eFinancialCareers

Keeping your career on the right track can require more than staying on the good side of your boss and immediate co-workers. It can also mean heading off a budding conflict with a person in a different department, such as human resources. An enemy in HR is especially dangerous, observes office politics expert Vicky Oliver, author of Bad Bosses, Crazy Coworkers, and Other Office Idiots. That's because if layoffs happen, HR... Read more

To a news reporter or editor, bonuses for financial professionals seem to come in just three sizes: large, extra large and jumbo. Take Bloomberg News' quarterly survey of Wall Street bonus expectations, published Friday under the lurid headline, "Bankers Expect Rising Bonus Pay to Break Records in Global Poll." Read past the headline, and the story's second sentence says "most executives expect their bonuses to match or exceed last year’s, with... Read more

A conversation with Fuwad Beg, managing director at Yasaar Human Capital, a Dubai-based executive search firm serving the Islamic finance sector on a global basis. It is a division of Yasaar Ltd., a Shariah advisory and compliance solutions company. Islamic or Shariah compliant finance involves financial products structured to satisfy the Quran's prohibition on paying or receiving interest, selling borrowed or notional assets, or profiting from forbidden goods (pork, alcoholic... Read more

Events of the past two days signal new twists in Wall Street's post-crisis jousting for talent. In particular, battle lines are being redrawn among Bank of America, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup – with compensation issues at center stage. We'll start with UBS. The Swiss bank, long the global leader in private wealth management, is poised to redouble efforts to recruit financial advisers away from Bank of America Merrill... Read more

Is a talent war shaping up between AIG and its former chief executive and biggest private shareholder, Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg? That's the thrust of a New York Times story Tuesday. It suggests an ongoing drain of AIG employees to Greenberg's insurance-focused vehicle, C.V. Starr & Co., could become a flood due to bailout pay czar Kenneth Feinberg's draconian rulings last week affecting AIG and a handful of other major recipients... Read more

We've long written that interpersonal skills are vital to both getting hired and being a strong performer in one's job. But a recent survey suggests that for finance department job-seekers at least, the importance hiring managers attach to people skills has soared in the past five years. Thirty-one percent of U.S. chief financial officers polled by Accountemps said they'd use "personality or people skills" as a tie-breaker between similarly qualified candidates.... Read more

You've prepped for your big interview by lining up impressive answers about what you've done and can do, what's new in your field and in the company you're meeting with. But if you aren't tuned in to the three most common interview decision factors and their relative importance, then all your painstaking research, strategizing and rehearsing could easily come to naught. The three factors are: Fit, passion and ability to do... Read more

Bond giant Pacific Investment Management Co. reportedly is considering hiring an equity management team away from another large investment firm in an effort to diversify its business mix. The Newport Beach, Calif. firm will likely seek to recruit from among "global equity teams with a strong track record, but whose company may have been financially weakened by the economic downturn," according to Pensions & Investments, which reported the plan citing unnamed... Read more

Demand for hedge fund professionals is bouncing back, even as compensation is down from a year ago and bonus guarantees remain the exception. That mixed picture emerges from a report issued last week by worldwide search firm Heidrick & Struggles, focusing on hedge fund search and recruiting trends. On the good news side of the ledger: - The past summer was "active" in new fund launches and hiring. H&S attributes much of the... Read more

Speak of the devil and you get him. That ancient warning is worth heeding if your employer's business slips to a point where layoffs might hit your department. No matter how pressing the fear of losing your job feels to you, your supervisor - and his or her supervisor - is more likely thinking about broad issues such as coping with a downturn in market share, revenue, or demand for the... Read more

Bank of America's management ranks have gone through plenty of upheaval in the past 12 months. Is a new round of departures in store once the board settles on a new chief executive to replace Ken Lewis? Probably not, a source involved with the succession process tells TheStreet.com. A lengthy article in that online publication lays out a number of reasons why the internal contenders for Lewis' job might opt... Read more

Global financial recovery is boosting the near-term outlook for Islamic banking and investment, a niche whose rapid growth took a breather last year. That bodes well both for experienced Islamic-finance professionals and conventional bankers who seek to broaden their skills and client base. In the Arab Gulf - the current center of gravity for Islamic finance - confidence is returning after a prolonged lull brought on by the world financial crisis.... Read more

With key government dictates on bankers' compensation looming this month, The Wall Street Journal stepped forward Wednesday with its own numbers it says show Wall Street employees this year are being paid more than 2007's record take. Examining revenue and compensation trends for 23 of the largest publicly traded companies involved in the financial markets, the Journal projects workers at those institutions are on track to receive a record high of... Read more

Looking to work for a buyout firm? Your best shot is if you've got experience in the health care sector, business support, infrastructure or logistics, or in restructuring troubled corporate debt. That's the takeaway from Grant Thornton's latest survey of private equity executives. Almost two in three respondents (64 percent) say they're shifting toward targeting companies in defensive sectors. The health sector was cited by 55 percent, according to Reuters, while... Read more

If you treat your performance review self-evaluation form as a bureacratic formality, you're wasting a chance to bolster your position and possibly fatten your bonus and salary too, says career guru Scot Herrick. Making the effort to turn in an "accurate and complete" self-review helps in at least four powerful ways, Herrick says in his Cube Rules newsletter for October and a series of related posts on his Web site of... Read more

Are financial institutions modifying their bonus policies in a way that will help control risk-taking? Not likely, according to recent survey of more than 1,000 eFinancialCareers users. A slight majority said their employers have revised bonus policies. But 60 percent of respondents who take risk as part of their jobs said the employer's current policies won't affect their risk-taking. And 12 percent even said current policies incline them to take greater... Read more