eFinancialCareers

About 100 employees of Morgan Stanley Investment Management are moving to State Street Corp. as part of a deal under which the Boston-based financial firm will provide investment management services for some $300 billion in assets. State Street will provide MSIM with global outsourcing services including trade settlement, portfolio administration and reporting and reconciliation services for a majority of MSIM’s assets under management.   Most of the workers involved are in the... Read more

We've all seen variations on the list of common questions interviewers ask, but how much have you thought about what questions you should ask a potential employer? The best interviews are really conversations, as well they should be. You want to know if the position is the right fit - just as much as the company does. After all, the work you do makes up a good portion of your waking... Read more

American Express names former Thomson Reuters executive Ed Jay to lead a new global information analysis and consulting business, American Express Business Insights [American Express, via BW] Citigroup taps Willem Buiter, an outspoken LSE professor and former Bank of England policy maker, to the long-vacant post of chief economist [Bloomberg News] Michael Parker joins M.R. Beal as a VP to lead the firm's expansion into international equity trading [M.R. Beal, via BW] Brewer... Read more

The impending default by Dubai World threatens to set back emerging financial markets just as they've moved to the forefront of an incipient global economic recovery. As a result, near-term career prospects for bankers in the Middle East look to suffer a second serious blow in little more than a year. Fallout from the crisis might put a damper on other emerging market careers as well, depending how events unfold. Local... Read more

Analysts specializing in fundamental research, consigned to oblivion just a few years ago by proponents of mathematical finance, are regaining favor. In recent survey, JPMorgan Asset Management found more than a third of European institutional investors felt less positive about quantitative equity strategies than a year ago, while 80 percent of the largest ones felt more positive about a fundamental approach. That reinforces indications from elsewhere that the credit crisis is... Read more

When it comes to trading, experience matters after all. So say Cambridge University researchers who measured the risk-adjusted performance of 53 high-frequency traders in a study published in the Public Library of Science journal. Reuters reports that the traders' Sharpe ratios increased markedly with the number of years they had been trading - a result suggesting that learning plays a role in increasing returns, the researchers concluded. The study also found... Read more

In the past decade or so, early-career analysts in research and investment banking departments have faced the threat that work they perform can be outsourced to India. Two sentences squirreled away in a Standard & Poor's announcement this month raise the prospect that China might soon play a similar role. "Looking ahead, S&P also will look to draw on China's rich talent base to provide data and analytical support for S&P's... Read more

If you regularly win at online poker, that's a career asset. The widely discussed correlation between poker ability and trading ability has practical value in the job market, because many hiring decision-makers at hedge funds and other trading shops act on their belief. A recent Bloomberg News story names several prominent hedge funds and other firms that consciously recruit successful poker competitors. They include AQR Capital Management, D.E. Shaw, Two Sigma... Read more

The kudzu-like proliferation of hedge funds earlier this decade brought a spike in concerns that the sector's overcrowding all but eliminated alpha-earning opportunities that could justify the funds' high fees. Now that conditions have flipped around, a shrinking fund industry will spur both return opportunities for investors and career opportunities for hedge fund professionals, according to a report released last week. First, a caveat: The report's author, Eric Attias of newly... Read more

Is JPMorgan Chase's chief executive maneuvering to jump to Washington to replace the embattled Timothy Geithner as U.S. Treasury Secretary? Separate stories in Forbes and the New York Post imply as much, yet still leave Jamie Dimon plenty of wiggle room to demur if the Treasury post does come open. Under a succession plan announced plan in September, were Dimon to leave JPMorgan his presumptive replacement would be Jes Staley, who... Read more

A recent story showcasing recruiters' complaints about "crazy" candidates seems to have hit a nerve among many of our users. Several comments draw a link between overeager job-seekers - who recruiters may view as pests - and uncommunicative recruiters whom sincere and well-behaved job-seekers may label rude and unprofessional. The question of whether recruiters should be more responsive to candidates who've been eliminated from a client's interview process (and those job-seekers... Read more

The longer this recession goes on, the more transitioning professionals will stumble into the "overqualified" pit. Too much of a good thing is wonderful, said Mae West. But that's not how hiring managers see it. Relevant work experience, advanced degrees and credentials - while prerequisites for many finance jobs - can disqualify as well as qualify. If a candidate previously held a role at a higher level than the one she's... Read more

Picture this: You’ve just lost your job and you’re scouring the job boards, looking for something - anything - that matches your professional qualifications and experience. Suddenly, you spot a position that looks too good to be true. The job title is perfect, the responsibilities are right up your alley, and the firm is… Oh, wait a minute. It's your former employer; the one that just handed you a pink... Read more

Even as the finance industry writhes amid recession and restructuring, some jobless professionals are having trouble adjusting their expectations to the new reality. A column in Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer details the saga of one Byron Wilson, a former investment advisor, insurance company vice president and Big Four CPA. In 2007, Wilson left a steady job to build his own investment advisory business at Smith Barney, leaving little time to build a... Read more

Kerry Jordan, CFA, has been out of work since January 2008, despite 14 years of experience at FBR Capital Markets, Bank of America, and NASDAQ. You'd think her work in new business development, strategic planning, risk management and raising capital would have left her well-positioned to land a new job quickly. But here's the rub: "Everyone is in retrenchment mode and the few positions that do become available are filled... Read more

If your career path meandered at any point, you won't get far with Aaron Patzer, the Web entrepreneur who built Mint.com and who now heads the personal finance group at Intuit, which acquired his company this month. When hiring, "I look for someone who has made conscious, rational, well-reasoned decisions from high school through college to internships to your first job to now," Patzer told Fortune magazine. "If you've floundered,... Read more

Hopefully, you'll never need this step-by-step guide to surviving a layoff. But if you do, following these steps will put you on your way to a new opportunity. 1. Negotiate a Good Deal It may be possible to negotiate at least some terms of your layoff. Employers often budget substantial funds for such purposes, but exiting employees don't realize they can negotiate or they are too traumatized to ask. As soon as... Read more

From London, Sarah Butcher writes: With more and more people pursuing fewer and fewer jobs, recruiters say some candidates are exhibiting strange and unusual behaviors in an attempt to catch their attention. These apparently include: Sending in their CV for every single job going: “These are the serial appliers,” says Recruiter A. “They apply for everything we advertise across every function.” Repeatedly sending in their CV for the same job: “If someone sees... Read more

Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. has hiring plans. According to Investment Dealers' Digest, the New York-based company plans to hire 100 people for its fixed-income business alone this year. Already, the firm's hired 20 specialists for a developing high-yield bond business, and is bringing on as many as 25 investment bankers, along with sales and trading professionals. "The talent pool out there is very deep right now and the opportunity to grow... Read more