GF
GUEST COMMENT: Burnout, and how to avoid it
Burnout can be a feature of any job involving high levels of stress. Teachers can burnout, for example. So can paramedics and policemen. So can bankers. Burnout is a state where continuous stimulation without relaxation means the organism gets too exhausted to respond further. All creatures need to alternate between tension and relaxation if they [...]
GUEST COMMENT: Several things to remember when starting a new job
If you’ve been out of the market for a little while, either on gardening leave, voluntary abstention from work, or as a result of redundancy, you may be a little rusty when it comes to remembering how things work in an investment bank. Here are six things to get you back on track: 1) Find… [...]
GUEST COMMENT: Why I’m ditching the Middle East for Hong Kong
I am a continental European by birth, but I’m currently working for a major investment fund in the UAE. Until a couple of years ago, I was working in an investment bank in London, but I got the chance to move into private equity when the market was in a bad shape and moved here. [...]
GUEST COMMENT: I’m a prop trader and I don’t give a damn about the Volcker Rule
I’m a senior prop trader working within a bank. I’ve been in this profession since 1993, both before Glass Steagall and after. In my opinion, the rules announced yesterday are meaningless. First, they’ll take three to five years to go through, by which time they will have changed beyond recognition. Second, there will be regulatory [...]
GUEST COMMENT: How to land a role in a family office
Wealthy families face a dichotomy following the current global financial crisis. Which distressed investments merit investment, and perhaps more importantly who they can trust to provide the impartial due diligence advice on each opportunity. With the rapid growth in personal wealth in the Middle East and the current nervousness in global markets, we find a [...]
GUEST COMMENT: The growing need for female bankers in the Muslim world
Throughout the Muslim world, banks and financial institutions have experienced a significant rise in their number of female customers in recent years, largely attributable to their increasingly role in the workplace. Responsible for controlling household and family finances for decades, women have also experienced new empowerment and freedom in how they spend their money. With [...]
GUEST COMMENT: Nationalisation needs to be about more than filling quotas
In spite of the financial crisis dampening job prospects in the GCC, the issues surrounding nationalisation continue on relatively unabated, as does the battle between expats and nationals. We take it as a given that nationals are useless or that expats are arrogant – depending on which side of the fence you sit. The governments [...]
GUEST COMMENT: A brief message to the deluded of Dubai
As a Dubai-dweller, I’ve found it hard to gauge the mood of the city over the past few days. In the mostly pro-government press, the only news is good news. ‘Investors show trust in Dubai’ trumpeted Gulf News, just as investors were doing exactly the opposite by sending the market value of Nakheel’s Sukuk plummeting. [...]
GUEST COMMENT: Why Wall Street arrogance doesn’t work in the Gulf
What a strange year…I remember 12 months ago ambling around Dubai Cityscape, the largest real estate exhibition in the Middle East. The projects were amazing, the buildings taller than ever, demonstrating the lofty ambitions of the emirate. And then Lehman Brothers collapsed. One by one, my diarized appointments disappeared as everyone tried to make some [...]
GUEST COMMENT: The secret art of the cover letter
When you’re applying for a job, the temptation is focus all your energy on your CV and to leave the cover letter as an afterthought. Don’t! The three stages of recruitment Your CV is definitely the more important of the two documents, but let’s consider the first three stages in the recruitment process, when employers [...]
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