionaires by appointing Carl Icahn as ‘special adviser’. If the job title sounds a little vague, it’s likely that Icahn will have a lot of influence on employment prospects on Wall Street. For a start, he’s will influence the appointment of the new SEC president. Then, he’s advising on just how much regulation Trump should tear up to create a more business friendly environment. His interview with the WSJ suggests he’s not likely to hold back.

“What Trump is trying to achieve is to show business in a lot of this country they aren’t going to be ruined by absurd regulation by bureaucrats,” he said.

Meanwhile: 

Credit Suisse has just promoted 180 people to managing director (Financial News)

“People want to change the world, and your banker can help you, but your banker’s not coming up with the next autonomous-driving software — so it’s a slightly different vibe.” (Business Insider)

Goldman Sachs has been slapped with a $120m after claims its traders tried to rig the Isdafix benchmark (Financial Times)

J.P. Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, Credit Suisse, SocGen and RBS have been fined $96.3m by Swiss regulators for rigging the Swiss bank Libor (WSJ)

Credit Suisse has turned its attentions to cutting jobs in Switzerland (Bloomberg)

Newton Investment Management has moved its head of distribution Julian Lyne from London to New York (Financial News)

“People say ‘if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys’. Our study doesn’t show that you can pay peanuts, but it does show that you won’t get the best chief executives by overpaying them.” (Financial Times)

Former BlackRock senior portfolio manager Mark Lyttleton has been charged with insider trading (Financial News)

Party animal turned investment banker returns to partying (Real Business)

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2016 has been a year to forget for most financial services professionals. Aside from the Brexit bounce and the post-Trump jump (both totally legitimate expressions), most investment banks, hedge funds and asset managers have been cutting headcount and slashing pay for their employees. But how much attention have you really been paying?  Take our (short) quiz to find out.

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The hyper-buzz around the emerging fintech sector has quietened in 2016, which is less a sign of its diminishing importance and more an indication of a maturing industry.

Even the biggest fintech firms get by with a relative skeleton crew, but next year they’re likely to be engaged in a battle for tech talent with investment banks and large technology firms alike. These are the skills you need to succeed, according to the CEOs of fintech firms and industry experts.

1. Fintech firms will be battling with banks for machine learning expertise

Machine learning expertise is highly sought-after in finance across the trading floors of investment banks to quant hedge funds. Artificial intelligence is likely to be the differentiating factor across most industries in the near future and financial services firms will be battling for expertise, believes Oliver Bussmann, the former group CIO at UBS who now runs his own tech consultancy Bussmann Advisory.

“The key expertise next year in the financial services industry will be artificial intelligence,” he says. “Robotics and machine learning will drive automation and the banks will need people with Masters Degrees and PhDs – scientists, and they’ll be competing with fintech start-ups for these skills.”

2. Financial services firms will target data analysts

To some extent fintech firms can provide a solution large financial institutions’ failure to make the most of the vast quantities of data they generate. But Big Data expertise is still likely to drift between smaller fintech firms and larger financial services organisations.

“Financial markets generate a vast quantity of data and many financial institutions lack the tools and expertise to properly aggregate and analyse this,” says Stu Taylor, CEO of bond information fintech firm Algomi.

“Individuals with the skills to utilise this resource to enhance a traders’ decision making processes are particularly sought after, as fintech firms seek to bring new products to market to help customers better understand their data,” he says.

3. Domain expertise will be all-powerful

So, you have the perfect product and best technologists to develop that product, but you haven’t worked out how to explain why big banks should buy it. Good luck with that. Next year, these fledgling fintech firms will bring in financial services expertise, even if they lack any technical knowledge.

“There’s going to be a battle over domain expertise. Industry specific knowledge is going to be increasingly important as large financial institutions partner with fintech start-ups,” says Bussmann. “People who can combine technical expertise with an ability to translate that into hard figures is a very important skill-set.”

It’s not just about speaking the language of financial services. Fintech firms will also have to arm their financial services experts with the skills to survive in a technology firm.

“We’ve taught ex-compliance officers and legal experts to code as it really empowers them to be self-sufficient and solve problems themselves without having to look for ‘developers’ to help them solve simple automation issues,” adds Andrew White, founder and CEO of regulatory fintech firm, FundApps.

4. There simply aren’t enough cyber-security professionals

Again, fintech firms are focusing on solutions on cybersecurity for the banking sector, but big financial services organisations – particularly investment banks – are investing more and more in this area.

“Wholesale banks are increasing their spend on cyber-security – from 5% of total tech budgets, to 7-8% in 2017,” says Bussmann. “It’s a critical area of investment and there’s a war for talent among banks and fintech firms.”

“We know that good security staff – even if you have the budget – are hard to recruit,” adds Alastair Paterson, CEO of cybersecurity fintech firm Digital Shadows. “And until some of the education initiatives governments and institutions have been implementing bear fruit. the shortage of good people will continue to be a challenge financial businesses, and other organisations will face.”

5. 2017 will see the rise of the business experts

Most fintech firms rely on VC funding, and this means having a strong business case and a potential pipeline of customers before the purse strings are loosened.

But as the sector matures, more firms will inevitably fold and the “second wave” of fintech means sales expertise is needed to survive, says Huy Nguyen Trieu, a former Citi managing director who now runs fintech consultancy, The Disruptive Group. More fintech firms entering the B2B arena think that it’ll be easier to snag one large banking client than a bunch of retail clients, he says. They’ve had a reality check.

“Most are now realising that selling to a large bank or large insurance company is a very long and uncertain process, where it’s hard to know if you’re getting closer to a sale or not,” he says. “Finding people who understand the processes of large banks and know how to navigate these organisations will be key.”

6. Blockchain and distributed ledger expertise will, of course, be needed

Some believe that 2017 will provide a reality check for those that think blockchain will entirely transform financial services.

“There will be a nosedive in the hype cycle of Blockchain. The few clear use cases are being done, such as global custody, but the rest will all just peter out,” says White.

Nonetheless, there simply isn’t enough talent on the market, believes Bussmann.

“There’s a shortage of talent in distributed ledger space. People who can understand the ecosystem and build applications within this environment are still in short supply,” he says.

7. New market-makers will hoover up talent

Nguyen Trieu believes that large e-commerce companies will get closer and closer to the business of financial services. Inevitably, this will mean that both technology and financial services expertise will be required.

“At the moment, there are only a few new entrants that have been successful such as Ant Financial (retail) or Citadel (capital markets), but we are likely to see this trend accelerate next year,” he says.

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““

Why are you working in finance? It’s the kind of question you might be asked if you interview for a new job. It’s also the sort of question you might be asked by an inquiring and argumentative relative who equates finance with all that’s wrong with the world and has drunk more than two glasses of wine.

What do you say? You can go for the blunt option (“The money”). Or, you can go for the weirdly evangelical HSBC graduate recruitment video option (“I am captain and I was put here to lead, in everything we do I make sure we succeed. When it comes to one on one, I get the job done, I create solutions to the problems everyone else is running frum (sic). Late night negotiator, ambition accelerator, you can tall me the tailor: I connect people to opportunities…”)

Or you can just baffle them with facts, and hope they return to their wine.

If you choose the latter, Money Changes Everything,  by William N. Goetzmann at Yale University will furnish you all the facts you need. Published earlier this year, it comprises 584 pages on the development of modern finance, along with an explanation of why the world we live in would be very different without it.

Assuming you don’t want to spend Christmas reading all 584 pages, here’s the deeply summarized version. It should be sufficient to deflect further interrogation.

1. Finance has been integral to human development for the past 5,000 years

This is Goetzmann’s main thesis, and he spends most of his 584 pages trying to substantiate it. For example, he says some of the early evidence for financial systems comes from the third Ur dynasty of around 1,200 BCE: an ancient clay tablet contains a financial model which allowed livestock owners to forecast potential growth in the size of their herds, and the profits that would result.

Finance is nothing new, and without it Goetzmann says explorers would never have traveled the world and complex societies would never have emerged. Financial crashes are nothing new either – there was a financial crisis in 33AD when Roman property prices crashed and the Roman treasury had to step in.

Without finance, Goetzmann says there would never have been world exploration, or the development of complex societies and long distance trade.

2. Finance is an enabler of time travel 

More freakily, Goetzmann argues that finance changed the way human beings operated in time. “It moves economic value forward and backward through time,” he says. ” Think about a mortgage. It converts a homebuyer’s promise of thirty years of future monthly payments into a lump sum of money in the present. A mortgage is so commonplace that it is hard to fully appreciate it. A homebuyer can suddenly conjure up a fortune he or she does not have.

“In essence, financial technology is a time machine we have built ourselves. It can’t move people through time, but it can move their money. As a result, it alters the economic position of our current and future selves.”

Interest is one of the most important components of finance, says Goetzmann: it incentivizes lending and facilitates debt. Without debt, a farmer who discovered his store of food was spoiled a month before the harvest might starve. Thanks to debt, he can take out a loan and feed himself: “It substitutes for the spoiled grain— it has the effect of moving the future harvest to the present.”

3. Finance has opened our minds 

Because finance has allowed humanity to move between present and future, Goetzmann says it’s reprogrammed human brains: “Finance has stretched the ability of humans to imagine and calculate the future. It has also demanded a deeper understanding and quantification of the past, because history is the fundamental basis for making future predictions. Finance has increasingly made us creatures of time. Financial architecture exists in— and shapes— the possibilities of the temporal dimension.”

4. Finance reallocates risk and capital

Finance enables individuals and corporations to handle risk. Ultimately, it’s about probability: “The mathematics of probability can be thought of as an organized approach to the unknown. Finance deals with the unknown future.”

Finance allows insurance against risky events, it also makes, “a different kind of future possible,” by matching up capital with entrepreneurs to generate higher future value.

5. Finance stops us living in a world where only the independently wealthy can be entrepreneurs

Without finance, only rich people could start businesses. “Finance removes the prerequisite of wealth from entrepreneurship. It feeds capital to potentially productive projects regardless of whether or not the entrepreneur is rich. In this sense, finance broadly disseminates the economic advantages of wealth,” says Goetzmann.

6. Without finance, there would be no cities

A bartering economy based upon mutual favours is fine in small communities where people lend tools and time in the expectation of, “reciprocity in the future.” It doesn’t work in larger communities and cities. Nor does it work in an environment where everyone has a different profession and different skills: here. bartering needs to be formalized in the form of money and finance, says Goetzmann. Without finance, he says we’d all be living in rural hamlets.

7. Without finance, you wouldn’t have a pension

Lastly, and most importantly, without finance it wouldn’t be possible to make the inter-temporal calculations necessary for pension provisions. By facilitating universal provision for an uncertain future,  Goetzmann says finance allowed human populations to grow exponentially. – The danger here being that humanity could become the victim of its own success.

Follow @MadameButcher
Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

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Asset management giant T. Rowe Price had exactly 5,999 employees worldwide at the end of last year, but headcount has since surged past to reach 6,239 as of September 30 this year, the majority in the fund firm’s downtown Baltimore headquarters and office in Owings Mills, Md., a suburb of Baltimore. In addition to outposts in Europe and Asia, T. Rowe has offices in Colorado Springs, Tampa, Fla., and San Francisco, and it is looking to add headcount next year globally.

Beth Norton, vice president and the head of talent acquisition at T. Rowe Price, notes that there has been a hiring increase across the industry in general, which is creating a candidate-driven market.

“I’ve seen an increase in hiring in the corporate areas, as well as investments and distributions, especially for T. Rowe but across the financial services industry as well,” Norton said. “We are planning to increase hiring in 2017 – we’re always judicious in adding to our headcount, but we will be hiring in support of the firm’s business strategy and to position the business for the future growth.

“We focus on positions that will support our strategic priorities and meet our client needs,” she said. “We currently have several hundred new or currently open positions globally that we are looking to hire in 2017, mostly in Maryland but also other areas in the U.S. and globally.

“There are opportunities across all business areas – corporate, distribution, as well as investments.”

What skills is the firm seeking in new recruits? And how do recruiters gauge whether or not a candidate is a good fit?

“We’re looking for quantitative capabilities to help build our bench and depth in our investment areas, and of course digital skills, as well as candidates with experience in sales and client service, technology, data analytics, risk and compliance,” Norton said. “Those are the most key areas, and we continue to look to add to our leadership bench, and we also hire for leadership potential.

“In addition to skills and experience, it remains very important that we assess for success in our culture,” she said. “Throughout our interview process, we are assessing candidates against our values, as well as leadership and associate expectations, looking for behaviors that align with our corporate values.”

Example interview questions that T. Rowe recruiters may use to assess success how well a candidate fits in the firm’s culture:

• Tell me about a time you created a new service, process, or product based on client feedback.
• Give me an example of when you needed to manage expectations of stakeholders whose views were different from your own.

Growing teams across the firm

The volume of candidates with certain hot skills, such as digital, data analytics and risk, isn’t what you would like sometimes, Norton said.

“Technology is an area where we have the most open positions on the corporate side, especially candidates with digital, architecture, the cloud, cybersecurity and data analytics experience,” she said. “Operations, sales, and client service are among the other key areas where we are hiring.

“Other areas with job openings include marketing and communications, legal, human resources, finance and administrative services.”

One other area that is seeing growth is T. Rowe’s asset allocation team in its investments division. As of September 30, 2016, the firm had 508 global investment professionals, and that number will increase next year.

“That’s where we’re hiring candidates with quantitative capabilities and more analysts,” Norton said.

Campus recruitment

T. Rowe does campus recruitment at both the undergraduate and M.B.A. levels. The firm has a relationship with Johns Hopkins specifically to pipeline talent into a Fellowship Program, as well as a relationship with Stevenson University for interns in technology.

Schools from which T. Rowe recruits undergraduates for full-time and internship opportunities include:

• Towson University
• University of Maryland, College Park
• University of Maryland, Baltimore County
• Morgan State University
• University of South Florida
• University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
• University of Wyoming
• Colorado State University at Fort Collins

Target schools for T. Rowe’s investment organization M.B.A. recruitment include:

• University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business
• Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business
• University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business
• Columbia
• Duke
• Harvard
• University of North Carolina
• University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business

“We have developed strong partnerships with several key schools at both levels,” Norton said. “We continuously have a presence on campus, hosting student events and doing on-campus interviewing and supporting the Management Leadership for Tomorrow organization.”

T. Rowe typically hires between 75 and 100 interns every summer.

“We have a strong conversion rate of those students to whom we offer full-time positions,” Norton said.
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““

When senior finance professionals unveil their pearls of wisdom about what it takes to move up the ranks in this highly-competitive industry, maybe you should listen. Throughout 2016, we’ve interviewed senior people working across various areas of investment banking and the buy-side. This is our pick of the best advice.

Expand your horizons before joining banking

“I would encourage the next generation of investment bankers to experience as much as they can. Find out what you like, and I don’t just mean financial services. Get as much experience as you can in as many industries as you can to find out what you really enjoy.”

Michael Lavelle, UK and Ireland head of corporate and investment banking and EMEA vice chairman of corporate and investment banking at Citigroup

Take every opportunity

“Longevity in investment banking is down to being able to reinvent yourself when the opportunity presents itself. I’ve been here since 1996, and I’ve set up an insurance and pensions group at Deutsche Bank, managed to convince the firm to invest money in Abbey Life assurance business, I’ve been the COO of the capital markets business and now moved back into a client facing division in CIB. Personally, I’d be bored if I didn’t move between roles, but I’d say that any experience makes you a more valuable commodity, so don’t specialise from day one.”

Rashid Zuberi, global head of the financing and solutions group (FSG) at Deutsche Bank

Don’t leap across to the buy-side without researching the role

I’ve known people who have switched across [to private equity] at the right time, managed to move up the ranks and it’s worked for them. However, I’ve had conversations with other juniors who have told me that, honestly, the work is essentially the same – just from the other side of the table, the hours aren’t much better and the pay is on a par with investment banking. And I certainly see juniors here getting daily exposure to the most senior members of the firm.”

Ben Thompson, a managing director in J.P. Morgan’s high yield and leveraged loan capital markets team

Don’t rely purely on your intellect

“Business is not an intellectual process. The people who succeed are the ones with the dedicated and willingness to withstand pain until they can made a difference.”

Guy Hands, founder and CEO, Terra Firma

Be loyal, at least for a while

“I essentially worked at two firms throughout my career, and most of the successful people I’ve known stayed within a good institution. They know you, you can build up trust and there are far more opportunities over the years than if you job-hop. Maybe I’m just preaching my own career, but you see more seniority, a more integrated career and, over time, more cash than if you job hop.”

Kevin Rodgers, the former global head of FX at Deutsche Bank

Never assume you’ve made it

“There are a number of reasons people don’t make it to associate, but often it’s about having the maturity to manage down as well as up. Associates are both more exposed to clients, but they also have to begin to manage people. What’s more, even juniors – which are knee-deep in the financial analytics – are expected to have an opinion on a deal.”

Robert Ramsauer, senior managing director at Blackstone

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““

If you’re anything like me, you love the movies. For me, there is nothing like going to see a terrific film, especially if that film is about Wall Street. I am endlessly fascinated by the ways in which Hollywood portrays what we do and how we do it. Whether its SNL and its infamous change bank skit, Dave Chappelle’s Wu-Tang Financial or a movie like The Big Short, Hollywood and Wall Street go together like milk and chocolate.

For the most part, when I go to see a movie or watch a TV show about Wall Street, I constantly look to see what the producers and directors got right and what they got wrong. Who in this business hasn’t wondered whether Oliver Stone’s 1987 masterpiece Wall Street is in fact what life was like during the hay-days of corporate raiders and hostile takeovers?

Likewise, who hasn’t asked themselves how the heck did they come up with the plot of Trading Places and whether any of that film had any real connection to what it was like to trade commodities in the 1980s.

I’ve asked myself these very questions. Namely, does Hollywood’s version of Wall Street match up with reality? We surveyed our podcast audience to find out which of their favorite Wall Street movies they thought were most realistic.

Source: TABB Group

Â

Then we hit the streets, talking with the actual people who are represented in some of Hollywood’s biggest movies about the Street.  Interestingly, what we found out not only surprised us but made us want Hollywood to make more movies about what we do.

When it comes to reality, not only does Hollywood get it right more often than not, we found out that our favorite movies, namely Trading Places, Wall Street (the original movie, not Wall Street II, Money Never Sleeps), Boiler Room, Margin Call and of course The Big Short, are not only terrific films, but also have a strong foundation in reality.

Michael Douglas in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street

Yes, Trading Places is in fact on its surface Freaky Friday on Wall Street.  But according to Michael Reddy, a former commodities broker who traded Frozen Concentrated Orange Futures in the 1980s, all of the trading scenes in that movie were spot on. Even the scene where the Duke Brothers, the evil, manipulative scoundrels who attempt to illegally corner the Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice market, take the order book from their broker who collapsed on the floor of the exchange. Per Reddy, this happened more often than you would think; if a trader dropped while on the floor someone was there to snatch up his book and run down his sheet. Who knew?

Likewise, we wanted to know if Mike Nichols’ Working Girl oversold the sexism that existed on Wall Street in the mid-‘80s, so we tracked down a former secretary from Staten Island who worked on the Street, just like Melanie Griffith’s character. According to Maureen Bender, a former secretary and junior trader, not only did the movie capture what it was like to be a young woman on Wall Street, it painted an accurate picture of what Bender’s life was like. Just like the Griffith character, she was attending night school to further her career and she too had a “rat bastard” boyfriend who was constantly cheating on her while she was at the office.

So, while not every movie is a fair representation of what life is like on Wall Street, a fair number of directors do in fact get it right, especially those like Adam McKay’s 2015 hit The Big Short, which unlike many other films did not focus on the cheating, lies and outrageous lifestyles of the rich that many expect to see from Wall Street. Instead, McKay tells the story of a unique opportunity that his characters took advantage of within a regular, otherwise unexciting life on Wall Street.

Similarly, Hollywood is working on its next big picture about life on the Street. The Wizard of Lies, starring Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer and Alessandro Nivola, is about to hit the airwaves via HBO. According to Nivola, the movie does a great job of getting it right. He stressed that the production team paid a great deal of attention to the details of Bernie Madoff’s $65bn Ponzi scheme.

In the end, what did we learn? First off, everyone on the Street dislikes Wall Street II, Money Never Sleeps.

Second, that like everything else in this world, the answer is dependent upon who you talk with and what company and specific role you’re talking about. Hollywood can get it right every once in a while. Then again, sometimes they get it wrong, as is the case with Wall Street II, Money Never Sleeps. Stay away from that one – you will thank me in the end.

Alexander Tabb is the co-host and creator of the Wall & Broadcast podcast at TABB Group.

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Caxton Associates, the New York-based hedge fund with around $8bn in assets under management, has been indulging in some last minute 2016 hiring from large investment banks in London.

In the past few weeks, it’s brought in senior staff from the likes of Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and UBS, and has ended the year with more employees than it started with – a rarity among hedge funds in 2016. It now has 52 regulated employees, up from 46 at the end of 2015.

Caxton has just hired Tanya Laing, who was latterly an executive director at Morgan Stanley, for its global macro fund. Laing was an emerging markets spot FX trader at Morgan Stanley and left in March, but she re-emerged at Caxton in late November. She has also worked for Barclays and Deutsche Bank as a director in their spot FX trading business.

Tom Frost, who was a managing director and head of UK insurance and pensions at Credit Suisse, also joined Caxton in November as head of business development for Europe and Asia. He had worked at Credit Suisse since 2008.

Dino Spinelli, who was an executive director at UBS in Singapore, also joined the hedge fund earlier this month, according to regulatory filings.

Caxton has not been immune to the problems affecting hedge funds, and slashed fees on its Global fund in response to demand from investors across the sector for better value for money.

But the latest accounts for its London operation – for the year to 31 December 2015 – suggest that it has been doing well. Profits surged from £6.2m ($7.6m) in 2014 to £15.2m in 2015. Our research shows that it’s the best-paying UK hedge fund over that period – handing its UK-based employees an average of $1.1m in 2015.

While other hedge funds pull back from lateral hiring in favour of graduate programmes and training their existing employees, Caxton has continued to hire from investment banks throughout 2016. Neshma Shah, a former interest rates trader at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, joined Caxton Associates as a trader on its global macro fund in July. As did Kaifeng Chen, a former rates algo and quants strat at Goldman Sachs, who joined as a quantitative researcher.

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““

Whether you’re a portfolio manager in a hedge fund, or an accountant there’s one certainty when it comes to pay – size matters. Working for a larger hedge fund with is key to securing the biggest pay packets, whether you’re in the front or the back office.

Financial controllers in hedge funds with more than $5bn in assets under management earn an average of 83% more than an equivalent role in a fund with less than $1bn in AUM, according to figures from recruiters JBS Partners. Further down the ladder, hedge fund accountants earn around 15% less in a smaller fund and operations professionals get 26% more at a big hedge fund.

The disparity is largely down to fund performance. While back office staff in hedge funds are not as susceptible to wild swings in bonus payments, the wider dispersion in hedge fund performance has laid a clear divide between the have and the have nots this year. On average across the back office, those working for better performing hedge funds expected to earn a 58% larger bonus than those in struggling hedge funds, the figures suggest.

Hedge funds can pay huge bonuses to their money managers. Portfolio managers working at a $4bn+ hedge fund returning more than 9.5% earned average bonuses of $6.5m this year, according to figures from headhunters Glocap. Even large hedge funds losing money paid their portfolio managers total compensation of $740k.

Back office jobs never reach these dizzy heights, but they still pay surprisingly well. Across the back office in hedge funds, average pay is expected to be $262k, JBS Partners’ figures suggest. If you make it to the top as an operations director in a hedge fund, pay reaches $387k, it says.

Private equity firms, meanwhile, also pay their back office staff well. Average pay for back office staff is $239k, according to the figures, but accountants pay packets don’t go over $125k.

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““

If you’re interviewing for a financial services job, you will of course be quizzed on technical expertise specific your role. Obviously, a risk manager will not be asked the same questions an M&A banker.

But there are commonalities across all interviews in financial services. The questions below almost always crop up, suggest HR and career consultants, and most people are so focused on presenting their expertise that they’re woefully under-prepared for them.

1. Why are you leaving your current role?

“I will always ask someone why they’re leaving their current firm and why they left their role before that,” says Gareth Hughes, head of HR at Royal Bank of Canada in London.

Purpose: To establish whether you’re the sort of flaky person who jumps from role to role and former employers are glad to see the back of.

2. Why do you want this particular role in this particular business?

Financial services firms want to know that you’ve done your research, and that you know how the company is developing and evolving.

“It sounds obvious, but few people really look into the role or the company and struggle to come up with something meaningful,” says Andrew Pullman, a former head of HR at Dresdner Bank and managing director of careers consultants People Risk Solutions. “The key is to come up with something current and interesting and then be able to turn the question around to the interviewer. I noticed you did this, can you tell me more about it?”

“I want to know why you’re here and what you’re looking for in a new job,” says Hughes.

Purpose: To establish whether you really want this job or are simply scattering CVs like birdseed.

3. Tell me about a situation you should and could have handled differently.

“Banks want to find out whether you’re trustworthy and whether you’re going to put your interests before theirs or vice versa,” says Roy Cohen, a careers coach and author of the Wall Street Professional’s Survival Guide. “They want to ensure you’re not going to embarrass them or cost them money.”

The key here is not to give an example that’s too close to home, he says. Talking about an interaction with a former colleague or manager, for example, gives a hiring manager too much to think about.

Purpose: With all the recent scandals, banks want to assess your ethical compass and also whether you’d fit in with the team.

4. Do you match our competencies?

Unless you work in HR, the word ‘competencies’ is probably enough to make you go to sleep. If you work in HR, it will probably be enough to make you spring out of bed. Given that HR play a key role in the interview process, you need to familiarise yourself with it either way.

“Most clients are trying to drill down to a set of competency-based questions that they can measure objectively against,” says one head of HR at a large bank. “Look at the company’s values and extrapolate from those values what their core competencies might be. For example, if a value is ‘client service,’ the competencies might be strong team focus, thinking outside the box, or being a self-starter.”

The head of recruitment at one major US investment bank says that at a senior level, interviews are all about this kind of stuff. “We’ll talk about the business, but it’s particularly about whether you’re a fit with the firm,” she says.

Having identified the desired competencies think of a few examples that illustrate why you embody them.

Purpose: To establish whether, based on past behaviours and actions, you have the ability to do the job and won’t irritate your colleagues.

5. What’s unique about you? How are you different to all the other people we are seeing?

Fundamentally, this is the age-old question about your strengths. “Most people won’t ask what your strengths are blatantly,” says another careers consultant, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They’ll often as what you can bring to the role, or what differentiates you.”

Purpose: To check you are not totally mediocre.

6. Walk me through your resume

Layoffs are a fact of life in most finance roles, so a patchy CV is not the impediment it once was. However, since the financial crisis ‘walk me through your resume’ question is more often phrased as ‘You have a lot of moves on your resume. Explain,” says Cohen.

“Never disagree, just go through each move and explain the reasons for it. You could have moved at the wrong time and been the first out. You may have been offered a buy-out that was too attractive to turn down. A wonky CV is very common now,” he says.

Purpose: To check you’re not the sort of person who makes fickle career decisions. Or the sort of person that people quickly regret hiring.

7. What would your colleagues say about you?

The aim here is to make you objectively think about your strengths and weaknesses, and the fact that they will be approaching your colleagues for references, says Pullman.

“I usually say something like, if I were to go out for a drink with your manager, what would he say about you? If we stayed out for a while, what will they really say?,” he says.

Purpose: To check that you’re not such a megalomaniac that you can’t see some flaws, or that you’re not someone with too many flaws to be offered the job.

8. What are your aspirations?

“You will always be asked where you see yourself in five or ten years’ time,” says Pullman. “They want to know where they want to be and how they will get there. They also want to know whether your aspirations are out of line with what they can offer.

Purpose:To establish that you are really interested in this role and don’t see it as a stopgap. And whether you’re just too over-qualified.

9. Why were you selected for redundancy?

If you have ever been made redundant, this will definitely come up. Think carefully for a reason.

Purpose: Ensuring you are not unemployable.

10. Do you have any questions for me?

“You should always have a question,” says the head of HR. “If people don’t, it worries me, big style.”

Goldman Sachs has some good tips for questions you can ask in its guide to interview success. They advise that you focus on the industry and trends, don’t ask about pay and benefits, and don’t ask anything that might make the interviewer feel defensive.

Purpose: To ensure that you are engaged, interested, and capable of initiating a conversation.

11. What are your three greatest accomplishments?

As cheesy as it sounds, banks want to know that you’re a goal-focused individual who can easily list some your tangible achievements. Preparing for one is easy, but you need a few others up your sleeve so you don’t appear over rehearsed, says Cohen.

“This can be identifying new revenue streams, finding solutions, or something outside of work,” says Cohen. “I often offer up the fact that – as a fire warden at the World Trade Center during the 9/11 attacks – I forcefully convinced some fellow office workers to exit when they wanted to stay in the office. They’ve all since thanked me.”

Purpose: To give you a chance to shout about your achievements within the right context.

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Resume keywords bankers must include – and those they should avoid

Resume keywords and phrases job-seekers must include – and those they should avoid – to land a financial services job in the U.S.

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Photo: Getty Images

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From serial job-hoppers to overpaid interns: we reveal the most popular Asia-focused articles among Singapore and Hong Kong readers in 2016.

1. The top 10 companies finance professionals in Asia want to work for

Who are the most popular employers that Asian financial professionals want to work for?

2. This is what your private banking salary and bonus should be in Singapore

With so many private banks hiring in Singapore, here’s how your private banking salary and bonus stack up.

3. “I recruit for a big bank in Asia. This is what the job market is really like”

I spend my working hours recruiting for an American bank in Singapore. This is what I’ve learnt about the job market here.

4. The highest paying investment banking internships in Singapore

We reveal the banks in Singapore that pay the biggest intern salaries.

5. What you need to know about 2016 Hong Kong banking bonuses

Worried about your Hong Kong banking bonus? You probably should be.

6. “I keep job hopping, but I keep getting promoted”

How have I job hopped across several banks in Asia but not put my career in jeopardy? Let me explain.

7. 10 Singapore finance jobs that pay $10k a month after just three years

You want a S$10k monthly salary by the time you’re an associate. These are the finance jobs where that’s possible

8. The outstanding 20-somethings who’ve just joined HSBC in Hong Kong and Singapore

If you’re hoping to get a graduate job at HSBC, you will need to live up to these high standards.

9. Seven Singapore and Hong Kong jobs that banks just can’t find candidates for

Some Asian banking jobs have proved almost impossible to fill in recent months. If you work in one of these fields, consider yourself in high demand.

10. Private bankers in Hong Kong and Singapore fired after just six months

Private banks in Asia are dealing increasingly brutally with new relationship managers who fail to meet tough short-term targets.

Follow @simonmortlock

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The most in demand junior banking jobs in Singapore

Are junior banking professionals still sought after in Singapore? It depends on where they are working.

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Image credit: webphotographeer, Getty

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