If you’re studying a Masters in Finance or MSc in finance, what will you do when it finishes? Having spent big money on the qualification, will you get a big job in the front office of an investment bank (eg. a job in sales, trading, or M&A), or will you move into something more modest like risk management, or a bank’s accounting team?

Our own CV database suggests Masters in Finance courses aren’t an assured route into the front office. While 70% of Masters in Finance graduates have a role on or near the trading floor, only 33% actually describe themselves as “traders.” Therefore, just because you’ve done a top Masters in Finance and just because you have a job at a top bank, you may not be in the role you’d hoped for when the course began.

So, which Masters courses are most likely to land you in an actual trading job? Using figures from our own database and publicly available information on candidates’ roles and resumes, we’ve identified the top 10 below. These look like the best bets if you want to be a trader rather than an accountant or risk specialist.

1. The London Business School’s Masters in Finance Programme  

Designed for people with a few years’ experience in finance already, the London Business School’s MIF programme puts by far the largest number of graduates into trading roles. It’s more expensive (£38.5K) than most courses, but there’s a part time option to let you work while you study and there’s a 16 month option which allows you to complete a banking internship mid-course.

2. Bocconi University’s Master of Science in Finance

Graduates from Milan’s Bocconi University are also well represented in trading roles globally. The Schools Master of Science in Finance says that many of its graduates go into trading roles, and our research confirms this. The course is cheap compared to the London Business School, costing around €24k euros over two years. The course can be taught in English, but students must study a European language alongside this.

3. The London School of Economics’ MSc in Finance 

The MSc Finance at the London School of Economics comes third on our ranking. The programme is offered on a full or part time basis. Graduates earn an average of £40.8k in their first year after graduation. The course costs £30.4k.

4. Imperial College Business School’s MSc in Finance

Continuing the preeminence of courses based in London, Imperial College Business School’s MSc in finance ranks fourth for trading careers. Unlike other courses listed, this is a 12 month course. The cost - £29.2k – is still very steep though. Imperial says its MSc in finance graduates have gone into sales and trading jobs at JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and elsewhere. 

5. HEC’s Masters in International Finance 

French business school HEC also produces plenty of future traders. Its Masters in International Finance is a 10 month programme, taught in English. It costs €22.4k if you’re a European student and €24.6k if you’re not.

6. HEC’s Master Management 

Ranking behind HEC’s Masters in International Finance, HEC’s 18 month Master in Management also cultivates trading talent. 23% of its graduates go into finance. The course costs €26k in tuition fees if you’re a European student and €36k in tuition fees if you’re not. It’s also taught in English and there’s an opportunity to specialize in the second year.

7. Cass Business School’s MSc in Trading and Mathematical Finance 

The MSc in Trading and Mathematical Finance at Cass lasts one year full time or two years part time. It will cost you £23k in fees. Our research suggests that a fair number of Cass’s Trading and Mathematical Finance graduates end up as traders, although the school itself suggests plenty also go into research and risk roles. 

8. Imperial’s MSc in Risk Management and Financial Engineering 

Although it has risk in the title, Imperial’s MSc in Risk Management and Financial Engineering still ranks as one of the top 10 courses for trading roles. Costing £29.9k, the course lasts 12 months and includes an opportunity to learn programming languages like C++.

9. University of St. Gallen’s Master of Arts in Financial Technologies

The fancily named Master of Arts in Financial Technologies at St. Gallen in Switzerland is a one year programme costing a mere CHF4.2k if you’re Swiss and CHF10k if you’re not. Graduates go to work for the likes of Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse.

10. IE Business School’s Masters in Finance 

The Masters in Finance at Madrid-based IE business school ranks 10th on our list for Masters courses if you want a trading career. Costing €35.2k euros, the course lasts for 10 months and includes preparation for CFA Level I.

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If you thought your entry-level banking job would allow you to stop living off your parents, you were wrong. Junior bankers today say their lifestyle is far from what they’d expected when they sent in their banking application forms.  And like most Millennials, they still rely on their parents for financial assistance.

“To be honest, my expectations were made of dreams and fantasies,” Jeb, a 26 year-old third year analyst in leveraged finance told us. “I'm not living like a king, I'm living like some sort of rich student Share on twitter.”

The ‘rich student’ lifestyle means most banking juniors share accommodation with friends (most of whom also work in banking). “The only difference between now and university is that we have a nice modern flat and a cleaner,” Jeb says. “If I’m really proactive, I can save about 5% of my income every month,” he adds. “None of my colleagues are really planning to buy their own homes – unless they have families who can help them out. And then they buy flats in cheaper areas from zone three outwards.”

Peter, a second year associate who went into a debt capital markets job after completing an MBA at a top business school last year, says he lives with his girflriend. They don’t save much money – but they don’t need to – his parents have promised to help him buy his first home. Without their help, he says it would take him years to buy anything in London: “I see colleagues saving for six or seven years just to get a deposit,” he says.

Peter says he takes nice holidays and eats out in expensive restaurants. But without parents to help him, Jeb says he lives very parsimoniously: “I get 25 days compulsory holiday every year, and I usually go to European locations which are cheap.” He also works hard – at least 10 hours a day, leaving home at 7am and returning when he’s ‘done.’

Does this make banking a bad career choice? Although the industry hasn’t measured up to his initial expectations, Jeb says he’s still a lot more fortunate that friends from university who went into other industries. “Looking at how other graduates in normal jobs are living, people in the finance industry live like kings. Even though we work longer hours, and our hourly rate is lower, on average we still have better opportunities than the rest.”

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In the latest hiring roundup, Goldman is hiring in Europe, Morgan Stanley is back in the commodities game and Pimco is eyeing buy side and sell side talent.

Pimco needs new bodies

Pimco’s new chief investment officer is on the lookout for new talent. Daniel Ivascyn wants to recruit from hedge funds, traditional managers and banks.

Jefferies expanding in London

US investment bank Jefferies is reportedly looking to expand in London. It’s mulling taking a lease out at a 200,000 square feet office complex.

DB’s Asian hiring spree

Deutsche Bank may be cutting jobs in the west, but it’s adding people in APAC. It’s making “large hires” in wealth management and is adding people in investment and transaction banking.

Goldman’s European ABS push

Goldman Sachs is back to hiring within its European asset-backed securities business after shrinking the unit several years ago.

Private bank’s London plans

Swiss private bank Pictet hopes to double its wealth management group in London from 25 to around 50 over the next three years.

Morgan Stanley back in on commodities

Morgan Stanley appears to be reversing course on its previous plans to narrow its commodities business. The US bank is reportedly hiring around 12 traders and sales staff for commodities.

If you want a banking job in the US, you better be young or willing to work in the back office. Or you can take a shot at M&A.

Hiring spree at US Bankcorp

U.S. Bancorp is expected to add as many as 4,500 jobs over the next year. Most of the hires will take place in compliance and audit.

Boutiques the place to be

Boutique investment banks have collected 16% of all U.S. M&A fees this year, up from 8% in 2008. Many are hiring, and it’s a great place to be at the present moment.

BofA adding to financial crimes unit

In an effort to prevent front-page scandals, Bank of America is hiring within its financial crimes team. The firm just added two senior execs.

The solution for tapping into the ever-growing pot of wealth in Asia and gaining access to Hong Kong’s billionaire population with an eye-watering average net worth of $4.2bn has always been simple – throw people at the problem. With a landmark new private banking hire comes, in theory, a portable network of clients only too willing to transfer their wealth to a new platform.

Except, it seems, Asia’s private banks are underestimating the long-game required to make it in wealth management. Aside from the problem of the lack of private banking candidates able (and willing) to serve the burgeoning Mainland China market, private banks are facing difficulty finding clients.

“Banks come here, they open for business – then they find costs are as high or more than in their home country. They also find highly regulated markets and they discover that clients are elusive,” Bassam Salem, chief executive of Citi’s private bank in Asia-Pacific told the FT.

And throwing a big-hitter at the problem isn’t going to solve it, he says. “But most of those [new hires] aren’t capable of moving the assets over, as they under­estimate the stickiness of a client relationship with an established institution,” he adds.

Wealth is plentiful and all around them, but private bankers are struggling to win large chunks of client’s portfolios. Partly, it goes back to the GFC – clients are more sceptical and take longer to win over. Private banking has never been such a long-term game in the region.

“Private banking is about long-term relationships and trust, so 2008 was as disruptive for us, the industry, as it gets,” said Michael Benz, global head of Standard Chartered’s private bank. “It was a game changer in terms of how clients look at private banks and the way they grade them and that has not reversed.”

Meanwhile:

Hot skill-set in Asian M&A for 2014 – bilingual associates needed to tap into burgeoning Chinese IPO market (Selby Jennings)

British banker Rurik Jutting is fit to stand trial for the murder of two Indonesian women in his upmarket Hong Kong apartment. Unusually, the case is being delayed by months in order to allow the gathering of forensic evidence. (Straits Times)

The story of Sumarti Ningsih, one of Jutting’s alleged victims (BBC)

Shanghai and Shenzen are well-positioned to rob Hong Kong of its title of leading Asian financial centre by 2019 (Bloomberg)

Hong Kong is one of the biggest employers of CFA charterholders (eFinancialCareers)

China’s banks are likely to be hit by further falling profits, but investors believe that their stock is undervalued (Bloomberg)

From an employment perspective, two things were clear when Barclays unveiled its wide-ranging strategy review in May – headcount would shrink and the expensive directors and managing directors were most likely to feel the sharp end of the cuts.

The message coming out of the bank’s wealth and investment management division in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is very different. Barclays is hiring, and it largely wants to attract senior people.

Barclays, which employs around 100 people in its wealth and investment management division in the MENA region, has plans to increase headcount by 15-20% and will be focusing on director and managing director recruits, according to Cedric Lizin, head of wealth management, Middle East and North Africa and head of business for Japan.

“We’re focusing on quality over quantity – we have budget to increase headcount by 15-20%, but I think we might be constrained by the number of quality candidates available in the market,” he says. “The supply of senior bankers with established relationships with ultra-high-net-worth individuals in the region is limited, but we have scope to grow.”

The bank is looking to grow its UHNW operation in the Middle East across its offices in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar, but Lizin says that the plan is also to “aggressively” grow the non-resident Indian (NRI) business across the region as well as in Singapore, London and Geneva.  Wealth management for NRIs is considered a growing business in the MENA region.

“We’re looking for senior bankers with quality access to UHNWs, not those with clients in the lower wealth categories or those without direct access,” says Lizin. “We also want people who are in line with Barclays’ values – we assess the performance of colleagues 50% based on what they deliver and 50% on how they behave.”

Barclays arguably faces some challenges fishing from a small pool with a reputation that has taken a battering in recent years. Its new values of respect, integrity, service, excellence and stewardship are now something every employee is expected to demonstrate. This follows a series of scandals at the bank, including the Libor rate fixing episode which forced former CEO Bob Diamond to step down. His successor, Antony Jenkins, has told staff to sign up to the new ethics code, or leave. The fact that Barclays is also in the process of folding its standalone wealth management arm into its retail business may also make some private bankers reticent to make the jump across.

Nonetheless, any potential recruit faces a rigorous interview process. Senior candidates will interview with Lizin and a team leader within the bank, then its head of product, followed by the COO, the banks’ chairman and then finally the sign off comes from Didier von Daeniken, head of wealth management, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa.

Taking your career chances

Lizin, perhaps modestly, says that his career has happened largely by chance than conscious design, but it nonetheless shows the importance of gaining a wide-range of lateral experience in order to move up the ranks. He went into banking, as an engineering graduate, simply because banks wanted highly numerate people to work on new regulations, he says, and started out as a risk analyst at Credit Communal (now Dexia) in Belgium.

Soon after, however, he moved across to McKinsey & Co, and working as an engagement manager across various business areas over six years, including a stint in Singapore where he met his wife, but returned to Belgium to work for now-defunct bank, Fortis, as head of strategy – his first private banking job.

Lizin remained in various strategy positions at Fortis, where he was eventually deputy chief performance manager, and later moved to Credit Suisse in Singapore. His career is closely aligned to that of von Daeniken and it was with him that he moved across to Barclays in 2007 as chief operating officer for Asia.

A wealth management business position remained elusive, however, and it eventually came when Lizin led Barclays’ joint venture with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and SMBC Nikko Securities in Japan.

“The business started growing very fast and after a couple of years it became difficult to combine with the COO role,” he says. “I was offered a choice to do either, and I took this opportunity to focus on leading the Japan business – it was my ticket into a business management job.”

Because of Lizin’s close ties to the Japanese business, he still leads it alongside his MENA duties. This is not without its drawbacks, though – he’s travels a lot for his job. Lizin spends two days every two weeks in Japan, flies around the Gulf region for interaction with clients and meets with the MENA teams in London or Geneva every six weeks.

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As 2015 moves into view, which skills are banks most in need of? Or, to put it another way, what should you be listing on your CV if you want to get hired in the next year?

We’ve looked at the skills that are being sought globally in the job listings on eFinancialCareers, and compared these to the skills mentioned on CVs uploaded to our global CV database over the past three months. The results are shown in the chart below.

As you can see, ”candidates Share on twitter. For example, simply listing ‘modelling’ as a skill on your CV will get you nowhere – there are 60 ‘modelling’ CVs to each ‘modelling’ job. By comparison, there are ‘only’ 19 ‘financial modelling’ CVs per ‘financial modelling’ job.

The hottest skill sets right now, however, are quantitative analytics and C# – for which there are 1.9 and 2.5 CVs per role respectively. C# is popular among banks upgrading their risk and trading systems, while quantitative analytics aptitude is increasingly necessary as banks move to automated trading and risk environments. Talent also looks tight globally in securitisation. Banks like Credit Suisse are rebuilding their securitisation businesses, and in the past six years a lot of securitisation professionals have quit finance altogether.

Other notable pinch points include surveillance – which looks set to become a hotter area following the FX scandal, along with regulatory reporting as banks try to stay on top of regulators’ edicts.

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The UK arm of Paul Tudor Jones’ Tudor Investment Corporation increased profits by over $94m over the 12 months to March 2014, but reduced the number of investment management staff it employs and cut back on pay.

Tudor Capital (UK) Ltd, one of two legal entities the hedge fund uses for its European operation, posted operating profits of $160.3m in year to 30 March 2014, up from $66.2m, according to recently released accounts.

In such circumstances, you might think that it would be a more generous payer and look to poach some top investment staff to help consolidate its position. In fact, the firm now has just 25 investment management staff, down from 29 the previous year and headcount is down by six people, to 71 employees.

Pay, meanwhile, was $21.1m (compared to $24.9m in 2013), which equates to an average payout across the organisation of $297.1k. Even equating for the reduction in headcount, last year’s average payout was $323k.

Tudor, like most UK-based hedge funds, has more than one legal entity and released figures for Tudor Capital Europe – the limited liability partnership – in July. There, it allocated a hefty $146.2m in pay to its 19 members, with the best paid partner receiving $4.99m.

Tudor Capital (UK) Ltd is not registered with the FCA, but the European arm of the group is and has been hiring throughout 2014. It started the year with 52 people and has hired another ten employees registered with the FCA.

As we reported previously, Tudor hired Robert Gold, a former Goldman Sachs MD who was latterly working for hedge fund Idalion Capital, and Will Holt, who was previously a partner at systematic hedge fund Octave Investment Management.

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You’re a director in an investment bank. In your fantasy, you will one day be a managing director (MD) in that investment bank. Except that it’s a lot harder to make managing director than it used to be. You may therefore be tempted to quit and do something completely different. Don’t – for as long as becoming an MD looks like a possibility, it’s worth persisting with. Because managing directors make A LOT more money than directors.

Witness the chart below, from Emolument.com, the real time salary data specialist. The pay rise between director and managing is the steepest of the lot. Male directors in front office roles earn an average of £222k ($348k). By comparison, male managing directors earn an average of £421k. For females, the figures are (depressingly) £186k and £317k respectively.

Of course, money isn’t the only reason to work somewhere. If you’ve spent years toiling in the middle tier of an investment bank and are despairing of the role, your lifestyle, and ever getting promoted, quitting is no bad thing. But it’s good to know what you’re walking away from.

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Have you interviewed for a student role at an investment bank, fund management firm, hedge fund, insurance company or private equity fund to start in 2015? If so, we want to hear from you!

We’re running a competition to gather the best interview questions asked during this year’s finance interview season. If you’ve interviewed at any firms in the categories above, please send us:

-Three of the questions you were asked.
-The name of the firm that asked them.
-The role you were applying for (by division and whether it was an full time analyst/intern/spring analyst position).

We will enter the questions into a draw, the winner of which will receive a 16GB iPad Mini worth £200.

To enter, please send your questions and the accompanying information to Editor@eFinancialCareers.com, with the words ‘Interview questions’ in the subject line. The closing date for entries is January 16th 2015. Unfortunately this competition is not open to people based in France. 

(Rules:

· Closing date for interview question submissions: 16/1/15.

· No cash alternative can be substituted for the prize.

· Winners will be notified of the results by email in mid-January.)

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There is plenty of chatter, on this site and on others, about why investment banking is a difficult career path. The hours are brutal, pay isn’t what it was and there is still a bit of a stigma attached to the industry following the financial crisis.

Yet, tens of thousand of people still apply to analyst programs, with only a few hundred being accepted. Only 4% of the roughly 43,000 people who applied to Goldman’s program were accepted, as an example. Around 90,000 applied to Morgan Stanley, with just 2% receiving offers.

Clearly, the interest is still there. Why so? The money is most obvious reason. Earning $80k plus bonus right out of college is not possible in most every other industry. But there are other reasons besides money. We talked to a few investment bankers in and out of the industry about some of the non-monetary benefits that they enjoy. You won’t have a great work-life balance, that’s for sure, but you have a few other things to look forward to.

Required vacations

No, investment bankers don’t work 365 days a year. In fact, their vacations are likely more enjoyable than those the rest of us take, simply because they are forced to completely unplug from work for two full weeks.

“You’re not allowed on conference calls, you can’t talk to clients, you can’t even respond to email,” said one VP. “There is a zero percent chance of someone bothering you.”

Known as mandatory block leave at some banks, the two weeks are indeed required. You are literally forced to take them.

Adaptable skillset

Most jobs create somewhat defined career paths. Investment banking doesn’t. “It’s the most laterally applicable skill set imaginable,” said a former banker. The analytical tool chest earned in investment banking can be leveraged to move to the buy side, consulting or corporate finance, among other options.

Many former investment bankers successfully launch their own companies, even in completely different industries, simply because of their understanding of finance and how companies operate.

“There’s something to be said about doing the hardest thing first [in your career],” he said. “Then everything else becomes easier.”

Long hours add up

Clearly a glass-full type of argument, but one that’s still accurate. Working longer hours provides more experience during a compressed period of time. In many industries, employees are still a pup three years into their career.

“Three years is a lifetime of experience in investment banking,” said the VP, referencing the 10,000-hour rule of becoming an expert at something.

Someone might be prone to wonder how Kunal Shah, age 31, was just named partner at Goldman Sachs, or how such young people are responsible for managing hundreds of millions of dollars. The likely answer is that they have put in the lifetime hours of a 50-year-old. Experience comes fast in investment banking.

Gardening leave

It may be a frustration for some workaholics, but it’s a nice long paid vacation for others. If you leave one bank for another, you’ll likely be required to take between one and six months off before starting your new job.

Most gardening leave periods for analysts, associates and VPs are three months to make sure that all proprietary information that a person would know would become public during quarterly reports. MDs often get six months of gardening leave – all paid by their former employer – to ensure they can’t take deals to their new firm.

It’s not a bad side effect of quitting a job, if you can get it.

Smart people make you smarter

“You’re surrounding by smart, driven, tenacious people,” said the VP. “The benefits of long, concentrated interactions would those people can’t be overlooked,” he added, comparing it to the improvement rate of playing tennis with someone who’s better than you.

TMT is the place to be in Asia. So says JPMorgan’s global chairman for telecoms, media and telecommunications investment banking, Jennifer Nason, who thinks it’s the best location for big deal-makers currently.

“I spend more time in Asia facing clients than I do in other parts of the world, apart from the US,” she said during an interview with Finance Asia. Asian TMT deals are up fourfold on last year and account for around a fifth of investment banking fees in the region. So far this year, they’ve racked up $1.5bn.

JPMorgan says that it has seen revenues rise by 50% this year, and has increased its headcount by 25% as a result. The bad news is that Mason says most of these hires have already been made, but there are a “couple” more people to recruit still.

JPMorgan is unlikely to be alone in hiring TMT bankers to capitalise on the uptick in revenues and the trend runs in parallel with a need recruit more M&A bankers generall. Foreign banks in particular, struggling to wrestle business away from the domestic institutions in China, are looking to bolster headcount. Recruiters expect this to continue in 2015.

Meanwhile:

China now has 10 ‘bad banks’ to help clean up debt in the country (SCMP)

‘Bumper’ pay rises at the Bank of Japan – the governor gets his first pay rise for nine years, other board members receive 1.9% uplifts (Bloomberg)

Singaporeans need to embrace experimentation and give up their fear of failure (Straits Times)

Last month there were over 260 new financial services firms authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK. In contrast with 2014, the past few months have seen a raft of new companies, many of them boutique hedge funds and private equity firms launched by ex-big hitters at large financial institutions. As ever, M&A boutique IMAS has diligently tracked them. We’ve looked at the most interesting for those with ambitions to work in alternative investments. Not all of these firms will be hiring, but it’s worth taking a note of new launches for any potential future career opportunities.

1. Coote Capital        

Set up by Nick Hyslop, the former head of European equity research at RBC Capital Markets late last year, Coote Capital has just been giving the seal of approval by the FCA. It’s a venture capital firm that provides funding to entrepreneurial new companies. It also counts Philip Turner, the co-founder of commodity hedge fund Krom River, among its executive team as well as veteran financial services professional Hamish McLean.

2. Corsus Capital

Very much a boutique operation, this new hedge fund is run by Pavel Goltsblat, a former Merrill Lynch trader, and ex-ANZ emerging markets trader Ravil Valiakhmetov. The firm received its FCA authorisation last month.

3. Crux Asset Management

How to make a splash with a new asset management firm – hire a star fund manager and convince him to bring his fund with him. This is what Crux Asset Management, a new venture led by former Thornhill chief operating officer Alastair Reid, did when it poached Richard Pease from Henderson Global Investors last month. Pease brought his £1.1bn European special situations fund along with him for good measure.

4. Eleva Capital

Eric Bendahan, who previously managed the €2.5bn European equities fund with Banque Syz & Co has gone it alone to launch pan-European equity fund Eleva Capital. It already has six FCA-registered staff including Benjamin Billiard, a partner and analyst, Rabih Freiha, a former auto analyst at Exane, Janina Hitchens, who joined from GLS Capital and Andrea Morell who heads up compliance.

5. Immersion Capital

The new venture of Michael Sidhom, a former Ziff Brothers managing director, Immersion Capital is likely to follow an equity long-short strategy and has secured investments from his former employer. Jim Kandunias, the former COO at Legg Mason affiliate Esemplia, takes the same role at the new hedge fund, while James Vaughan and Peter Wansing, both former associates at Ziff Brothers, have joined as partners.

6. Primestone Capital                   

The new private equity venture from former three former Carlyle Partners, Primstone is led by Franck Falezen – who was previously at Carlyle for 16 years – Benoit Colas and Jean-Pierre Millet, all of whom hail from the private equity firm. Primestone says that it invests in European mid-cap public equities and has been hiring in advance of its launch – it currently has seven employees, three of whom joined in November. Benjamin Devaux, a former partner at Nightscape Capital, signed up as a partner in November, according to the FCA register.

You want a career change into banking, but you’re not in the first flush of youth. Banks are known for their partiality to 20-somethings who work 100 hour weeks. So what are your chances of getting in if you’re a crotchety 32-year old?

The good news is that you can break into banking in your 30s. The bad news is that you’ll need to be open-minded: revenue-generating roles in M&A or on the trading floor may not be open to you. Jobs in infrastructure, strategy, or technology will be more accessible.

If you still want to change careers into banking in your 30s, here’s how we suggest you go about it.

1. Study an MBA

If you're 30 and you're starting an MBA, you're old. Share on twitter Most MBA students are in their 20s. At Harvard Business School, for example, the average student is just 27. At London Business School, the average full-time MBA student is aged 29, although some there are aged up to 38.

Being in your 30s may be a hindrance to getting a job on a bank’s associate program. Traditionally, most MBAs go into banks as associates and most associates are in their late 20s. “The number of plum associate jobs in investment banks has been declining for the past 10 years,” says Julian Birkinshaw, a professor of strategic and international management at the London Business School. “They increasingly tend to go to younger people with prior banking experience..”

For lessons in how to move into banking as an older MBA, Birkinshaw suggests looking at the career choices of Executive MBA (‘EMBA’) students. Five years older than the average MBA, EMBAs typically study part time while working. Many are sponsored by their employers, but some use the course as a springboard into banking – albeit not into the associate jobs. “The world of retail banking is much more open-minded,” says Birkinshaw. “Equally, investment banks will hire you into middle, back office and technology roles if you’re in your 30s and you have no banking experience.”

2. Switch across from law

Law is a well-trodden route into banking in the US. Lloyd Blankfein (CEO of Goldman Sachs), graduated from Harvard Law School and spent three years working for a small law firm before becoming a commodities trader. Robert Kindler, global head of M&A at Morgan Stanley, spent 20 years at US law firm Cravath Swaine & Moore before moving into M&A in 2000.

It’s a lot less easy to move out of law and into banking in Europe, although it does happen. Take Myles Evanson, co-head of UK equity capital markets (ECM) at Nomura, who spent four years in law and four years as a lawyer at Nomura before moving into ECM. Equally, Matthew Sadd, head of structured credit at Unicredit, started his career in law before moving into an in-house role as a lawyer at Deutsche Bank and transferring into credit trading.

The move from law to banking won’t suit everyone. In a 2006 interview, Kindler told the Wall Street Journal that bankers need to be more outgoing than lawyers: “To be an effective banker, you need to have a good personality Share on twitter. You have to be an outgoing person and a lot of lawyers are not particularly outgoing,” he observed.

3. Change careers from accounting

While the US tradition is for M&A bankers to start out in law, the UK tradition is for M&A bankers to start out in accounting. Simon Holden, the global head of telecoms banking at Goldman Sachs who started his career with eight years at a Big Four firm, is an example of this.

The reality, however, is that switching out of accounting and into M&A when you’re as experienced as Holden may be a challenge. Most banks prefer to hire newly-qualified accountants rather than accountants who’ve been working for nearly a decade, especially if they’ve spent that decade in audit.

You’ll find it easier to move out of accounting and into banking as a 30-something if you’re not set on moving into M&A and corporate finance, and if your experience at an accounting firm is directly relevant to banks. Tax accountants have traditionally been popular with banks operating in the (controversial) structured tax market, for example. Similarly, if you were a financial services-focused audit professional at the Big Four, you will be able to find an audit position in banking.

4. Switch over from strategy consulting

Seasoned strategy consultants also reinvent themselves as bank staff.

Publicly available information suggests that Goldman Sachs employs at least 40 people from McKinsey & Co, around 25 from Bain and around 26 from Boston Consulting Group. JPMorgan employs 36 from those three firms, while Morgan Stanley employs 52 and Deutsche employs 51. Given that these banks employs tens of thousands of people, the ex-consultants there aren’t exactly prolific, but consultants can clearly become employed by banks sometimes.

One ex-McKinsey consultant who now works in banking says consultants only occupy some roles in investment banks, however. “Generally, people with a consulting background will go into strategy roles in banks,” he told us. “If you’ve got deep knowledge of particular industries, you may be able to move into M&A or corporate finance – but you’ll need the financial modelling expertise. It’s very difficult to move into sales or trading, but you can become a COO on the trading floor.”

5. Move out of industry 

Occasionally, it may be possible to shift out of a senior corporate development or strategy role in industry and apply your industry expertise in banking. Xanyar Kamangar, a director in the technology, media and telecommunications team at Deutsche Bank, says industry experience is increasingly sought after by banks looking to hire in complex areas like technology. However, unless you move into an ambassadorial-client-relationship-type-position, most roles in M&A and corporate finance will require familiarity with financial modelling. This could prove a sticking point if your life has been spent in a senior position at Walmart.

6. Work for the regulator and then quit

Time spent working for the regulator is also a plus, but only if you want to move into a compliance role in an investment bank. Take Hector Sants, the former head of compliance at Barclays, who spent nearly at decade at the UK’s Financial Services Authority (latterly as its head), before moving to Barclays on an alleged £3m package before quitting less than a year later. Or take Michael Nunan, the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) former head of enforcement, who quit this summer for a senior compliance role at Morgan Stanley. The tradition exists in the US too – look at Rohit Bansal, the 29 year-old ex-employee of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who moved into Goldman’s FIG team as a VP before being sacked for misconduct.

7. Spend time in the military and then join a veteran’s programme

In the past decade, the forces have become a key channel for people wanting to shift into banking in their 30s. Most banks, including JPMorgan, Barclays, Goldman Sachs now run programs aimed entirely at hiring ex-military personnel in their 30s. You won’t become an M&A banker though.

“Banks are now running their own military initiatives,” says Simon Treadgold of Orion Consultancy, a recruitment firm that places ex-military personnel. “Most military people go into the operations division – skills like project management, change management, the ability to get things done are more apposite for operations than the more numeracy-heavy qualities that are required in the front office,” he adds.

8. Complete a PhD in an esoteric subject of relevance to banks

A PhD can also be a route into a quantitative job in banking, regardless of your age. “A lot of guys will do their Masters, finish their PhD and then do a piece of post-doctoral research, by which time they’ll be in their late 20s or early 30s,” says Nathan Haynes at quant recruitment firm GQR. The subject matter of your PhD will depend upon which area of banking you plan to go into, Haynes adds. If you want to move into algorithmic trading, your PhD will be in statistical analysis or signal processing. If you want to move into complex derivatives, you’re more likely to have studied physics, maths or engineering.

9. Be a world class programmer 

Banks will also hire top programmers, irrespective of age and absence of financial services experience. “If you’ve worked for a spread-betting company, on embedded software in satellite companies, or in a networking role at a telecoms company, you will have encountered many of the same problems that banks face. It’s all about performance, latency issues, complex algorithms and a low fall-over rate,” says Dean Looney at recruitment firm NJF Search. “It's a lot easier to teach someone about derivatives pricing and risk than it is to make them into a world class Java or C++ developer. Share on twitter”

10. Make connections 

Finally, if you want to move into banking in your 30s, it will help if you have banking contacts who can ease your passage. You need someone who will champion the relevance of your skills. This is unlikely to be a recruitment consultant: recruiters specialize in placing people with identikit experience, rather than wildcards from other industries. Get networking. Hit your university alumni. Hit your neighbors. Hit your family and friends. If someone works in banking and can recognize the relevance of your experience, use them.

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It’s that time of year when line managers in banks look at their depleted bonus pools and then look at their headcounts. If people are to be happy, then either one must grow or one must shrink. Usually it’s headcounts that shrink. And usually it’s expensive senior staff who are at the forefront of the shrinkage. This year, Citi seems to be playing the game to a tee.

Following last week’s revelation that staff are being exited from Citigroup’s markets division two months before bonuses are announced, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has updated its register to reflect some of the recent exits. The FCA Register doesn’t clarify why people left Citi – they could have left entirely of their own accord, but it does show that they have stopped working for the bank in the UK. Departures include: Caroline Clarke, the global head of specialist sales at Citi, who has gone to become head of corporate relations at Autonomous, the independent research company, Nicolaus Von Habsburg, a director-level interest rates salesman hired by Citi from Morgan Stanley in 2010, along with Stephen Reid and Scott Harris, two other directors in the London office.

At the same time, the FCA Register suggests that Citi has made two junior hires in the past week or so. They are: Muriel Perren, a credit researcher focused on the financials sector from Morgan Stanley and Claude Stéphanie Ngningha, an associate in M&A from Rothschild.

Citi didn’t immediately return a call on its staff changes. However, this would not be the first time that the US bank has dropped senior staff just before bonuses. It made layoffs on the trading floor in December 2011 and December 2012.  At least it has form.

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If you’re in the US, the coming days will be spent in the company relatives, some of whom may not be totally approving of your red-blooded capitalistic career in finance. How can you deflect their criticism? Fortunately, Deutsche’s new Konzept Magazine offers some hot tips.

In a piece titled, ‘On your Marx, Bankers vs. Politicians,’ Deutsche’s global head of FX research, Bilal Hafeez suggests the Marxist method of de-fanging bankers – government ownership – wouldn’t work.

“State-owned or dominated banking systems are no better than private ones at averting crises,” says Hafeez. “If anything they do worse.  Japan, with its intimate link between government industrial policy and bank lending in the 1980s, could not prevent the subsequent decades of stagnation. Moreover, an IMF study of all the major bank crises since 1970 found that indeed state ownership of banks was a
common factor.”

Rather than exposing the wrong doing of the privately-owned banking sector, Hafeez says the recent financial crisis showed that every kind of financial system was susceptible instability. US investment banks were as affected as small regional banks in Europe and high street banks in Britain. The reason for this, he argues, is that bankers themselves weren’t to blame for the problem. “The root cause of the crisis was a binge in credit that fuelled household debt and and real asset boom that eventually went bust.”

Moreover, Hafeez says simply regulating banks is insufficient to prevent future crises. This is because bankers aren’t the only ones with a vested interest in driving asset booms which turn to busts. Politicians and homeowners are equally culpable and no one’s talking about regulating them.

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Earlier this week we reported on Barclays’ plans to increase headcount by 15% to 20% in its wealth and investment management division in the Middle East and North Africa. Now Barclays has announced a similar wealth management expansion in Asia, as it aims to double the division’s revenue in the region by 2019.

The firm is boosting its Asian wealth sales team by 25% over the next 12 to 18 months, Didier von Daeniken, head of wealth management for Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, told Singapore’s Business Times. He did not provide current regional headcount numbers, but did say that Barclays employs about 100 private bankers in Singapore and Hong Kong alone. Some of the hiring surge will be in Japan, however, where Barclays is growing its private banking business through a joint venture with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.

As we’ve noted throughout this year, hiring new private bankers in Asia is no easy task because of the widespread reluctance of their clients to transfer to a new platform. “But most of those [new hires] aren’t capable of moving the assets over, as they underestimate the stickiness of a client relationship with an established institution,” Bassam Salem, chief executive of Citi’s private bank in Asia-Pacific, told the FT earlier this week. Meanwhile, private bankers who are recruited face increasingly onerous first-year revenue targets.

Barclays’ von Daeniken recognises the challenges ahead, telling the Business Times that it would be “unrealistic” for the wealth unit in Asia to continue to grow at the current 30% rate on a compound annual-growth basis. “I like the fact that the environment is becoming more demanding,” he said, adding that the bank is comfortable with its costs relative to its income. “Some of our competitors are just too small.”

Barclays, which is currently cutting 7,000 jobs globally from its investment bank, is not the only firm to shout about its Asian growth prospects in private banking. Morgan Stanley announced (very) similar plans last week: it expects to boost its current 100-strong headcount of private bankers in Asia by 15% to 20% over the next 12 to 18 months. In recent weeks the Asian bosses of Deutsche Bank’s and BNY Mellon’s wealth management units have also talked up their growth plans.

Meanwhile:

Singapore tops emerging East Asia in Q3 bond market growth. (Business Times)

Why MetLife excepts an insurance boom in China. (SCMP)

DBS Vickers tops new poll as Singapore’s best broker. (Business Times)

Managerial gender diversity at Australian banks revealed. (Sydney Morning Herald)

Losses from insurance and takaful business push down year-on-year Q3 earnings at Maybank. (The Star)

Wenzhou-based private commercial bank tipped to launch year-end. (SCMP)

Why global investors love Asian stocks. (WSJ)

ANZ is cleared of unfair dismissal in court case brought by former Sydney employee. (The Australian)

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The Christmas holiday season is fast approaching, but while finance professionals in Singapore may be technically ‘on leave’ for much of this period, they may well still be in touch with the office – primarily because they are too afraid to delegate tasks to colleagues.

According to a new poll by eFinancialCareers, only 19% of financial services professionals in Singapore spend their holidays completely free from work-related calls and emails. An overwhelming 81% say they remain contactable while on annual leave.

Of this on-duty majority, 41% don’t check emails but do take urgent phone calls, while a significant number (34%) admit to constantly checking their mobile devices so they can follow up on priority tasks. A further 6% are expected to work and be on call throughout their holiday.

“On the one hand, finance professionals want a good work-life balance, but on the other, many of them aren’t even willing to take proper statutory breaks,” says Paul Heng, founder of NeXT Corporate Coaching Services in Singapore. “Sometimes it’s because they need to always stay in touch with the financial markets, but added to this is a Singaporean trait called kaisu-ism – being afraid of losing out to others.”

Singaporeans often feel uncomfortable delegating work to colleagues while they are on leave, explains Daniel Koh, a psychologist at Insights Mind Centre in Singapore. “Staying in touch with the office is a way of them staying in control as it decreases their anxiety of things falling apart or having someone else take over. They feel they put too much effort into their work to just walk away or trust others.”

Compared with their counterparts in other developed financial markets, Singaporeans have a “much higher sense of ownership of their work”, adds Ben Batten, country general manager of recruitment firm Volt in Singapore. “They don’t tend to delegate – even for longer periods, for example maternity leave, it’s still not common for a temp to replace the person. Plus connectivity in Singapore is so good, even on MRT subway trains, making it even easier to check emails here.”

This urge to stay contactable is all the more extreme in the “competitive and risky” financial services sector, says Koh. “It’s the norm to be on guard and go the extra mile for the company, boss and clients, especially when you’re getting paid so much. Highly stimulated finance professionals can find it uncomfortable to relax and may worry that by relaxing others will overtake them. Some actually like it when colleagues call them for help while they’re on leave because it shows how valuable they are.”

Taking too many holidays where work remains a focus can lead to job dissatisfaction, falling productivity and ultimately burn-out, according to the experts we spoke to. “Burn-out happens to a pretty large extent – I know of folks in the IB industry not taking leave for up to five years, but our bodies just aren’t wired to work continuously. If I don’t listen to my body, I will burn out and this may cause more serious medical conditions,” says Heng from NeXT Corporate Coaching. “Some supervisors are the worst culprits here – they don’t set a good example and frown upon employees who dare ask for a break.”

Heng says to help avoid burn-out finance professionals in Singapore must set clear boundaries with colleagues and managers before they go on holiday. “To cut yourself off totally may not be realistic, so respond to time-sensitive emails, but restrict yourself to checking your inbox X no of minutes during vacation days. However, if your job allows, try to disconnect totally and be present with your loved ones. This will free your mind from work and you will return recharged and be much more productive.”

Psychologist Koh recommends planning your annual leave as far in advance as possible. “Proper time management can help you plan your time away and means you take less work with you. Also try to take a holiday during low periods when there’s less work and set rules for when a colleague can contact you, limiting yourself to one source. Ultimately, it’s your personal discipline that matters most – otherwise none of this will work.”

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Manuel Garcia, a managing director at Goldman Sachs, has left the bank to join former colleagues at a distressed debt focused hedge fund.

Garcia, who officially left the US bank last week, signed up as a partner to Gladwyne Investments earlier this month. The credit-focused hedge fund, which has a bias towards distressed debt opportunities, was set up in 2009 by former Goldman Sachs managing director Barend Pennings.

The hedge fund has been successful in persuading former Goldman alumni to join it, despite only employing five people in FCA-registered roles. Edouard Dupont, its COO, worked in operations at the bank until 2006 when he moved across to Lehman Brothers, while Sandro Patti, who joined as an investment analyst from Goldman at the fund’s inception, is now a partner at the firm. Yann Vincent-Genod joined Gladwyne as a member in May, but started his career at Goldman Sachs in 2007.

Garcia spent over 14 years at Goldman Sachs and became a managing director in the class of 2012. He has an AB in Economics from Harvard University.

In the 12 months to the end of March 2014, Galdwyne paid its four members an average of £861.4k, a significant uplift from the £173k shelled out in 2013, according to accounts on Companies House. The highest paid member received £2.83m. This followed a year when operating profits increased to £3.3m, up from £492.4k in 2013.

Elsewhere, it has five staff in administrative roles and it paid them a combined £495.7k.

Goldman Sachs traders have been departing for hedge funds in recent months. Mitesh Parikh, its former head of European spot FX trading, left for the buyside after 12 years at the bank. Earlier this year, Nick Bhuta, Goldman’s head of euro-governments bond trading, left for Tudor Capital.

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It’s nearly December, and it seems they’re trying edge you out. Don’t take it personally, it happens all the time. 

Don’t quit. Firstly, the hassle that’s coming your way may not be intentional or malicious. No bank does staff resourcing issues well, especially if part of the ‘HR function’ has been outsourced. They’ll start off being happy that “dead wood” or “faces that don’t fit” have quit, because that saves on redundancy pay and bonuses, but then they’ll come to appreciate that they’ve made a terrible mistake.  As a headhunter, I know that the most useful people are those who find it easiest to move on. That may be obvious, but it still surprises the people in outsourced HR.

If you hang in there, this can work to your advantage. The last man, or woman, can find themselves in a very strong position as they’re left to handle critical work. The more of your colleagues who leave, the better it will be for you. Of course, if you don’t want to be actively removed you’ll have to pay lip service to the new company line being spouted by senior managers. A new boss or corporate strategy is a source of opportunities and the best of them will be given to the people they see as ‘getting the message’ rather than griping. Once you’re seen as on message, however, you will be at liberty to creatively adapt the new regime to your own ends. Do this as a griper, and it won’t end well.

Of course you may not be the sort of person they want any more, which is their problem not yours. You need to look hard at the job market, start planning an exit and making sure your CV is well polished, this is the time to network.

Finally, as headhunter I have to share that it is a lot easier to get a job when you still have one than it is to find something new when you simply have a good reason for being unemployed. And. no matter how badly they behave, do not criticise your ex-employer at interviews. Part of the reason you get any shot at a job is because of your experience. If you belittle that and sound “difficult”, they are less likely to hire you. Good luck.

Dominic Connor is a Headhunter

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If you’re a senior private equity professional used to generous salaries and bonuses and, more importantly, the prospect of a huge long-term pay day through carried interest, would you quit the buyside to work for the regulator? Financial regulators in the US, UK and Asia are increasingly hiring in private equity expertise as they give the sector more scrutiny and – according to new research – seem willing to stretch their strict salary bands.

Research by Kinetic Partners as part of its annual Global Enforcement Review released this week suggests that ‘annual expenditures’ at the Securities and Exchange Commission have increased by 62% over the last six years, by 50% at the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (formerly the Financial Services Authority) and by 120% at the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong.

“Staff numbers at these regulators, however, generally rose by a lower percentage leading us to surmise that they are recruiting a higher calibre of professional and that these industry specialists are being paid commensurately more,” the firm wrote in its report.

The FCA has already named two former senior investment bankers to its wholesale enforcement division this year. In February, former Goldman Sachs MD James Kelly joined the FCA as an adviser and in April the regulator hired former Lehman Brothers managing director Gunner Burkhart.

More recently, however, regulators have focused on bringing in private equity expertise. In a May speech, Andrew Bowden, director, office of compliance and inspections at the SEC, said that it had been adding “individuals with private equity expertise” and that it was “forming a special unit of examiners, who will focus on examinations of advisers to private funds”.

“The SEC has demonstrated that it is committed to ensuring that the skills it has in-house match those in the industry,” says Kinetic Partners. “But the question that many are asking is how did the SEC manage to persuade so many relatively highly paid private sector professionals to join its ranks?”

While Kinetic suggests that expenses are on the up at the regulator, both the SEC and FCA maintain strict salary bands for their staff. Senior officer pay at the SEC is capped $243.4k. The FCA, meanwhile, doesn’t make its pay publicly available, but salary bands for regulatory managers at the FSA were up to £200k ($315k). Neither of these salaries are particularly prudent, but compared to the $1.34m average compensation for senior private equity professionals in the US and $857.2k in Europe, it still seems like small change.

Moreover, the FCA’s employee handbook doesn’t suggest generosity elsewhere. A “no-frills ‘Budget’ carrier” will be offered to staff flying abroad for work if it’s available – a far cry from the business class most private equity professionals are used to – and it has a maximum £10 for sustenance when travelling employees don’t stay overnight. For staff parties, a maximum of £60 per head has been allocated this year.

Kinetic Partners suggest the benefits of working for the regulator lie elsewhere, including a “more structured career path, long-term job security and an opportunity to be involved in policy making”.

However, former regulatory employees who switched back into banking have been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons recently – ex-NY Fed employee, Rohit Bansal, who joined Goldman Sachs, was fired after allegedly forwarding confidential information about their former employer to a senior colleague.

However, other examples suggest a stint with the regulator can be beneficial for your career. Hector Sants, who spent ten years at the FSA latterly as its head, joined Barclays as head of compliance on a package allegedly worth £3m. He quit after less than a year, however, citing stress and pressures of the job.

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