Wednesday, September 30, 2009

The V-type recovery of Investment Banking

It really seems that the Investment Banking is picking up. Number of companies (like Morgan Stanley, Barclays Capitals, Nomura, Goldman Sachs and some small investment boutiques) are hiring actively. At the moment hiring is mostly in the space of seniors and middle-ranks. The reason for this is a huge number of experienced people, who stay our of employment - firms are willing to take advantage of the state of the market to hire experience people at low cost. I expect that this hiring fever will soon spill to the junior job market as well - I believe that this year will give excellent opportunities to find a job in lucrative sector at the junior level. I don't believe that the financial industry could be hit again anytime soon.

My advice at the moment is: Don't be afraid of working in companies that performed badly during the crisis (like RBS, UBS, Citibank etc.). It's very likely that especially these companies will provide extremely interesting opportunities for all juniors. This organizations cut big part of their businesses and hence now they need to rebuild rapidly to remain competitive and profitable.

Yet another proof of the improvement of the business conditions in the investment banking is the fact that I got a job recently! I am soon finishing my PhD and I will be starting in Barclays Capital in their Investment Banking Division.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey congrats for Barclays,
I am a real follow of ur blog, its gr8.
I have specific question: I am an engineer and am going to complete my L1 of CFA this DEC. Due to think I can get an entry level job in the financial sector. More so, should I wait and finish off L2 by June2010 and then do CFA L2. My present work is not very demanding nad I can manage time for L2 june 2010, but if I enter the financial sector then I might have to try for 2011 Level2.
plz help

PhD Candidate said...

If I were you I would start applying straight. It sometimes takes ~1 year to get an interesting job in the financial sector. In what particular role are you interested?

Anonymous said...

hiii,
I was more particularly interest in investment research, (buy side or sell side doesn't matter for now) and to an extent trading, but since I am based in India, most of the investment research jobs that freshers(without any financial job exp.) get here is the offshoring job of credit risk analysis and equity analysis. With a Bachelor's in Engineering and CFA Level 1, I am in a good position to get this job. My options are:
1)after L1 in DEC2009,sit straight for Level2 in June 2010.
2)after L1 in dec09,go for a job in Credit risk,or equity research, then give L2 in june2011, as I won't be able to prepare for L2 and give the exam in June 2010,thats just six months. most of the biggies have their offshoring offices here,but these back office jobs are very redundant(limited to no. crunching) and growth is limited,but then opportunity in the beginning is something which I am getting.
What do u think is a better option amongst the two from above??
You might wanna enter blog entry for this.
Once again thanks for a very informative blog.
-Ravi
What do u suggest sir?

Sajal said...

Hey congrats on the BCS offer! Can I take you up for some career advice? I'd like to email you with further details. My email address is fundamentalinsights at gmail.com. You can either reply to this comment or email me yours. Thanks a lot!

Anonymous said...

Congrats on the job. What will you be doing there? What was your PhD in?

PhD Candidate said...

First of all - CFA is not very important. I think you should be able to get the position anyways.

I would, however, take CFA as soon as it is possible.

PhD Candidate said...

@SAJAL - please ask a question here! :)

Best wishes!

PhD Candidate said...

@anonymous The role is on exotics trading desk. My PhD was in Financial Economics/Mathematical Finance.

SIPL Data Services said...

I believe that this year will give excellent opportunities to find a job in lucrative sector at the junior level.

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