eFinancialCareersInvestment Banks

Goldman Sachs bankers love a good slogan. Although CFO Marty Chavez says they’re no good at naming things (hence “SecDB”), they’re pretty good at devising and disseminating nifty three word phrases that stick. Past examples include: “long term greedy” (Gustave Levy, 1970s) and “doing God’s work” (Lloyd Blankfein, 2009). Now we have, “Just add butter!”

The new phrase is only three months old, but Bloomberg says Goldman bankers have already assimilated it and emblazoned it across caps now scattered about the trading floors. Coined by Pablo Salame, one of Goldman’s three co-heads of securities trading, the phrase refers to the experience of a hypothetical diner in a hypothetical restaurant who requests that butter is added to his steak. Penny-pinching chefs don’t oblige and the diner is miffed. By implication, he leaves and never comes back. Applied to the trading business, the butter story suggests that Goldman needs to stop prioritizing costs and to make an effort where it matters. After (another) dire quarter to start this year, Salame reportedly told his staff he was tired of losing: “Just add butter!”, he implored them.

Salame’s catechism and the April town hall meeting that gave birth to it say more about Goldman than just that it’s partial to slogans though. We now know that Goldman is rattled by its recent history of poor quarters in fixed income trading (Bloomberg says the town hall was held in an unusual roundtable style to discuss Goldman’s issues). We know too that Salame is inclined to blame senior staff, whom he reportedly accused of spending too much time in offices rather than out on the trading floor. And we know that Goldman’s traders and salespeople are still seen as too myopically focused on their own P&L rather than the clients’ relationships with the firm as a whole.

The meeting also raised an interesting question about the future leadership of Goldman’s Securities business. Why was Salame rallying the troops in April? Why not co-heads Isabel Ealet or Ashok Varadhan? Is it because Salame’s credit business (which is now orienting towards corporate clients) is the problem here? Or is it because Ealet is in the doghouse after a poor start in commodities? Or that Varadhan is too new in the role? Or is Salame, a “cerebral Ecuadorian”, actually the real power in the securities co-head structure?

Either way, Salame needs to hope his new slogan works. After persistent low volatility, Goldman’s second quarter stands to be easily as bad as its first.

Separately, imagine if clients refused to pay for the services of junior bankers. It may sound unlikely, but it’s becoming a thing in the Australian legal world, where the Australian Financial Review reports that some clients won’t pay for work done by juniors and trainees. If this came to banking, it might help quash the juniorization trend at the bottom of the hierarchy. However, it would also surely be a bad thing for junior bankers’ pay and encourage offshoring and nearshoring to cheap locations. If clients won’t pay for juniors sitting in London and New York, how about experienced staff sitting in Mumbai?

Meanwhile:

Unknown cryptocurrency trader, ‘0x00A651D43B6e209F5Ada45A35F92EFC0De3A5184,’ turned $55 million of paper wealth into $283 million. (Bloomberg)

UBS might move banking jobs in London to Frankfurt, Madrid or Amsterdam. (NY Times)

Talks on EU transaction tax delayed until the end of 2017. “The German government is split on this issue but it will have to face voters in September. In the case of Macron, he has to watch his reputation. He was an investment banker.” (BNA)

London finance recruiter in trouble over tax avoidance scheme. (Guardian)

Evacuation at BofA Canary Wharf yesterday. (The Wharf)

“Working at McDonald’s taught me how to communicate with anyone and that I thrive when I’m part of a team. I also learnt humility – sometimes you just have to muck in and do what needs to be done.” (Australian Financial Review)

High IQ people might be genetically blessed with an exceptional physiology — and this “optimal bodily functioning” leads to both a high IQ and resistance to disease. The link between high IQ and longer lifespan, seen in both men and women, persists even when factors such as higher incomes and lifestyle (eg. smoking) are accounted for. (Financial Times)

Follow @MadameButcher
Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

“”

Photo credit: Melting butter by Taryn is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

There’s something in the water. Increasing numbers of senior bankers and traders are stepping out on their own, starting advisory boutiques, hedge funds or private equity firms. The latest example is Kevin Flaherty, the former head of structured product syndicate for Europe, Asia and Australia at Deutsche Bank, who has just launched his own hedge fund.

Flaherty, who has spent the last three years working at London-based hedge fund Scio Capital, has just launched a new fund called Neptune Capital, according to new filings on Companies House. So far, just Flaherty and Sebastian Stoecker, a former director in fixed income credit solutions at Credit Suisse who most recently worked for Scio Capital in investor relations and business development, focused on structured credit are the only employees. Neptune Capital is going against the recent trend of large UK hedge funds moving out of London’s Mayfair, and has set up its offices on Saville Row. It’s yet to receive authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority.

Flaherty spent 12 years at Deutsche Bank, having joined in 2001 from Barclays where he worked in asset backed securities (ABS) trading and research. He left the bank in 2012 to join Miami-based investment firm Trimast Capital, but returned to London in 2014 to join Scio Capital.

Neptune Capital is the latest new launch from former senior employees of bulge bracket investment banks who have decided to go it alone. David Perez, a former Goldman Sachs managing director who moved to expansionary hedge fund MKP Capital Management, recently launched an alternative lending platform called YAD Capital. Maxime Kahn, the former star SocGen trader who unwound €70bn worth of Jerome Kerviel’s trades in 2008, left the bank in November and unveiled his new hedge fund One Eleven Capital last week.

Senior bankers are also crowding into the boutique space and launching their own advisory firms. Nick Hassall, who was head of consumer investment banking at UBS, has started Sequor Partners Limited, while James Simpson, the former co-head of advisory for EMEA at HSBC, teamed up with Matteo Canonaco, the former head of financial sponsors, sovereign wealth funds and IPC coverage at the bank, to launch a private equity boutique called DuCanon Capital Partners

Follow @paultclarke

Contact: pclarke@efinancialcareers.com

Image: Getty Images
““

It’s easier to get a job with a Big Four accounting firm than an investment bank: the Big Four employ more people and therefore hire more. They also attract fewer applicants per job.

With ease of access, however, comes a diminution of pay. While you can earn six figures within three years working as an analyst in the investment banking division (M&A or capital markets) of a leading investment bank, you’ll get a lot less in a leading Big Four accounting firm (Deloitte, KPMG, EY, PWC).

The charts below, based on median figures from real time pay benchmarking site, Emolument.com, show how much less. Reflecting the highest paying jobs at the Big Four when you have between 0 and two and three and five years’ experience, they suggest that – at the very most, after five years at a Big Four firm – you can expect nearly £60k (as a tax accountant).

The comparative paucity of pay at the Big Four isn’t the only notable thing though. As the charts show, pay at the Big Four is almost all salary – bonuses are tiny, even in corporate finance.

It’s also notable that just because you start on a job with comparatively high pay at the Big Four, it doesn’t mean you’ll still be earning the most later on. Financial advisory jobs (eg. jobs which provide accounting advisory services relating to M&A transactions, restructurings, raising capital, and forensic investigations) start out paying well, but end up paying a lot less than jobs for tax accountants (which are poorly paid initially).

It’s also notable that the accounting and audit jobs which are the bread and butter of activities at the Big Four are the worst paid. External auditors who provide an independently verified examination of publicly listed companies’ accounts earn a combined salary and bonus of £46k after five years. Financial accountants, who prepare organisations’ financial statements for public consumption, are paid even less.

Instead, the highest paid Big Four jobs are in the tax and consulting categories. Even here there are big differences. For example, Emolument’s figures suggest that ‘Corporate tax’ (advising corporates on tax exposure) pays a lot less than actual tax accounting (preparing financial statements to minimize the tax burden).

Follow @MadameButcher
Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

“”

Photo credit: abacus by Federica Testani is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Banking jobs may not be moving out of London yet, but all the indications are that they will do soon. Jamie Dimon said today that J.P. Morgan could be forced to, “move several hundred jobs,” out of London on the day after Brexit happens. Sergio Ermotti said yesterday that UBS is thinking of moving banking jobs from London to Frankfurt, Madrid or Amsterdam after the break transpires: “As we speak, we are narrowing down really the options,” he added.

What if you’re asked to relocate? Must you go? Jane Mann, head of employment law at Fox Williams in London, says it depends partly upon your contract. “If your contract has a relocation clause which says the bank reserves the right to relocate you to any country in the EU, refusing to go would be a breach of contract,” she says. Conversely, if you don’t have a relocation clause in your contract and the bank moves your role overseas, your role in London might be made redundant.

Basically, you likely have little choice either way.

Assuming, then, that you have to leave London, you need to think hard about what you’re getting into. If you can clarify the issues and the costs upfront, you’ll be better placed to negotiate a transfer package that covers them.

For example, the new iteration of your job in Frankfurt may seem to pay well, but is this really the case? Social security costs in Germany are notoriously high. Before you agree to a move, Mann says you could try negotiating a, “contractual tax equalisation promise,” which means you’ll have the same net pay in your new location as in the old.

Secondly, will the bank help move your family? International schools in Frankfurt are hard to get into. Stefan Mueller at consulting firm DGWA Financial Engineering, says London banks have already been approaching top institutions like the European School RheinMain in Frankfurt and asking for 50 places for employees’ children. Schools in Paris are also being inundated with inquiries. Maybe you’ll need to leave your family in London? Mann suggests attempting to negotiate a relocation package that covers the cost of moving.

Most importantly though, what happens if you obediently move to Frankfurt or Paris and are laid off three years later? After all, Frankfurt has been proposing to weaken its labour protection policies for anyone earning €100k+, and Paris wants to make it easier for banks to dump people without paying bonuses. Before you sign a contract for a new role in Europe, lawyers advises that you check what kind of protection is on offer if you’re dismissed. “You should look at what happens to your bonus and pension if you’re dismissed,” says Mann. “Some expat contracts will entitle you to reimbursement of relocation expenses.” She adds. “Banks will be thinking about all of this and as an employee the really important thing is to get it all written down before you go. There are a lot of disputes over fuzzy expat contracts.”

Crucially, if you’re not a British citizen and you’re obliged to leave London and work in Paris or Dublin or Frankfurt, will you ever be able to come back to London again? And what about your family?

Needless to say, nothing is clear right now. However, based on the current rules Jonathan Goldsworthy, an associate on the immigration team at solicitors Bird & Bird, says the implications of leaving London (when you actually want to stay and to come back one day) vary according to whether you’re an EU national or not.

If you’re French or German or Irish and you’ve been ‘exercising your treaty rights’ in the UK for five years, Goldsworthy says you can currently qualify for permanent residency. After another year, you may be eligible to apply for citizenship. Goldsworthy says the most recent proposals suggest that the key principles of this regime will be continued post-Brexit. EU nationals would need to re-apply for “settled status”, but this will also be granted after five years. By leaving the UK for Frankfurt after just two years, you might therefore jeopardize your ability to become, “settled.” What if you leave your family behind and work in the EU while they settle? This will depend upon whether they would qualify in their own right under the new rules (e.g. They may need their own income if you’re earning overseas). “You would need to consider the case carefully and further clarity from the Home Office is required,” Goldsworthy admits.

If you’re an American living in London and you leave with your family to work in Frankfurt, the implications may be even more dire. While you can currently get indefinite leave to remain after five years, this lapses if you subsequently spend more than two years continuously overseas. In this case, returning to the UK would mean you’d lost your indefinite leave to remain. “You’d need to requalify again under the rules in place at that time,” suggests Goldsworthy.

Follow @MadameButcher
Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

“”

Photo credit: Going somewhere by -JosephB- is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Jes Staley, the American-born CEO of Barclays Bank has been to Yorkshire in the north of England. Twitter is alive with photos of Staley, pint in hand, standing in front of some pork pies as he fraternizes with the bank’s commercial clients. Staley’s eldest daughter, however, will not be found doing such things. Although her father has made a success of banking, Alex Staley has opted for something far more interesting instead.

Alexa, who has a PhD in physics from Columbia University, is currently between jobs. She left her most recent role in April. It involved testing software used to fly drones. – Staley worked for Airware, a San Francisco company that offers “drone solutions” to companies in the insurance, mining and construction companies for sixteen months. Before that, she spent 25 months at LIGO Hanford Observatory working on a gravitational wave detector and made (according to her LI profile), “The first direct detection of a gravitational wave from a binary black hole merger.” It’s M&A, but not as you know it.

This isn’t to say that Staley didn’t try finance first. While still at Bowdoin College studying physics in 2008, she interned for six months at two hedge funds: Spinnaker Capital and Tudor Investment Corporation. It seems that neither made much of an impression: Alexa Staley’s trading career ended there.

Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman’s daughter, Caroline wants to be a singer, but not all senior bankers’ progeny are averse to following their in fathers’ footsteps. As we reported last November, Lloyd Blankfein’s eldest son Alex is an associate at private equity fund Carlyle Group. We can also reveal that his younger son, Jonathan, has joined New York credit fund, Taconic Capital Advisors. Taconic co-founder Frank Brosens was a partner at Goldman Sachs until 1994.

Follow @MadameButcher
Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

“”

Photo credit: P1140969 by Peter Linehan is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

It takes experience to master the nuances of following up with recruiters, HR executives and hiring managers at various stages of the job-search process, from the time that you send in your cover letter and resume and make it through a phone screening to the final in-person interview. This is what you need to do after applying for a job or completing a job interview to stay on recruiters’, HR executives’ and hiring managers’ radar screen without coming off as desperate.

Following up after submitting a cover letter and resume

Tina Nicolai, career coach and the founder and CEO of Resume Writers’ Ink recommends following up with a quick email or social-media message to make the headhunter or recruiter aware that you uploaded a cover letter and resume to a job posting, she said.

“Responding promptly and following up are the two keys to having a savvy relationship-building strategy,” Nicolai said.

If it’s an entry-level job you’re going for, it’s probably not worth following up on an initial application, simply because the volume of applications most financial services firms get is so high. If it is an off-cycle drop, then it’s best to get someone else to follow up for you, said Janet Raiffa, investment banking career coach, the former head of campus recruiting at Goldman Sachs and the former associate director of the Career Management Center at Columbia Business School.

“The person receiving resumes will probably get a lot and not be excited about going through a stack,” Raiffa said. “If someone within the organization knocks on that person’s door or sends an email endorsing the candidate, then that will get a lot more attention.”

If you are uploading your resume to an applicant tracking system (ATS) and you do not receive an automated confirmation that your resume has been received, you might call in 24-48 hours to ensure that the document has been received, said Amy Adler, executive resume writer, career coach and the founder of Five Strengths Career Transition Experts.

“Once you’re sure that your resume is in play, whether by ATS or by a personal connection, you can follow up with HR or your [recruiter] contact after a week,” she said.

Following up after an interview

Always discuss appropriate next steps before leaving the first interview. You’re setting an expectation of when to follow up, and you want to have a verbal agreement from the person conducting the interview to continue the process, Nicolai said.

It’s OK to either ask or state: “I’d like to follow-up after our meeting today; what date would be convenient for me to check in?” or “I’d like to continue our talk surrounding this opportunity; when are you available for a follow-up call?”

You should get some clarification from the hiring manager on when you might hear from them.

“If you don’t hear from the person within the time frame he or she specified, then feel free to call your contact,” Adler said. “In no case should you bombard them with multiple calls, as this might be perceived as intrusive.”

The same goes for email. Bombardment is not a good strategy.

“You’ll receive an answer, and if you do not hear from the interviewer within the communication timeframe, call the next day or send an email expressing your interest and inquiring about the next steps,” Nicolai said. “Hiring leaders, recruiters and headhunters tend to like the ownership to be in the hands of the candidate as it shows initiative.”

Timing is key

Some candidates’ follow-up can be too frequent or too fast.

“I’ve heard of emails received five minutes after an interview, and even thank-you notes being sent in advance,” Raiffa said.

“If an interviewer has a full schedule, then you can wait until the end of the interview schedule for the first-round follow-up or a few hours [after your interview wraps up],” she said. “For a second-round interview, [send a thank-you note] within 24 hours.”

Adler agrees that you should follow up via email or, for an extra-special touch, a hand-written note within 24 hours after your interview with each person you met.

Your letters should be personal and individualized to each recipient; after all, your conversations with each of those people were likely to be different, and you want to try to build a relationship with each to the extent possible.

“In this letter, sometimes referred to as a job proposal letter, refer to and reflect on the needs of your interviewer, elaborating on the reasons you are the optimal choice for the role,” Adler said. “In fact, once you’ve done this, don’t hesitate to demonstrate enthusiasm for the position and ask for the offer.

“If you are invited to multiple rounds of interviews, then be sure to continue to write thank-you notes, even if your collective plan is to meet again for the next round of discussions,” she said.

Help them to remember you

The person who interviewed you likely interviewed many other people that week and probably that same day, so when you’re following up, be sure to mention anything noteworthy you talked about, something you have in common or a distinguishing factor related to your background or experience that came up in the interview. Depending on how many people they interview for a particular role and how good their memory is, candidates may all start to blur together even a day later, so do what you can to job your memory and make yourself stand out from the pack.

In certain situations, it is appropriate to share a link to a relevant article, especially if a related topic came up in conversation during the interview.

Be concise

While you want to do what you can to leave a positive impression, you’ll have to do so with a very limited word count. Recruiters and hiring managers are busy people, and they are unlikely to read any follow-up note longer than a paragraph or two. Be cordial, get to the point, which is giving a brief summary of why you’re the right fit for the position, say thank you and sign off politely. The same goes for leaving a voicemail message.

Don’t burn bridges

If you hear back that you didn’t get the job, don’t ignore the message or vent your frustration at the injustice of it all. Politely thank them for their consideration in getting back to you and the opportunity to meet them and ask them to keep you in mind for future openings that may be a better fit for your skillset and experience. You never know what might open up down the road or when your paths might cross again.
Follow @danbutchrwrites

Photo credit: GettyImages
““

Swipe left, swipe right – this is how markets move. The Brexit boost is a distant memory and optimism around Trump is evaporating – particularly after the latest email release by Trump Jr. Markets are eerily quiet, and traders are bored.

When markets staff of major investment banks are sitting around on Tinder, or finishing early to play retro video games, as Bloomberg’s interview with over 20 traders suggests, next week’s quarterly earnings season could be brutal.

The brief respite to investment banks’ ‘rightsized’ fixed income departments has likely come to an end in Q2. Revenues are likely to have dropped by 16% across five major U.S. banks, according to analyst estimates, with Goldman Sachs likely to see another bleak quarter with a 23% decline and J.P. Morgan could be down 17%.

It’s not all bad. Senior traders are being encouraged to take vacation, managers are organising team outings, sales teams are being hired to take advantage of rivals’ downsizing. But, trading teams are waiting for a major event – a shift in monetary policy, another surprise – to spur markets into action.

“As a salesman or trader, it does get to the stage where you go, ‘Christ, what am I going to do for the rest of the day?’” said Chris Wheeler, a bank analyst at Atlantic Equities told Bloomberg. “I don’t think anyone is going to be that keen to be on the desk when it’s so quiet. The danger is people get quite bored.”

Fear not, “something always blows up over the summer”.

Separately, senior bankers are starting to cluster around one hot technology focused venture capital fund. SoftBank’s humungous $93bn Vision Fund has just hired Michael Ronen, a partner and co-chief operating officer of Goldman’s global technology, media and telecom group, according to Sky News. Ronen, a former intelligence analyst in the Israeli Airforce who joined Goldman in 1998, has joined SoftBank as a partner.

He’s also the one of many senior bankers to turn up to SoftBank’s VC fund in the past month. Colin Fan, the ex-head of Deutsche’s corporate banking and securities arm, joined in June, following on from Rajeev Misra, the bank’s former head of global credit trading, as well as Goldman MD Saleh Romeih and Morgan Stanley banker Alok Sama.

Meanwhile:

Don’t focus on the initial Brexit job moves – they’re just the beginning, says Jamie Dimon (Financial News)

Paris isn’t down – French PM said it should be the Brexit location of choice (Financial News)

Moving clearing out of London will benefit the U.S. and Asia rather than the EU, says HSBC’s Stuart Gulliver (Financial News)

Bankers are buying tiny apartments in Frankfurt in order to commute from London at the weekend (Evening Standard)

SocGen could relocate 400 jobs from London to France (Reuters)

Meet your new hedge fund intern – a UK MP (Financial News)

Sumitomo Mitsui, which made a recent major hire in London, is taking on 250 staff internationally (Bloomberg)

The risk of Donald Trump being impeached is up significantly after Trump Jr’s email release, says Citi (Financial Times)

Rhodri Philipps, Viscount St Davids, has been convicted of sending menacing messages to anti-Brexit activist Gina Miller (Financial Times)

The best places to drink in NY’s finance district (Business Insider)

The Google engineer and “high couture” (NY Times)

Follow @paultclarke

Contact: pclarke@efinancialcareers.com

Image: Getty Images

““

Most investment banks in London are still fretting over when to trigger Brexit job relocations or how many roles to move, but they’re facing another problem – the UK’s decision to exit the EU has caused its main engine of junior talent to splutter.

Brexit has dented investment banks’ appeal among students in the UK, with applications slipping by 15.8% year on year for their 2017 graduate programmes, according to new research from High Fliers, which surveyed over 20,000 final year students at the UK’s top universities. Just 9.6% of graduates applied for roles in investment banking – the lowest proportion since 2009 when banks halted graduate recruitment in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

One of the biggest slumps has been from students at the London School of Economics, according to Martin Birchill, managing director of High Fliers. In 2012, 41% of LSE graduates applied to investment banking. This year, the number one choice is consulting – 41% have applied to this sector – while 29% are attempting to break into banking.

LSE’s dominates analyst classes in the City. Our own analysis of new front office analysts at top London investment banks shows that it accounted for 20% of the class of 2016 at Goldman Sachs, 22% at Credit Suisse and 18% at Deutsche Bank. It was the number one university at every bank we analysed.

“In the weeks and months after last summer’s Brexit vote several of the City’s best-known investment banks stated very publicly that many of their London-based jobs could move elsewhere in Europe when the UK leaves the EU,” say Birchill. “This fuelled real concern and uncertainty amongst final year students looking for their first graduate job after university.”

Few banks have formally announced plans to move jobs out of London since the Brexit vote, despite suggestions that 9,000 roles are likely to relocate. Goldman Sachs said that at least 200 jobs could go to Frankfurt, while HSBC’s chief executive Stuart Gulliver reiterated the bank’s intention to move 1,000 UK jobs to Paris yesterday and Societe Generale said it was considering moving 400 London roles back to France.

However, investment banks have cut their graduate vacancies this year, by 3.2% on 2016 or around 67 roles, suggests High Fliers, while Big Four firms have expanded their programmes. Top students therefore “have better options in consulting”, says Birchill.

Whether investment banks feel the immediate impact of this is debatable. Their graduate programmes are already vastly over-subscribed, with only 2-4% of applicants making it into a full-time role. J.P. Morgan told us that there’s been a 50% uptick in applications for its investment banking graduate programme over the past two years globally, while Goldman Sachs had 130,000 applications for 5,000 internships.

Most students going for a job in London expected a starting salary of £32,000, says High Fliers. Investment banks have a massive edge here – starting salaries are £50k in London, with a bonus this year of £28k, according to recruiters Dartmouth Partners.

“Investment banking is still incredibly competitive,” says Logan Naidu, CEO of Dartmouth Partners. “You can earn £100k after three years and that’s difficult to compete with. Most banks’ main issue is retention – the attrition rate to hedge funds and private equity is a lot higher than in previous years.”

One student who interned with Goldman Sachs tells us that there’s still “overwhelming demand” among university students to get into banking, but that there’s also a greater concentration of people going for “high paying roles in technology, where the working environment is better.”

So, what is the motivation to get into banking? “I think most people would be lying if they didn’t say that the pay associated with roles in banking was an influential factor,” says the student. “And a lot of people aspire to start a company in the future and having the contacts, experience and capital to do so is something that banking offers in abundance.”

Follow @paultclarke

Contact: pclarke@efinancialcareers.com

Image: Getty Images

““

Which are the best banks to work for in the world’s major financial cities? It’s a question that might be answered using the strength of a bank’s business in each location, or the amount it pays its people there. Glassdoor has, however, contrived a different approach: it asks verified employees to rate their experience of working for the bank on a scale of one to five.

The results aren’t infallible (Glassdoor can attract employees with grievances to air), but they provide comparable metrics for life at each big bank in each big city. Unfortunately they date back to the ‘beginning of time’ – if Barclays received a lot of one star reviews in New York City after it absorbed Lehman Brothers in 2008, they will still go into the mix today. Similarly, if J.P. Morgan was a great bank to work for in 2012, that will still feed into today’s metric.

Nonetheless, the figures are influenced by contemporary ratings and there’s some consistency between cities: J.P. Morgan often comes out on top (New York clearly excepted); Barclays often comes out bottom (Singapore clearly excepted). Cit is almost always safely in the middle. On the whole, Singaporeans are the least discerning and give the highest ratings. New Yorkers are the most and give the lowest.

Is J.P. Morgan the best bank to work for in London?

In London, J.P. Morgan comes top among the big banks on Glassdoor’s listings. Barclays and then Deutsche Bank come bottom – although Barclays may be absolved by the fact that its figures are for the bank as a whole rather than just the investment bank and may therefore be influenced by disgruntled call centre staff in Derby.

What makes J.P. Morgan so great? Seemingly representative comments left by a former VP in technology last month suggest it’s fair but demanding, and less hierarchical than other banks. An FX and rates professional says staff are “friendly” and there’s plenty of opportunity for movement across the firm. It’s accredited with being “dynamic,” “supportive” and offering interesting work.

By comparison, at the bottom end of the scale, Barclays employees complain of “massive bureaucracy,” and outdated technology. Despite heavy investment in new staff this year, one former employee of Barclays’ investment bank complained this month that it’s “very much a second tier bank” now. A senior London director complained in June that Barclays is far too political and hierarchical and that “a few rotten apples in senior leadership ruining the culture for the whole firm.”

Deutsche Bank’s London reviews are also informative. The German bank’s most recent employee satisfaction survey suggested things are looking up and that over half its employees are now happy to work there. However, there are some signs of recent grumbling on Glassdoor. A compliance analyst says “morale is low” due to the “difficult times.” A VP in control says it’s bureaucratic and “decision making is painfully slow,” and a technology VP complains of too much cost cutting. Predictably, there’s also some griping about last year’s bonus round.

Is Goldman Sachs the best bank to work for in New York City?

While Goldman Sachs doesn’t come out top in London (far from it), it’s victorious in NYC. There, Goldman’s staff rate it for “top notch talent across all levels,” a “collaborative environment”, “super smart people” and, “management dedication to career development.” It’s also lauded for “exit opportunities” and “challenging work,” but there are some significant gripes about working hours. “Work work work… there is really no quality of life. Your time spent in the office is far more than the time spent at home. More than severe than imagined,” complained one VP in May.

While Goldman is top in NYC, Barclays and Deutsche (again) come bottom of the pile. At Barclays, there are complaints of “office politics,” “petty fiefdoms” and low pay. There are complains of too many CEOs in too short a space of time (three in five years). And there are claims that Barclays needs to be invest more heavily in technology (in fact, this is already happening). At Deutsche Bank, the complaints in NYC are of last year’s miserable compensation round, “dysfunctional and broken processes,” dated technology, poor morale, too much cost cutting and few opportunities for progress.

Is J.P. Morgan the best bank to work for in Singapore?

J.P. Morgan is back on top in Asia. The U.S. bank’s employees in Singapore gush heavily about its generous allocation of annual leave (21 days!). There’s also a lot of enthusiasm for the vibe, which is alternately described as “excellent,” “collaborative,” and “comfortable.” It’s seemingly easy to get promoted and you won’t be worked to death.

By comparison, the Swiss banks – UBS and Credit Suisse – both of which have a significant private banking presence in Singapore, vie for the least popular slot among the island’s generally appreciative employees. At Credit Suisse, an operations analyst complains that all the decisions are made in Europe, that pay rarely increases and that you can “lose your job anytime due to cost cutting.” At UBS, a programme manager observes the existence of a “big Swiss fetish for control,” which sounds interesting if nothing else.

Is Goldman Sachs the best bank to work for in Hong Kong?

In Hong Kong, the global reality reasserts itself and Barclays is back on the bottom. Following cuts to the bank’s Asian equities business in 2016, there are complaints of instability, tactical shrinkage and “terrible management of employees” throughout the restructuring process.

Goldman Sachs, on the other hand, is popular with Hong Kong staff (in fact, GS’s Hong Kong office ranks as the most popular place to work for any bank in any major financial city). One technologist there says the work is “satisfying” and well paid. A Hong Kong associate suggests Goldman’s leaders make “wise strategic decisions.” The people at GS HK are deemed to be smart, the culture is deemed to be open and the hierarchy is deemed to be flat. Even so, there are the perpetual gripes about working hours (someone complains of 3am calls, someone else complains of working 24/7 and spending no time with the family and having no time to “enjoy life” in Hong Kong.”) Allegedly, Goldman’s HK office is understaffed and it’s very hard to take holiday when you want. – Even if you work for the happiest banking office in the whole world, there are going to be a few issues.

Follow @MadameButcher
Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

“”

Photo credit: Formula One World Championship by alessio mazzocco is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

New York City weather is currently hot and muggy. Financial services professionals are dealing with a “summer of hell” commuting into Manhattan, with the MTA scrambling to repair Penn Station after a series of train derailments, leading to ripple effects slowing down the entire transportation system. Many believe that it’s the best city in the world, but it’s also one of the more expensive places to live.

You may have considered moving to a more affordable, less intense city elsewhere in the U.S. – or your employer may have informed you that your job is moving to a lower-cost city whether you decide to move or not. That is a growing trend as more banks move back-office and middle-office roles away from Wall Street and grow satellite offices in other parts of the U.S., including some with front-office roles.

The fact is that financial services organisations are moving jobs to lower-cost destinations regardless of whether their personnel want to move – largely because they want to cut costs. For employees, this means taking a lower salary in a cheaper location. Alan Johnson, the founder of compensation consulting firm Johnson Associates, says that pay is typically 15-20% down in locations where banks are moving jobs. But this isn’t necessarily all bad.

“Companies used to apologize to employees but they don’t do that anymore – they say, ‘The sticker number of your comp will be less, but factoring in the cost of living, you actually may come out ahead,” he says.

Right now, employees leaving NYC are looking for a slower pace of life, plus the opportunity to stay in banking without the frantic Big Apple lifestyle, says Jeanne Branthover, a managing partner at recruitment firm DHR International.

“I am finding that quality of life has become a major factor for candidates at all levels – those that are going to have children, those that have children and those that are looking for their last job with an eye towards finding a place to retire,” she says.

So, what are your options?

1. Dallas/Irving, Texas

Banks with a presence in the Dallas/Fort Worth/Arlington metro area, of which Irving is a part, include Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi, Wells Fargo, UBS, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas and Jefferies. Morgan Stanley is there too, although it has bigger corporate offices in Houston and Austin.

Goldman Sachs’s Dallas and Irving offices have a combined headcount of more than 1,000 employees, making it the firm’s seventh-largest location globally and third-largest office located in the U.S., behind New York/New Jersey and Salt Lake City.

But while Salt Lake City primarily houses support functions, 13 of Goldman’s 16 divisions – including investment banking and securities – are represented in Dallas/Irving. Other divisions housed there include real estate/realty management, lending, wealth management, equity sales and risk management.

There is also a host of local and regional investment banks based there, including boutiques specializing in the energy/power sector.

2. Salt Lake City, Utah

The second-largest Goldman office in the U.S. is in Salt Lake City, with over 2,000 employees, although it mainly houses back-office and middle-office roles.

Other banks with a presence there include Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, UBS, Wells Fargo, KeyBank, Silicon Valley Bank and local firm Zions Bank.

By some accounts, it is a great place to start your career, especially if you enjoy skiing, snowboarding or mountain biking.

3. Jacksonville, Florida

Deutsche Bank, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi, J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo and Macquarie have all moved operations to Jacksonville. It makes sense: Corporate office space is much cheaper there.

Deutsche Bank’s office in Jacksonville has been expanding rapidly since it launched in 2008, housing most of its major divisions and approaching 2,000 employees.

“Jacksonville has a much lower cost of living and the climate is good, plus there are lower costs for the companies and a high quality of life for families,” Branthover says. “Florida has no state income tax, which has become a serious positive with candidates having so many more choices of being successful in their career outside of NYC.

“In the lower-cost-of-living cities, companies can pay employees less, which saves them their largest cost…people,” she says. “A positive for companies is the tax incentives to lure talent out of New York and into these other cities as well.

“For companies, it improves their profitability with lower costs for personnel, as well as real estate.”

4, Other high-cost cities like San Francisco, Boston or Chicago

Maybe you’re being transferred to another city against your will, or you don’t really care about a high cost of living and want to leave New York for other reasons. There are plenty of financial services job opportunities in other high-cost cities such as San Francisco, Boston and Chicago.

“Chicago has fintech companies, divisions of most large banks and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange,” Branthover says. “Boston is an asset management center, with money managers like Fidelity Investments and Putnam Investments.

“San Francisco is as high cost as New York, but it is the finance capital of the western U.S. – most financial services firms have either major divisions or headquarters there,” she says. “Venture capital, privite equity, technology investment banking and fintech have a large presence there, and the climate is also a draw.

“Many financial services firms are now [in one or all of those three cities] so you can move and stay there to move up the ladder within the industry.”
Follow @danbutchrwrites

Photo credit: andresr/GettyImages
““

Electronic traders are quite the thing right now. As we were first to report last week, Barclays has got a new senior electronic trader from KCG. And as we were first to report in the weeks before that, all sorts of other banks have been bolstering their electronic trading desks too (think J.P. Morgan and Citi, think Goldman Sachs, BAML and Unicredit.) Now we can reveal that BAML has achieved itself another top electronic sales trader from Goldman Sachs,

The latest arrival is Malcolm Pratt, a director-level sales trader who’s been around. Pratt’s most recent 27-month stint was at Goldman Sachs in London. Before that, he spent nearly five years at Deutsche Bank and nearly four years at Credit Suisse.

If you’re an equities trader who’s wondering how to survive the market gyrations as MiFID II is introduced, you might also want to take a look Pratt’s history of career reinvention. McKinsey & Co., says 40% of equities sales and trading professionals have lost their jobs since 2011. Platt clearly didn’t, thanks to a cunning career change when he moved to Credit Suisse. At Deutsche, he was head of equity prop trading for Europe, but when Platt moved to Credit Suisse in 2011 it was as an algorithmic sales trader with a focus on best execution. Since then, this appears to have become his niche.

The upshot is that Platt looks highly desirable in the new world where algorithmic trading and best execution are all-important. If you want to switch between top banks and get poached in the third quarter, you might want to try positioning yourself like this too.

Follow @MadameButcher
Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

““

It’s been a while since Jan Sramek worked at Goldman Sachs. Six years ago, the then 24-year-old trading prodigy, exam genius and youngest ever ‘rising star’ left Goldman Sachs, and quit banking altogether to go it alone.

More recently, however, Sramek is between projects. After five years as co-founder and CEO of two start-ups in San Francisco, Sramek briefly joined established tech firm, Stripe, to work on “special projects” as an external consultant. Stripe is an internet payments firm headquartered in San Francisco, which was established in 2010 and has 714 employees. Sramek joined in April, according to his public profile, but has since departed.

For Sramek, it’s a move away from being his own boss for the first time since leaving Goldman Sachs, and maybe a foray into the world of fintech. He initially founder Better AG, an adaptive learning company that counts hedge funds among its clients and was sold to GRC Solutions in 2014. From September 2015 until August last year, he ran Memo Inc – an online tool to share clippings and ideas, or as Silicon Valley investor Marc Andreessen put it “a software incarnation ‘when ideas have sex’ theory of human progress’”.

During his brief time in banking, Sramek attained long-term notoriety. Financial News named him among its ‘rising stars’ under 40 when he was just 22 and six months into his job at Goldman Sachs.

He has 10 As at A-level, and quit Cambridge University for the London School of Economics because it wasn’t sufficiently challenging. When he was studying at the LSE he still had time to start up three businesses including AlphaParties, hosting events for ‘young professionals’ at top locations in London. He also started now defunct careers site Nicube.

What makes Sramek’s achievements all the more impressive is that he only arrived in the UK when he was 17 to attend York-based private school Bootham School. He came from a village of 1,000 people in the former Czechoslovakia in 2004 to take his A-levels when he was not yet fluent in English, and ended up with top grades and a £100k scholarship to Cambridge.

Not that Sramek has been a wallflower about his success. In 2009, when he was starting out at Goldman, he co-authored a book called Racing Towards Excellence, where he offered tips for academic excellence and financial success. In the book, Sramek advises that success in life comes from investing in ‘four accounts’: emotional health, material wealth, mental health, and physical health.

“Consider the lawyers and bankers who traded their health (or what we would call physical account) for material gains,” wrote Sramek and his co-author. “We have yet to meet a single person who having suffered through a heart attack or other debilitating illness would not have chosen a different strategy.”

Follow @paultclarke

Contact: pclarke@efinancialcareers.com

Image: Getty Images

““

Investment banks give you a little bit of time to bed into your internship, but by the second week it’s clear what you’re in for. I haven’t left the office before 2am.

Last week, I was out enjoying the (rare) London sunshine every day around 5.30pm, and the time I did spend in the office beyond this point was spent schmoozing with senior bankers and getting to know my fellow interns. Now, it’s time to get down to business.

This is no surprise. Everyone knows that working in IBD is brutal and that the hours are unsociable, so if you’re going into an internship expecting to be home for dinner, then you’re in for a shock.

What is surprising is the unpredictability of it all. Most of my work has been, frankly, a bit basic – reading over industry research, checking the numbers on annual reports and warming up to the technology companies equity research.

This is until around about 6pm every night, at which point it’s like a new shift has started. Interns are trying to look busy during much of the morning, then by early evening – boom, it all kicks off.

There are conference calls with clients, new instructions, new modelling scenarios, Powerpoint presentations – all of which keeps analysts and interns in the office well into the small hours, conveniently enough.

But this isn’t a rite of passage. The MDs aren’t asking me to stay late by throwing a bunch of last minute work on my desk because it’s what they had to do when they were a junior. I’m on the tech team, which is incredibly busy. The only reason that I’m not questioning whether dropping work on our desks at 6pm is a big ruse is because the senior bankers are here as well. We’re doing the number-crunching, but the VPs and MDs don’t have an easier ride.

When you’re among all this stress, it’s a bit intimidating to be the junior guy who doesn’t know anything. I’m no Excel luddite and I wouldn’t have got on to the internship if I didn’t know a bit about investment banking. But I need help once in a while and stressed out analysts have actually been incredibly friendly and forgiving when I ask seemingly basic questions about Excel. The key is not to ask the same thing twice if you don’t want to be greeted by a sigh and instructions through gritted teeth.

The biggest downside? I’ve been in the office so much that I’m pretty sure my flatmates have forgotten I live with them. I cooked for them on Sunday on a rare morning out of the office, but I still went back into the bank for three hours to make sure I was set up for the following week. I’m still chilled out – we’ll see how long this lasts.

James Roberts, an pseudonym, is a summer intern on an M&A desk at a bulge bracket bank in London. He’ll be writing about his internship here every week.

““

Can you earn six figures working in a banks’ technology function? Yes, yes: you can. How soon can you earn £100k, and which jobs should you do? This depends.

If you choose to work as a developer in an investment bank, Joe Campbell, a London-based recruitment consultant at Oxford Knight, says it might be “six or seven years” before your pay hits six figures.”

Campbell says there are no hard and fast rules for the speed of pay progression in banking technology. However, a rival recruiter, speaking off the record, disagrees. This recruiter says technology development jobs in big banks typically command roughly equivalent pay increases as you rise up through the banking hierarchy. When you start as a tech analyst, you can expect around £43k ($55k) in salary plus a small sign-on bonus. This should rise to £80k ($103k) after around four to five years as you hit tech associate/assistant vice president. Thereafter, your salary will hopefully inflate to £120k (max) over the next three years as you make it to the senior tech vice president ranks. This could be supplemented by a bonus of (very maybe) £20k. – After which your career may well stall and you could be obliged to move into consulting. “It’s very tricky to get to the senior VP point in hands-on tech these days,” says one recruiter, speaking off the record. “There are just very few people in banks who are promoted and are still programming.”

Despite dire warnings about the consequences of moving away from the engineering coal face when you’re in banking technology, you might therefore want to branch out into more of a management role. The technology in finance salary surveys of recruiters Robert Walters and Morgan McKinley suggest that experienced people in project management, business analysis, enterprise architecture and information security all earn the most, as shown in the charts below.

Even so, the highest paying finance technology jobs are not necessarily to be found managing technologists in investment banks. Instead, recruiters say they’re at hedge funds and specialist consulting firms. The latter are incredibly fussy but can be incredibly remunerative. Hedge fund Two Sigma is rumoured to pay £80k as a starting salary (even though Glassdoor puts the average salary for a technologist at Two Sigma’s U.S. operation at $133k (£109k)). Meanwhile, Bromium, a Cambridge-based security consultancies is said to be pay its employees very well at the top end – even though Glassdoor puts most of its salaries in the UK below £70k a year.

Follow @MadameButcher
Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

“”

Photo credit: What is Art? by Steve Jurvetson is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Goldman Sachs did not have a good first quarter to this year. Nor did it have a good final quarter to last year. We know that this is ruffling feathers within Goldman Sachs because Pablo Salame, one of Goldman’s securities trading heads, held an extended town hall meeting with the bank’s staff, where he said he doesn’t like losing and came up with a new slogan about client service. Unfortunately, it looks very likely that Salame is going to have to adjust himself to losing whether his staff are, “adding butter,” or not.

Brennan Hawken, an analyst at UBS, notes that Goldman Sachs has almost certainly just had another rough three months. He suggests GS is struggling on two counts: firstly volatility remains low in the commodities division, which started the year badly and is now under review. Secondly, Goldman (together with Morgan Stanley) is particularly exposed to M&A, fees from which fell by 9.2% globally year-on-year in the second quarter.

While Goldman finds itself thwarted, J.P. Morgan is thriving. Hawken says rising rates should benefit big universal banks – in other words banks with the kinds of corporate clients Goldman now wants more of – especially if they have strong “macro footprints” in FX and rates. This would be J.P. Morgan, which together with Citigroup reports second quarter earnings this Friday.

As the two banks’ fortunes diverge, Goldman Sachs is under increasing pressure to cut costs. J.P. Morgan, on the other hand, offered some of the safest jobs on Wall Street at the end of the first quarter, and this looks set to continue throughout the year.

Separately, imagine being told that someone has been hired to replace you in December, but being kept on in your job for another seven months until he actually arrives. Such was the experience of Michael Paliotta, the former global head of equities trading at Credit Suisse.

Credit Suisse hired Michael Stewart from UBS to run global equities in December last year, but Reuters says Paliotta only just left. This might be because Stewart himself only just arrived after what looked like a very long notice period. Paliotta, who’d been at CS since 2000, was clearly ok with this – but it looks like a long time to be in a role where you’re effectively biding time until your replacement takes over.

Meanwhile:

An ex-Goldman banker became Twitter’s CFO. (Variety)

J.P. Morgan hired Tim Berry, a former chief of staff to majority leaders of the US House of Representatives as its new head of global government relations. (Reuters)

Nomura hired Ajay Abrol from Millennium Management as a senior portfolio manager for macro trading. (Bloomberg)

Marshall Wace just made £19m in three days shorting Carillon. (Bloomberg)

Deutsche wants to hire 20 wealth managers to target the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia. (Reuters)

Robert Walters says companies are bored of Brexit and hiring as normal. (Telegraph)

The timeframe for when banks wanted a transitional deal on Brexit has already passed. “Every single day I have people coming into my office asking me to press the button on contingency plans.” (Reuters)

“I can work Saturday. In that case I’ll take Monday off – not as a vacation day, but in exchange for working Saturday.” (Forbes)

You may hear tales of overnight successes from time to time, but you’re not getting the whole story. What you’re really seeing is somebody seizing an opportunity thanks to the years of hard work and preparation they’ve put in. (Lifehacker)

Follow @MadameButcher
Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

Turnover among the senior ranks of private equity firms is, compared to banking, rare. This year, however, big buy-side firms have been losing some key employees.

The latest exit is Ralf Ackermann, a partner and head of the European opportunistic fund at Apollo Management. He left the buyout firm yesterday, after more than ten years and is currently on gardening leave.

Ackermann left Goldman Sachs in 2007, where he was an associate in its bank loan distressed investing desk. He spent three years at the bank and joined from boutique investment bank Greenhill, where he was an analyst, in 2004.

Ackermann said he was “now looking forward to the next chapter” when he announced his departure on LinkedIn. He became a partner at Apollo in December 2013, and led a team of eight analysts.

Senior private equity professionals, tied in by lucrative promises of carried interest, rarely leave. However, this year the large buyout firms have lost a number of senior staff who went on to new ventures.

At KKR, Asís Echániz, who was a principal in the European infrastructure team, left in June. Philip Wack, a director focused on industrials and chemicals at the firm, left in May and has now started his own private equity venture called Moonlake Partners.

Other KKR employees have also ventured out on their own. Alexander Bruells, who headed up its EMEA financial services division, left in April to launch an investment manager aimed at millennials called Builders Union.

Follow @paultclarke

Contact: pclarke@efinancialcareers.com

Image: Getty Images

““

That didn’t last long. In June 2016, Martin Cross, a veteran gilt trader at J.P. Morgan, retired. Thirteen months later, he’s back.

Cross is understood to have joined Citi. The bank confirmed his arrival. His role there isn’t clear, but given his extremely good pedigree and extremely weighty experience, it’s likely that he’s something pretty senior. – Head of gilt trading maybe?

This was Cross’s last role at J.P. Morgan, where he was head of gilts between 2012 and 2016. Before that he was head of gilts at BNP Paribas (for a mere six months), head of sterling rates trading at Nomura for nearly three years, head of sterling rates trading at Lehman for 5.5 years and head of sterling trading at Credit Suisse for five years.

Cross, basically, has form.

His return suggests that retirement isn’t all that. It also reflects the resurgent demand for rates traders as macroeconomic conditions across Europe diverge and central banks make differing noises on QE. Cross isn’t the only recent hire in the space. Scott Marsh, an executive director at Morgan Stanley and former director in rates trading at Deutsche Bank, has also joined Nomura. The Japanese bank confirmed his arrival.

Follow @MadameButcher
Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

“”
Photo credit: Citi London by Håkan Dahlström is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Forget all the hype around artificial intelligence (AI), if you’ve really got the skills that Silicon Valley and Wall Street need, you could haul in millions of dollars a year.

“Right now, AI is an elitist sport – there are very few people who know how to practice it,” said Tom Eck, the CTO of industry platforms at IBM and a software developer who has been involved in AI as far back as the early ’90s. “The top-tier AI researchers are getting paid the salaries of NFL quarterbacks, which tells you the demand and the perceived value.”

While Eck, speaking at the Markets Media’s Summer Trading event in New York, didn’t specify whether he meant starting quarterbacks or their backups, he did say that the best AI researchers are earning as much as the highest paid position in the National Football League. For reference, there are 31 quarterbacks who will make more than $5m this year, and the highest-paid QB in the league – the Oakland Raiders’ Derek Carr, fresh off signing a new contract last month – will get a cool $25m this year. He’ll earn a minimum of $70m over three years and could get up to $125m over five.

Financial services, healthcare and advertising are the three biggest adopters of AI at this stage, according to Eck.

AI is the act of imbuing a machine or a piece of software with the capabilities that we consider human cognition, basically making a machine act like a human brain. If we take neurons and model them mathematically as a simple formula with nonlinear components, we can create an interesting rules-based system using “if this, then that” algorithms capable of pattern recognition, Eck said.

But it’s still at the early stage.

“AI is statistics-based – here’s a set of data; take the data, extrapolate and give me a prediction of the most likely thing to happen,” he says. “That’s about model-generating, given a set of data.

“The machine learning system has to come up with a generator that would spit out that data set, working backwards from the data to a mathematical model, and then it is no longer limited to the data you’ve observed – AI can predict what tomorrow’s equity prices will be.”

Deep learning uses the same neural-network type of approach as AI but at gargantuan sizes. All models are fueled by data,

“Big data really means more data than you have the capability to deal with: high volume, high velocity that you want to process quickly and variability,” Eck said. “The data science role not going away anytime soon – with data, it’s garbage in, garbage out.

“Deep learning is more challenging because of volume, velocity and variability,” he says. “The interesting thing about deep learning is its ability to operate on unstructured data.”

The next step in the process of evolution is cognitive computing, a system that’s imbued with the ability to understand, reason, recognize the context and learn – and it has to have a human interface such as a natural language base.

Follow @danbutchrwrites

Photo credit: Dmytro Aksonov/GettyImages
““

I cut costs in investment banks. This is my job. I am an expert in cutting costs and improving processes and creating efficiencies, especially in the technology function. If your job is going to disappear in the next 12 months, it will be someone like me that helps eliminate it.

So, what do I look for and how can you stay on my good side?

Firstly, I am the mistress of the hidden costs, the neglected costs, the little costs that might not seem like a lot but which add up. These are what I look for first – I don’t want to cut your job if I can avoid it (especially if you’re adding value), so I look for the things that aren’t obvious. Everyone else goes for headcount and travel, but I always start out looking for things like money spent on subscriptions which aren’t necessary, or software licenses which aren’t really used. I implement a policy for managing the data relating to these small costs and analyze which aren’t adding value.

Once the small but cumulative costs are gone, it’s time to get serious. This is when I’m going to look at your job. In particular, I’m going to look at where your job is based and whether it’s best done by a permanent member of staff or a contractor.

The contractor/permie debate is cyclical. When the future is uncertain, banks will often look at using contractors for technology roles: they’re more flexible and costs can be ramped up and down as necessary. When the future seems more certain, banks will risk bringing on permanent staff. Right now, there’s a trend for banks (see Deutsche Bank, for example) to centralize technology functions and to operate them in the most efficient manner possible using permanent people. In the long run, this works out cheaper.

As costs are centralized I will look at who else is doing a job like yours in the organization. Do you both need to be doing the same thing? Who should be doing your job and where should they be sitting?

If your job is very routine and predictable, I will probably look at off-shoring it to Southeast Asia or Central Europe. If you work in data processing, or model validation and you haven’t been moved offshore already, I’m afraid that it’s probably going to happen soon.

If your job is more of a mid-level role which requires a bit of judgement, it probably won’t be migrating far away. It will still be migrating, however: to somewhere out of London. If you’re a business analyst, a project manager, or a developer working on a non-critical front office system, you can expect to go somewhere near-shore like Glasgow (J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley), Belfast (Citi), or Chester (Bank of America). Goldman Sachs is even outsourcing these kinds of roles to Warsaw.

How can you survive the arrival of someone like me? Flexibility is everything. You need to be prepared to move. I would also suggest that you need to be prepared to work from home.

If you’re a junior working in a technology or an infrastructure role in a bank and you’re sitting in London, you’re at risk. You’re not at risk because of your skill-set (or lack of it). You’re not at risk because of your pay. You’re at risk because office space costs a packet in London and banks could replace you with someone working elsewhere far more cheaply. However, it’s always easy to find someone like you in near-shore locations, especially as your skills become more niche. For this reason, banks want to keep you, and they will want to keep you all the more if you’re prepared to spend two more days each week working from home so as to cut down on the need for precious office space. I predict that this is going to become a big thing in the next few years.

This is the bottom line then. If you want to position yourself for continued employment and advancement and avoid my gaze, you need to be flexible. You need to be flexible about who you work for. You need to be flexible about where you live (both in terms of country and region). And you need to be flexible about where you work (in the office, from home, on the road, or in coffee shops). Do that, and you might survive. Good luck.

Follow @MadameButcher
Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

““

Goldman Sachs is allowing its technology workers to dress down. Cue excitement and a rush on high-end jeans. Except Goldman insiders, both in the tech division and without, say unusual clothing is nothing new at GS: there’s been ‘business casual’ in IBD in London for a while (unless you’re going to a meeting), and Fridays in all divisions can be wild.

“Friday is ripped jeans day on the trading floor,” says one GS technologist. “You can’t move for terrible jeans, which are often worn with stupidly expensive brown shoes. And then you have the odd person who likes a Hawaiian shirt.”

“We used to run crazy shirt competitions,” says one recently ex-MD in London fixed income trading. “The same guy won repetitively,” he adds, declining to elaborate further.

In equities, one New York salesman claims man-ankles (mankles) have been in evidence on Fridays. “The older people have been pretty bewildered by the younger people rolling up the cuffs of their pants with sneakers,” he says, adding that the Goldman Friday look – which may now migrate to the whole week in technology – resembles the outfit below for any men under 35.

Goldman’s London bankers deny any knowledge of this, however. “Ankles are not a thing,” says one. “You might wear a leather bracelet to celebrate the fact that it’s summer but chinos and polo shirt, (better still blue or white or striped pique) classic blazer, leather belt and boat shoes with socks. That’s it, even in NY.”

Nonetheless, some Goldman MDs, who previously espoused Salvatore Ferragamo loafers as their status footwear of choice, are reportedly switching to Yeezy Trainers, designed by Kanye West and costing $170+. “I tell my friends in music that Yeezys aren’t cool any more now that Goldman bankers have discovered them,” says one equities salesman in NY.

Goldman look

Follow @MadameButcher
Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

“”

Photo credit: nonnative-spring-summer-2012-collection-5 by Trainerspotting is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Photo credit: black shoe by John Donges is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Morning Coffee: What Pablo Salame’s little chat tells you about Goldman Sachs. Horrible precedent for junior bankers

Meanwhile:

Deutsche’s former head of structured product syndicate has just launched his own hedge fund

The Big Four jobs that pay the most (which isn’t much)

What happens if you’re asked to move from London because of Brexit?

Jes Staley’s eldest daughter quit trading for drones

The art of following up after a job application or interview without appearing desperate

Following up after submitting a cover letter and resume

Following up after an interview

Timing is key

Help them to remember you

Be concise

Don’t burn bridges

Morning Coffee: What happens when banks’ traders get bored. Senior bankers cluster at huge, hot PE firm

Meanwhile:

Top graduates are turning away from investment banks after Brexit

The best and worst banks to work for in London, NY and Asia?

Is J.P. Morgan the best bank to work for in London?

Is Goldman Sachs the best bank to work for in New York City?

Is J.P. Morgan the best bank to work for in Singapore?

Is Goldman Sachs the best bank to work for in Hong Kong?

The top U.S. cities to get a financial services job outside of New York

1. Dallas/Irving, Texas

2. Salt Lake City, Utah

3. Jacksonville, Florida

4, Other high-cost cities like San Francisco, Boston or Chicago

Bank of America just poached a top trader from Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs’ former 20-something trading guru has moved on again

Diary of a banking intern: “It all kicks off after 6pm”

The banking technology jobs that pay £100k+

Morning Coffee: Good times at JPMorgan, bad times at Goldman Sachs. Slow death in Credit Suisse equities

Meanwhile:

This senior Apollo Global Management partner has just departed

J.P. Morgan’s ex-head of gilt trading came out of retirement and joined Citi

If you really know about artificial intelligence, you could earn as much as an NFL quarterback

Follow @danbutchrwrites

I’m an investment banking cost cutter. Here’s how to survive the chop

The strangest outfits you will see at Goldman Sachs

Meanwhile:

Related articles:

Related articles:

Related articles:

Related articles:

Following up after submitting a cover letter and resume

Following up after an interview

Timing is key

Help them to remember you

Be concise

Don’t burn bridges

Related articles:

Meanwhile:

Related articles:

Related articles:

Is J.P. Morgan the best bank to work for in London?

Is Goldman Sachs the best bank to work for in New York City?

Is J.P. Morgan the best bank to work for in Singapore?

Is Goldman Sachs the best bank to work for in Hong Kong?

Related articles:

1. Dallas/Irving, Texas

2. Salt Lake City, Utah

3. Jacksonville, Florida

4, Other high-cost cities like San Francisco, Boston or Chicago

Related articles:

Related articles:

Related articles:

Related articles:

Related articles:

Meanwhile:

Related articles:

Related articles:

Related articles:

Related articles:

Related articles:

Related articles: