The misguided job search tactics of the alpha male
Being an alpha male can be a good thing. Alpha males are confident, natural leaders. They’re usually intelligent. They’re analytical and they’re doers. Lloyds is so keen to turn its employees into alpha males, it’s reportedly sent them on a course titled, ‘Hunter-Gatherers in the Corporate Jungle,’ where they’ve been equipped with alpha male traits. [...]
10 tips for getting hired when nobody seems to be hiring
For anyone who has been searching for a financial job for more than a few weeks, the dreary and continued drain on time, effort, energy and spirit make it sometimes difficult to stay with it. You begin to wonder if you’ll ever get a job. Is anyone even hiring? To break the spell, there are [...]
GUEST COMMENT: I passed all three levels of the CFA in 18 months. This is how I tackled Level III
I’ve already written about my tactics for passing CFA Levels I and II. Now I’d like to share my method of passing CFA Level III. As I’ve pointed out on previous occasions, I managed to pass all three levels in a period of 18 months. The big problem with Level III is complacency. You get [...]
Goldman’s global head of growth markets succinctly explains how investment bankers can ensure they’re never without work in future
Goldman Sachs has been making videos and placing them on YouTube. They don’t appear particularly popular: some only have a handful of hits. Some appear to have none at all. However, this one, featuring J. Michael Evans, its global head of ‘Growth Markets’, deserves some attention. In it, J. Michael volunteers a perspective on what [...]
How to ensure your CV is read by the robots
Recruiters report that due to the overwhelming supply of talent today, desperate job seekers are flooding every position—but that 50% or more of applicants are unqualified for the position to which they are applying. To save companies time and money, the hiring process has been almost entirely automated. Most large firms will now use software [...]
By 2014 London salaries at Goldman Sachs may be £2m, salaries at Citi may be £1.5m, salaries at Barclays £650k and salaries at Deutsche £550k
Starting at 4.30pm today, the EU Parliament’s Monetary Affairs Committee will debate and then vote upon the proposal that banking bonuses should be restricted to no more than 100% of banking salaries. By all accounts, they’re likely to vote in favour of the move. Members of the Monetary Affairs Committe include various prominent socialists: You [...]
10 important repercussions of JPMorgan’s CIO blow-up
If you don’t know already (which is unlikely), JPMorgan has fallen suddenly from its pedestal of earning an average of more than $4bn a quarter for the past two years. The bank held a conference call last night to coincide with the release of its Form 10q to confess that it will post a loss [...]
GUEST COMMENT: How to send out three hundred job applications for an equity trading job, and still get nowhere
I have a friend who was a junior equities trader. He joined the bank straight out of university, worked there for a few years and was made redundant. Four months into his redundancy, we spoke and he mentioned to me that he’d submitted more than 300 job applications. I didn’t totally believe this and asked [...]
Two economics professors describe how investment banks lure their students, and why students should resist
Joris Luyendijk, the anthropologist and journalist who’s been interviewing bankers and their friends for the Guardian, has spoken to two professors of economics, one at Oxbridge, one at an unnamed university in London (probably the LSE) about the career choices of their students. Both paint a remarkably similar portrait of naïve undergraduates tempted into banking [...]
GUEST COMMENT: The final countdown to the CFA Programme June Examinations
(Or The Final Countdown (you have to hum the tune as you read this) 4 WEEKS TO GO… By now you should have finished your first reading of the CFA curriculum. If you haven’t then get a move on, time is ticking away. Make a plan for the critical phase that’s coming up: revision. There [...]
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