IE
The message to Irish students hoping to move into financial services upon graduation next year is very clear – look overseas.
Perhaps not surprisingly, considering the overarching grim tidings within the Irish banking sector, domestic institutions like Bank of Ireland, Anglo Irish and AIB have cancelled their graduate intake for 2010.
“The domestic market is pretty much closed for recruitment and that is reflective of the situation affecting the banking sector in Ireland currently,” says Sean Gannon, director and careers advisor at Trinity College, Dublin.
Still, with most international investment banks intending to up their graduate intake again in 2010, the likes of Barclays, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are all doing the milkrounds at Irish universities.
They’re targeting Irish universities like Dublin City University, Trinity College Dublin, University College Cork and University College Dublin.
“In previous downturns investment banks let graduate recruitment fizzle out and had to then recruit more expensive experienced hires to fill the gap,” says Gannon. “They’re keen to keep a pipeline of fresh talent.”
Seamus McEvoy, careers advisor and head of service at University College Cork, says the financial services graduate recruitment market is “weak” but that students remain as keen as ever to enter the industry.
“Obviously, the big Irish banks were staples of the graduate recruitment scene, so losing them is a blow. However, while most students would prefer to take an opportunity in Ireland, they realise the value of international experience,” he says.
Fund administration firms – typically very active recruiters – are also hiring fewer graduates this year and not canvassing on campus, says Gannon. However, it’s not entirely bleak locally.
The Big Four accountancy firms are likely to keep their graduate in take in line with previous years, as are their smaller counterparts, and the Central Bank of Ireland and other regulatory bodies are looking to recruit.
“International banks want Irish students (even if domestic firms don’t)” – For Back office jobs which they are overqualified for.
The big four are primarily focused on replacing skilled staff with lower paid labour, while maintaining their image to the public.
They have all had “voluntary” redundancy programmes where staff had no choice but to accept what they were forced into over the course of several weeks of psychological games by management.
Recent Graduate intakes after only a few months have been let go, or had contractual obligations deferred with the incentive of meagre payments after ruining the chances these people had at taken a rewarding and fulfilling career.
Some of the big four have gone on to offer advice to other corporates on how to motivate staff and maintain morale in the down turn – within weeks of giving “voluntary” redundancy to their own staff.
The Big Four may have kept their intake for same, but they are using every opportunity they can to get rid of students, previously if a student failed a exam they were let sit them again now alot of students are automatically let go. Also as soon as their training contracts are finished they are let go, with little or no hope of finding a job elsewhere.