Most banks in Singapore and Hong Kong are not doing as much external hiring as they were last year – so if you’re looking to make a career change you are advised to look in-house.
Fortunately, cost-conscious banks in Asia are big on internal mobility between different departments right now – and recent efforts in Singapore to discourage overseas recruitment mean employers there are even keener to make the most of their current talent.
“There are some roles in Asia, especially in risk and governance functions, where skill shortages make it difficult to hire from competitors and where your existing knowledge of the bank’s internal processes is more important than being a 100% fit to the job’s technical requirements,” says a senior HR manager at a European bank in Singapore who asked not to be named.
Nevertheless, if you want to move to another team within the same bank you still face significant hurdles – here’s how to overcome them.
1. Raise it in your review
You don’t want your current manager to try to scupper your eventual transfer, so raise the issue with them during a quarterly or annual review meeting. “It’s vital to introduce the idea as part of a career development discussion,” says Mark Sparrow, APAC managing director at HR consultancy NP Group in Singapore. “It’s not a crime to want to explore ‘career breadth’ – and in fact demonstrating that you’d like to achieve these kind of goals within your company would almost always be viewed positively.”
2. Research the boring stuff before you start looking
Most banks have formal, often tedious, procedures governing internal moves – chances are you don’t know them, so get an overview from HR before you start looking for opportunities. “HR managers need to outline clear policies – eligibility, selection criteria, rewards packages, relocation, and processes like internal job postings,” says Abhishek Mittal, senior consultant, talent management, at consultancy Towers Watson in Singapore.
3. Is the role really what you think it is?
Most cross-department moves start with an employee reading an internal job advertisement. “But at my firm you don’t usually apply straight away,” says the anonymous HR leader. “You have an informal chat with the internal acquisition team about whether you’re potentially the right fit, whether it’s worth applying – this may not be obvious from the written job description. You might then also have an off-record talk with the hiring manager – and only after that do you proceed with a formal application.”
4) Make them love your loyalty
Emphasising your intention to remain in the organisation is an ideal starting point to any internal-move negotiation, says Henry Chamberlain, a Hong Kong-based careers consultant and former head of selection at Standard Chartered. “Banks are trying to retain talent like never before – and by allowing staff to move across business lines, they not only keep them, they also build more rounded leaders.”
5. Show that you’re willing to learn
If you’re making a career change, there will be many tasks within the job that you’ve never carried out before. You must be prepared to discuss how you would cope with this challenge. “You need to consider how much of the new job is ‘learnable’, and be ready to make a personal investment in self-development,” advises Mittal.
6. Competency is key
While you’ll have to learn many of the specific technical skills, make sure you already have the correct general competencies – analytical or leadership abilities, for example – to make a successful career change. “Research has demonstrated that a candidate with the right competency profile, but lacking the technical knowledge, would do less well at first than a ‘wrong-fit’ person who has all the skills,” says Chamberlain. “But after a very short time the person with the ‘right-fit’ competencies could outperform the skills-based one.”
7. Point out performance benefits
If you’re pitching an internal move to your employer, use examples to illustrate how well you would perform in your new team. “Line managers need to understand the business case for talent mobility,” says Mittal. “Towers Watson ran analytics when working with a Southeast Asian bank recently and discovered people who moved across divisions attained KPI results that were about 12% higher than those who moved within the same division.”
8. Don’t mention money
If the bank sniffs a financial motive behind your transfer, you may be in trouble. “Be fully cognisant as to why you wish to make this move,” says Sparrow from NP Group. “Often it’s actually the allure of a perceived better salary or bonuses rather than a natural career path. This may well mean that you’re not suited to the new job.”
9. Don’t rush
“I sometimes think in my bank that we encourage mobility too much and rush people into moves before they’ve fulfilled themselves in their current role,” says the senior HR manager in Singapore. “If they’d actually stayed on longer they could have done an even better job and enhanced their career even more.”