eFinancialCareers

If you're tired of being caricatured as a fat-cat "executive" just because you work for a big-name financial institution in any capacity, relief is here. BusinessWeek just acknowledged that life is tough for financial services workers, too – even admitting that "big payouts are the exception, not the rule." The magazine portrays some Wall Street employees sympathetically – a rarity in mainstream media accounts since taxpayer-funded bailouts began more than a... Read more

Are leveraged buyouts and the bankers who facilitate them springing back to life? UBS says so – and recently put money where its mouth is by hiring two senior bankers for its financial sponsors group. The credit crisis nearly vaporized this segment of investment banking when PE firms lost their ability to borrow 80 percent of a deal's value. Since the crisis began, the M&A business that's been done has been... Read more

Add Barclays Capital and Nomura Securities International to the list of upstarts draining revenue producers away from Wall Street rivals shackled by government-imposed pay restrictions. Free from the controls governments are slapping on bailed-out banks, London-based Barclays and Tokyo-based Nomura continue to hire seasoned bankers, traders and researchers, Bloomberg News reports. The poaching is far from over. Since picking up bankrupt Lehman Brothers’ U.S. operations a year ago, Barclays has added... Read more

For a professional in transition, freelancing, volunteering, networking, or preparing to launch a business can shorten the path to the next job. But if you’re not careful, it can also prevent you from collecting unemployment compensation. While rules governing jobless benefits vary from state to state, in general a claimant must be able to work, available to work and actively seeking work. “If you’re doing so much freelancing and volunteering, or you... Read more

Investment banks are sending fewer employees on international assignments, but those who do go are still getting full relocation packages, industry experts say. "I have seen quite a few banks cut back on the number of people they were sending on assignment. But the extent of the reductions is still less than one might have expected," says Geoff Latta, executive vice president of ORC Worldwide, a New York-based relocation consulting firm.... Read more

If you work in a small community bank managing loans, loan workouts or retail banking, you should expect your cash compensation to exceed what you were earning last year by a double-digit percentage. But if you're the branch manager or chief credit manager, you're likely to be earning less than a year ago, according to a survey by accounting and consulting firm Crowe Horwath LLP. Overall, base salaries at the 320... Read more

Chief financial officers think their accounting staffers will be spending more time than ever on strategy and IT projects five years from now, according to a survey from Robert Half Management Resources. On average, the CFOs expect accountants will spend 40 percent of their time working on issues beyond the traditional accounting functions five years from now. The average time spent on those tasks now? An estimated 36 percent. The survey of... Read more

Even if it's been years since you graduated, it's always fun to find out how your alma mater did in U.S. News & World Report's "Best Colleges 2010" ranking. For accounting, this year's top-ranked undergraduate schools are: 1. University of Texas-Austin 2. University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign 3. Brigham Young University-Provo 4. University of Pennsylvania 5. University of Southern California 6. Indiana University-Bloomington 7. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 8. University of Notre Dame 9. New York University 10. University of North Carolina-Chapel... Read more

If you're not in the right frame of mind, a temporary job could stress you out. According to a study conducted by McGill University researchers, employees hired for temporary, contract, fixed-term or "casual" positions are at risk for increased mental health problems. "Contingent workers report more symptoms of depression and psychological distress than similarly employed workers who are not in these fixed-term positions," says the study's primary investigator, Assistant Professor Amelie... Read more

The nation's Top 100 accounting firms posted 7.13 percent revenue growth this year, but had flat net income growth, according to Inside Public Accounting's Top 100 Accounting Firms 2009 report. The results posted by firms with fiscal year-ends falling in mid-2009 reflect the economic downturn, says Michael Platt, consultant and publisher of IPA. "In fact, average net income growth for firms with a 2008 year-end was 7 percent, while net income... Read more

Chief financial officers’ compensation is influenced by both the complexity of the job and the CFO’s performance, according to a study by Steve Balsam, professor of accounting at the Fox School of Business at Temple University. CFO salaries increase with the intricacy of a firm’s operating, investing and financing activities, he says. Bonuses correlate with a CFO’s ability to deal with analysts and meet earnings forecasts, particularly when they do so... Read more

Laid off and looking to increase your skills without decreasing your cash reserves? Bankrate.com suggests the following five ways to get free job training: - If notified you will be laid off, ask if you can get extra cash or reimbursement for training as part of your severance package. - See if your state’s U.S. government-funded One-Stop Career Center will pay for training that updates your skill set or helps you... Read more

If the boss has canceled your training and your next trip out of town to a conference, maybe you’re working for the wrong firm. While 26 percent of 150 large company senior executives recently surveyed by Accountemps said they’d cut back on professional development over the past year, slightly more, 28 percent said they’d increased training. The executives were asked: "Compared to 12 months ago, how, if at all, have your... Read more

Although our conversation with Melanie Tinto, Bank of America's head of Global Campus Recruiting and Rotational Programs, focused on what banks seek in new graduates, many of her thoughts apply to bankers seeking their second or third job, as well. What are the hard skills that an early-career employee needs to succeed in investment banking, and how do they get them? Most critical to a new hire's success in investment banking is... Read more

So months and months after your layoff, you've finally found a new job. You're thrilled, relieved - and worried about whether you'll fit in and can handle the work. One of the first hurdles you'll face is explaining where you've been. "Be honest, say 'I was let go,'" says recruiter David N. Schwartz of D N Schwartz & Co., in New York. "If someone doesn't understand that some of the best... Read more

The biggest headaches facing chief financial officers of alternative investment firms are regulations, transparency, complexity, investor timidity and efficiency, according to a new survey from New York-based TKS Solutions, which produces accounting software solutions. If you aspire to moving up, tackle even one of these challenges and you’ll set yourself up for the next rung. After all, anyone with a headache automatically loves the co-worker who’s got a bottle of aspirin... Read more

Wall Street is caught up in a talent recruiting war, despite the recession and government-imposed limits on bonuses for the highest-paid bankers and traders. That's the gist of a Wall Street Journal story detailing multi-million dollar packages banks have offered lately to recruit big producers away from rivals. The suitors include Bank of America, Citigroup and Royal Bank of Scotland – three institutions still on taxpayer-funded life support, whose respective governments... Read more

Having repaid $25 billion in TARP money, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is back in the recruiting game and talking tough to federal legislators and regulators. “The bank…is using its industry standing to bolster its ranks," The Wall Street Journal reports Wednesday. Just two weeks repaying the government, JPMorgan hired William Rifkin from Bank of America as vice chairman of M&A. The Journal calls Rifkin one of Wall Street's best-known investment... Read more

If TARP-imposed bonus limits are pushing the best talent away from Wall Street, Citigroup and Bank of America are being hit particularly hard. That's what CNNMoney says, anyway, as it reports the "brain drain that big banks have worried about ever since the government stepped in to bail out the financial sector appears to be well underway." Citi and BofA, the Web site notes, are "the two banks that have received... Read more

The severity of the recession and the credit market freeze have financial services companies slicing the number of employees they send overseas. "In the current environment there's a volume reduction and a reduction in the scope and generosity of the benefits being provided," says Scott Sullivan, executive vice president of Brookfield Global Relocation Services, the Woodridge, Ill., firm whose recently released survey included the findings. The magnitude of the change is so... Read more