Sell-side traders’ salaries have been coming down over the past four or five years, and there are fewer trading roles within the U.S. bulge-bracket banks. In addition to pressure to cut costs, many banks simply need fewer traders as electronic trading continues its ascent.

So how much can a trader expect to make at a bank or broker-dealer in the U.S.? Are salaries and bonuses spiraling down the drain as banks reduce headcount, or are there still decent opportunities in the trading game?

“Fixed income traders’ headcount is down about 20% from its 2008 peak, while equities traders’ headcount is down approximately 30% over that timeframe,” says Paul Webster, managing director and the head of Page Executive in North America.

On the other hand, sell-side traders’ total compensation did increase from 2015 to 2016, according to Selby Jennings.

Big pay packets still on offer? 

Dodd-Frank has ensured that banks have done away with high paying proprietary trading jobs and are just serving clients in their markets divisions. A lot of prop trading talent has gone on to make big money at hedge funds, but what can you expect in sell-side trading jobs now?

“Some traders are still making the seven-figure amount that they all seek, but it depends on the bank – U.S. institutions tend to pay the best, as European banks are held back on the size of bonuses they can offer, usually no more than twice the base salary, although they’ve found ways around it,” says Dylan Pany, principal consultant and the head of the trading team at Selby Jennings.

Traders are typically paid 15% to 20% more than salespeople at the same firm. While they are all limited to the same range of base salary based on experience, looking at total compensation, traders tend to make better money due to bonus upside, Pany said.

Equity traders have been paid the most, because there’s the most opportunity to make money in those markets currently, whereas fixed income and foreign exchange has hit hard for the past five years. Structured products and structured credit, for example, MBS, CMBS and CDO traders, have been their pay shrink the most, says Pany

“You’d think reducing headcount would free up money for the bonus pool but that hasn’t been the case,” he says.

While cost-cutting has stung mid-level and senior traders alike, there is still plenty of opportunities for junior traders as banks roll out ‘juniorisation’ initiatives on the trading floor.

“The street is a little bit top heavy, and some U.S. institutions are looking to increase the number of graduates in their incoming class,” Pany said.

A lot of banks have been made pretty drastic cuts to trading desks, now they’ve realized that those cuts may have been too deep and are bringing in new talent.

“Tier-one banks that have made deep cuts are in replacement mode right now,” Pany said. “They can’t operate with the staffing levels they have, so they’re making competitive counter-offers to top-performing traders who give notice, because they can’t afford to lose many more people. I’ve seen some pretty ridiculous counter-offers for traders in the past six months, because the bank can’t afford to lose someone on that trading desk and find someone else to fill that seat,” he said.

Pay for fixed income traders 

Fresh out of an internship or summer analyst program, fixed income traders can earn a base salary somewhere between $60k to $75k, with their bonus probably between 50% to 100% of that, according to ViableMkts. After they earn a promotion, their salary will likely go up to the $80k-to-$100k range, with the cream of the crop earning a 100% bonus on top of that.

Once fixed income traders reach VP level, their base goes up to between $120k and 150k, with their bonus ranging from 60% to 100% of that base, typically all or mostly cash.

“How soon you earn a promotion depends on your production and how well you excel in your seat – it could be two years, it could be five,” said Anna Shtromberg, a principal at ViableMkts and a former director, credit trader and senior portfolio manager at National Australia Bank. “Director and above are very much at risk as firms attempt to cut costs – those senior traders represent the bulk of the layoffs.”

Fixed income traders at the director level typically earn from $250k to $300k in base salary. Executive directors can make a salary around $400k on the top end. Managing directors earn a base anywhere between $400k and $500k.

At those levels, their bonus is purely discretionary, although some traders are able to negotiate a percentage of the revenue they generate, often in the 5%-to-10% range, based on the P&L of their trading book.

“At director level and above, your bonus is not only depending on your own performance – it’s also depending on the firm’s overall performance,” Shtromberg said. “The percentage of stock compensation versus cash increases as you move up the ladder – a lot is in stock, and there are deferrals and claw-back provisions, so your comp might be very delayed.

“In some cases, the cash portion of a bonus for a managing director-level trader may be as low as $200k, with the remaining portion in stock,” she said. “If the firm’s doing really badly, though, even if you are doing great, it’s not going to help you.

“Your bonus doesn’t fully depend on what your book made, hence the huge amount of turnover, people whose books are making a lot of money and feel they aren’t being compensated fairly moving to the buy-side, typically hedge funds or private equity firms.”
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If you’re working hard in finance, maybe you feel a bit sorry for yourself? Maybe you feel like those 55-80 hour weeks aren’t worth the money? That you’d have been better off in fintech or consulting? Maybe you think…you’re a slave?

Stop this now. You will get nowhere in finance laden with negativity. Finance isn’t for weaklings. The environment is tough, the work is hard, and the hours are long. But while some would like you believe otherwise, junior bankers aren’t slaves.

You chose this path and it’s not an easy one. I’ve trodden it, and there were many times I wondered if I’d gone wrong. To succeed in finance you need to be committed. If you’re not, stop now. It’s best to learn this early on.

To make it, you need to embrace the toughness. See it as a positive. Think of it like the U.S Marine’s crucible – the harsh 54 hour training exercise that makes them true soldiers. Except that in the case of finance it lasts two years, or more.

The main thing is that you will learn in this environment. While you’re working 70 hour weeks, you’ll have far more opportunities to develop professionally than people in other occupations. Whatever you choose to do eventually, this will make you more effective in your career. Because you have been exposed to a highly-pressured, highly challenging environment that encourages you to think on your feet and develop and utilize skills, you’ll be a better banker.

While all this is going on, you also need to learn how make people like and trust you. My biggest piece of advice is to identify the issue your boss is facing and to offer him solutions that will help relieve his stress. This way, you’ll not only gain his favour but his respect. Your boss holds the key to your success in this industry. If you can make yourself memorable to him or her, you will stand out in the sea of bewildered newcomers who – like you – might be wondering if they’ve made the right choice. Junior bankers are commonly viewed as more easily replaceable than their more experienced counterparts – there will plenty more like you joining next year, so you need to be memorable.

Most of all though, you need to keep going. Stop telling yourself the bad stuff. Don’t make the same mistakes twice. Manage your time by prioritizing the most important tasks. Start looking forward and finding ways to differentiate yourself in the eyes of your boss. The analyst programs at many banks last two years. That’s not long in the context of a life. I failed many times before I succeeded. Keep at it. You’re not a slave. You’re a warrior. Remember that.

The author is a former Goldman Sachs managing director and blogger at the site What I Learnt on Wall Street.

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Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

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If you’re 40 years old and still struggling to earn the fabled big money in finance, maybe you’re doing it all wrong? Maybe you have an MBA from a top school? Maybe you’ve been rising slowly on the updrafts at an investment bank? Maybe you’ve developed a strategy to trade against satellite data from retailers’ car parks? What if you could simply have spent your career as the logistics manager of a Target store before ferociously shorting the VIX?

This is the path Seth Golden has trod. The New York Times reports that Golden, whose self-appointed title is “chief market strategist” after a “20 year career in retail” and a Bachelors of Science in “English Education” from Florida University, has made a small fortune doing little more than betting that the VIX, or so-called “fear gauge”, will keep on falling. “The nature of volatility is that it desensitizes over time,” Golden tells the NYT. “Which is why the index has been tracking down for so long.”

With this simple strategy Golden claims to have multiplied his net worth from $500k when he was aged 35 to $12m now that he’s aged 40. The implication is that he accumulated wealth at the rate of $25k a year during his 20 years in retail and $2.4m a year during his five years shorting the VIX.

Even better, Golden says investors have “been pounding on his door” to invest in his new VIX-shorting fund and have offered $100m so far. 40-year-old traders earning £180 ($233) an hour, eat your hearts out.  Golden’s great success doesn’t seem to have stopped him having a side-business, however: his LinkedIn profile shows that also he’s spent the past two years trying to patent some kind of cooling system for the consumer goods industry.

Separately, the man of the moment to impress at Goldman Sachs is Marty Chavez, the new(ish) CFO.  And what better way to do that than to read the books that Marty is reading? A white-toothed Chavez has made his end of summer recommendations on Goldman’s own site. If you want to get in with him, you should leaf through Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, by Yuval Noah Harari, and Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, by Arlie Russell Hochschild.

Chavez describes the first book as a “provocative speculation on the future” (which he doesn’t entirely agree with.). He says the second book explains, “why people who might benefit from liberalism instead reject it.”

Meanwhile:

How to start an FX business with a £1.4bn ($1.8bn) turnover when you’re 24 years old and have no money. (Business Insider)

Forget the quants. The average equity hedge fund has gained 7.7% this year. Quant equity funds have gained only 4.9%. Quant “macro” funds, which invest across markets, have lost 1.4%. (Financial Times)

Structured credit (specifically synthetic CDOs) is making a comeback at BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs , J.P. Morgan. and Société Générale. (WSJ)

Based on the $4.5m Jean-Laurent Bonnafé earned last year for running BNP Paribas, the eurozone’s biggest bank by assets, it would take the French banker over 15 years to earn as much as the Goldman boss did in 2007 alone. (Financial Times) 

French and Italian Masters in Finance students still love London. (Financial Times) 

Wanted: Google employees who feel hard done by. (Vanity Fair) 

New reasons not to work in Silicon Valley: the 2.15am commute. (NY Times) 

Companies are using email traffic flows and calendar metadata to establish who’s happy at work and who’s not. (HBR) 

Beware positive thinking: Positive thinking can make us feel better in the short term, but over the long term it saps our motivation, preventing us from achieving our wishes and goals, and leaving us feeling frustrated, stymied and stuck.  (Aeon) 

HSBC private equity analyst shaves hair and becomes Buddhist nun. (Economic Times) 

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Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com
“”

Photo credit: Detour by Kate Ter Haar is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Alan Howard may be returning to Brevan Howard’s London operation and Brevan Howard may just have brought in a very senior bond trader in London in the form of Goldman Sachs’ Andrea Casulli, but the hedge fund is still losing staff in London.

The latest exit is Viktor Hjort, a strategist who joined the hedge fund from Morgan Stanley in July 2015. He left Brevan Howard earlier this month, according to the Financial Conduct Authority register.

Before joining Brevan, Hjort was head of Asia fixed income research and credit strategy at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong. He worked at the bank for over 15 years in both the UK and Asia, and was named managing director in 2012. He returned to London two years ago to join Brevan Howard.

Brevan Howard has endured a tough period this year. Around $1bn left its flagship fund in April, and performance in its macro fund was down 5.2% over the course of the first half, according to reports on Bloomberg.

Senior staff at the hedge fund have departed over the past year. Andrew Dausch, a former Goldman Sachs prop trader who joined Brevan Howard in 2011, left for Moore Capital Management in April. Mark Deniston, the former head of GBP rates trading at Goldman, joined Brevan Howard in 2013, but departed for Royal Bank of Scotland in January, while partner Roberto Hoornweg left late last year to head up Standard Chartered’s financial markets division.

Brevan Howard’s latest accounts show that it has been cutting back staff – it had 178 employees in 2015, but reduced headcount to 122 by the end of March last year.

Despite this, it’s still been bringing in senior people. Duncan Larraz, who was head of quant analytics at asset management firm Tages Capital, joined Brevan Howard as a strategist in June. More recently, Andrea Casulli, the former co-head of government bond trading at Goldman Sachs, joined the hedge fund earlier this month.

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““

If you want to move out of banking and into the buy-side in London, Canadian pension funds have become the places to target. As we reported previously, the private debt fund of Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board has been hiring in London this year. So too has Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), a Québécois pension fund close to Trafalgar Square. Now it seems that the CPP Investment Board (CPP IB), the investment arm of the Canadian Pension Plan is busy adding staff as well.

The latest CPP IB hire is Sergio Fraile Heras, a former short term rates trader at Goldman Sachs. After just 14 months at Goldman, preceded by 23 months at UBS, Heras joined CPP IB as an associate in London this month.

The Canadian Pension Plan is both large and successful. It manages the retirement funds of 20 million Canadians and at March 31 this year had CA$317bn (US$254bn) of assets under management. Its return over the previous five years was 11.8%. The fund invests across private equity, public markets, real estate and infrastructure with the aim of maximizing its rate of return whilst minimizing its risk.

Heras isn’t CPP IB’s only London hire this year. Nor is he the only hire from a bank. In January the fund hired Moritz Lindhorst from Morgan Stanley as an analyst on its infrastructure team. In April it hired Andrew Morris from Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management to its real estate team, along with Mateusz Sojecki from Bank of America Merrill Lynch as an associate.

CPP IB isn’t fixated on hiring from banks though. It runs its own London graduate training scheme and just recruited Gabriel Ropek-Zackon, an Oxford University graduate with a first class degree in economics and management. Earlier this year, it also hired Bindu Dasari Besser at principal level from U.S. fund of hedge funds Davidson Kempner Capital Management in July, and Derek Jackson as managing director of credit investments from Davidson Kempner in May. In 2017, it’s also hired from Deloitte and Brookfield Financial, an independent investment bank focused on real estate.

The most recent accounts for the Canadian Pension Plan’s investment board suggest just 2% of the fund’s assets are invested in the UK. Like many investment banks, the fund defers a proportion of its bonuses over a three year period. In 2017, Alain Carrier, head of its European office, earned CA$2.7m (US$2.2m).

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Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

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Is it worth risking an aneurysm (or, more realistically, your hair falling out and your health deteriorating) just to become a top ranked analyst or associate at a top investment bank? A J.P. Morgan associate who spent five years at the bank, progressing from analyst to associate in the investment banking division (IBD), has concluded that it’s not. There’s no point overdoing it. Take it easy.

The associate, who asked not to be named, based his calculations on the following table of hours and pay for juniors in IBD at J.P. Morgan. The presumption is that every year you stay in IBD you get to work five hours less per week on average and that the juniors who work the longest hours get the biggest bonuses.

Unfortunately, the associate also calculates that putting in extra hours to get a bigger bonus makes no sense. The 15 extra working hours per week which are required to become a top ranked analyst don’t result in a proportionate increase in pay. Assuming a 50 week working year, he calculates that you actually end up earning less per hour as an exceptionally hard-working, highly-ranked analyst and associate than as an averagely hard-working, averagely-paid one.

“It makes no sense to go from working 85 hours a week to working 100 hours a week, with all the related destruction in your health and sanity when you barely get paid any extra,” says the associate. “It’s even less worthwhile when you consider that bonuses are taxed at nearly 50% – why would you work every weekend and sleep four hours a night when the financial incentive is almost nothing, especially when there are no career shortcuts in IBD?”

He adds that the ideal is to become a top-ranked analyst/associate without killing yourself, but that this seems impossible unless you’re an “Oxbridge boy” with excellent connections.

J.P. Morgan and other banks do not typically comment on speculative information regarding pay.

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One of the top technology analysts at Goldman Sachs, who was responsible for the bank’s coverage of Apple, has just jumped out of investment banking for an investor relations role at a huge Silicon Valley tech firm.

Simona Jankowski, a managing director and senior equity research analyst for the hardware and communications technology sector at Goldman Sachs, is now vice president of investor relations at NVIDIA, a tech hardware company that produces graphic processing units (GPUs) for gaming companies as well as other professional industries. NVIDIA, which is based in Santa Clara, California, has over 10,000 employees globally.

Jankowski took over responsibility for covering Apple stocks at Goldman Sachs from Bill Shope in September 2015. Shope, the bank’s former deputy director of research for the U.S, left in March last year and started his own B2B software platform, Replogic, in September.

Jankowski is a well-regarded and high-profile analyst at Goldman Sachs who has worked at the bank for her entire career. She joined as an associate within its technology investment banking division in 2001 and also covered the semi-conductor industry within Goldman’s Global Investment Research division for seven years. She was named managing director in 2011.

Senior equity analysts have been leaving investment banks as regulation has prompted many banks to cut headcount in this area. Investor relations has been a particularly popular new vocation, as analysts swap one end of the phone line for the other.

Edward Hill-Wood, a managing director and head of European internet research at Morgan Stanley, left to head up investor relations at e-commerce firm Naspers in May. Meanwhile, Will Draper, the former head of telecoms research at Mirabaud Securities in London, became director of investor relations at BT, and Richard Burden, a managing director in insurance equity research at Credit Suisse, quit to head up investor relations at Zurich Insurance late last year.

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““

It’s not easy being a trader in this day and age. Old-school trading pits have been cleared out. Electronic trading platforms powered by various types of artificial intelligence, including machine learning and artificial neural networks (ANN, also known as connectionist systems) are in ascendance, causing both buy-side and sell-side firms to employ fewer human traders.

It’s stressful for traders when markets are volatile, but choppy seas with swings in both directions often present opportunities. The current prolonged period of market calm is the flipside of that coin, where traders are twiddling their thumbs waiting for some action. However, there’s a silver lining. Many quants and algorithmic trading strategies struggle mightily in the absence of market volatility, presenting human traders with an opportunity to prove their worth.

“Some of these algorithms will focus on market-making, trying to capture the difference between the bid and the offer, which are typically categorized as high-frequency trading,” says Daniel Gramza, the founder and president of Gramza Capital Management and DMG Advisors and a trading coach to brokerages, banks and hedge funds. “Sideways or calm markets can be a challenge for the machine-learning trend-following algorithm – primarily because it needs a number of steps to recognize that it may be in a sideways market and how it will trade that environment.”

Advantage: human traders. The trader can quickly recognize the potential for a sideways move and easily adjust their trading strategy, Gramza says.

“The trader can assess what is the typical magnitude of a sideways move, how long it typically last, is there a particular time of day, week or month when sideways moves occur and how does it typically break out of the sideways move,” Gramza says. “Although these parameters are simple to assess for the trader, it can be challenging for the machine-learning algorithms,” he says.

“My experience with trading firms around the world is that the human trader still has an edge over the machine-learning algorithms in the calm sideways market environment.”

“Human traders may have the instincts and intuition to add statistically significant value, because the best ones do a good job of picking price levels and sourcing liquidity,” adds Dave Weisberger, the head of equities at strategic advisory firm Viable Markets and the president of boutique consultancy Exquam whose also worked at Two Sigma, Citi, Salomon Smith Barney and Morgan Stanley.

“Good traders have the intuiton to say, ‘The price has gone down too much, I want to stand firm, I don’t want to trade here – particularly in this sort of market where it’s not moving too much, that’s relevant,” he says. “Also, you need a human trader for negotiating a block trade – on the sell-side, you need sales-traders who have lots of experience and know who they can call that won’t leak information when looking for a counterparty on the other side of the trade.”

In addition, human traders have the advantage when it comes to deciding on the appropriate benchmark for the trading strategy.

“On the buy-side, the portfolio manager is also a human, and while they might be better off implementing their trading goals mathematically, they don’t, so traders interact with PMs and ask, ‘Is this price a good price? Do you want to get it done?’” Weisberger says. “Humans are good for that sort of thing.”

On the other hand, when it comes to routing, placing and modifying orders, trading algorithms are necessary.

“It’s inarguable that a human pushing buttons to break an order up is not how to do optimal routing – in a situation where you have five different offers on the screen, by the time you get to the second or third the others will be gone,” Weisberger says. “When it comes to order placement and probing for liquidity, which means making tens of thousands of actions over the course of the day in the way the market is structured, you need machines for that.

“There are certain things that machines have to do – the last mile of the trade,” he says. “Now algorithms are good at slicing up orders.”

However, be warned: As AI and machine learning get better, they will start taking over more trading processes such as the determination of benchmarks and setting price levels.

“Right now placing and modifying orders on exchanges should be done by algorithms, whereas humans 100% need to negotiate liquidity,” Weisberger says. “The battleground is in the middle: picking price levels and choosing optimal strategies based on the requirements of the PMs.”
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Now is probably not the time to join Russian bank Otkritie’s London office. The Financial Times claims the Russian government is preparing a rescue package allowing it to intervene if Otkritie suffers a liquidity crisis. Deposit withdrawals mean the bank has lost 20% of its balance sheet in the past two months.

Otkritie’s brokerage division, Otkritie Capital International, employs 31 registered people in the UK according to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). It hasn’t been hiring much, but one of its most recent recruits – veteran equity salesman Sean Callahan – didn’t stick around.

Callahan, who was formerly head of CEEMEA sales at HSBC and J.P. Morgan and a director on the emerging markets sales team at UBS, joined Otkritie on June 2 according to the FCA. He left again on August 22. Otkritie confirmed his departure.

Callahan isn’t the only person to come and go at Otkritie. The FCA Register also shows Richard Walker, a former head of CEEMEA sales and trading at SocGen joining on November 7th 2016 and leaving exactly one month later.

Despite the brief tenure of some of its recent hires, Otkritie also has some long serving staff in London. Head of research Mikhail Terentiev has been with the firm for seven years after joining from Nomura in 2010. Director of equity sales Mlada Yegikyan has been there eight years after joining from Goldman Sachs in 2009.

Otkritie Capital International made profits of $30m in the year to December 2016 according to its most recently filed accounts covering the UK and the Moscow offices. The firm’s 207 global employees earned an average of $123k.

In London, Otkritie is notorious for a fraud committed by a former trader in 2011. George Urumov convinced Otkritie to pay he and his team of five $5m each in signing bonuses when they joined from Knight Capital six years ago.  Urumov kept $20m of the $25m for himself and moved the rest into offshore companies he controlled.  He was sentenced to 12 years in prison last January.

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Call it efficiency, cost-cutting or a gradual shift towards the nanny state in investment banks, but more institutions are using devices to keep tabs on their employees. Matthew Westerman, the head of HSBC’s global banking division reportedly introduced a system last year that tracks how its bankers use their time and how many deals they bring in. Barclays has installed heat and motion detecting sensors below bankers’ desks to see how much time they spend at their work stations. Now, Credit Suisse is getting in on the act.

Well, sort of. Credit Suisse’s fintech investment fund has just put money into Sapience Analytics, a “People Analytics solutions company” which “delivers unprecedented visibility into work patterns and behaviour in an organisation”, according to the FT. In other words, technology that tracks how you spend your time at work – all of which is a little Orwellian.

Like Barclays, which said that the desk monitors were installed to make “informed decisions about how we can use our workspace more effectively” rather than monitoring its employees, Credit Suisse has said that it’s not using the new investment to keep tabs on its staff. Credit Suisse portfolio manager Greg Grimaldi and senior advisor Frank Fanzilli are joining the company’s board, but people familiar with the bank’s plans told the FT that there are “no plans” for Credit Suisse’s employees to use Sapience’s tools. But, third parties who work for the bank will start using them.

Separately, ex-Goldman Sachs bankers Gary Cohn and Steven Mnuchin have been holed up together trying to come up with a politically difficult and technically demanding overhaul of the U.S. tax system that was central to President Trump’s campaign, according to the New York Times. Goldman insiders told the Times that the two men are more used to competing with one another than cooperating, but – according to CEO Lloyd Blankfein – this is what Goldman is all about.

“Goldman has thrived by hiring strong individuals with very different backgrounds and putting them together on a team,” he emailed the Times. “Gary and Steven are both steeped in that tradition from their years working side by side on the trading floor — not a bad training ground for the pressure cooker that is Washington.”

Cohn reportedly wears “monogrammed shirts, gold cuff links and a Rolex watch next to a brown leather bracelet with a ‘peace’ tag and a black beaded one with silver skulls”, and is known for a brash, direct style surrounding himself with connected aides, and his refusal to pay political games. Mnuchin, meanwhile, is better known for his slim cut business suits, analytical style, and for talking up his personal connections with Trump.

“They are working together,” Stephen Moore, a Heritage Foundation economist who advised Mr. Trump during the campaign, told the Times. “But there’s no question they’re competitors.”

Meanwhile: 

The European Investment Bank has been accused of being something of an old boys’ network (Politico)

Dutch bank Rabobank is building its advisory team in London (Financial News)

Pimco has shaved off £20m from its ‘special bonus’ pot introduced for staff after the departure of Bill Gross in 2014 (Financial News)

Hedge funds are embracing a brave new era of third-party data sources to gain a trading edge. Lawyers are wary (Financial Times)

If you’re self-aware, you’re more likely to be successful (WSJ)

The Financial Conduct Authority has rolled out some cheesy ads featuring a prosthetic Arnold Schwarzenegger head to promote the final deadline for PPI claims (Bloomberg)

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MBAs going into the financial sector still favour investment banking over anything else, despite the fact that the banking’s appeal continues to wane among business school graduates. However, the buy-side is an increasingly attractive option – private equity has long been a destination for MBAs, but hedge funds are upping their graduate recruitment and asset managers are also taking on an increasing number of business school graduates.

Assuming you have ambitions to work on the buy-side, which business school is most likely to offer a route in? Our figures suggest that those schools with existing deep relationships with investment banks – namely, Ivy League universities in the U.S, London Business School in the UK and INSEAD and HEC in Europe and Asia – are also the most likely to land you a job on the buy-side.

The dominance of U.S. schools across the top ten of our rankings should not come as a surprise. Aside from the prestige associated with these business schools, financial services organisations in the U.S. have continued to hire in plentiful numbers of MBAs, while those in Europe prefer to train up fresh graduates than hire in expensive MBAs.

At New York University – Stern, for example, the U.S. college where the largest proportion of MBA graduates go into finance, 28% of the class of 2015 went into investment banking. At London Business School, which accounts for the lion’s share of City MBA hires, 7% went into banking and the 9% ended up in private equity, according to the latest employment reports.

Our own rankings look into the eFinancialCareers CV database, which has 1.4m resumes globally, to find out which business school graduates now work in hedge funds, private equity or asset management. We look at a combination of graduates from a particular school in the overall population of MBAs within those sectors and the proportion of graduates from that school now working within a hedge fund, private equity or asset management firm.

It is also, it should be noted, very difficult to get into a hedge fund with an MBA and only a tiny proportion of business school graduates end up in the sector. At  NY Stern, for example, just 0.9% of the class of 2016 ended up in a hedge fund. Our rankings reflect this relative difficulty – a greater weighting is given to the percentage of graduates working in hedge funds, followed by those who have gained a job in private equity and finally asset management, which are more active recruiters of MBAs directly from school.

These rankings show one thing – the likelihood of getting your foot in the door at a hedge fund, private equity firm or asset manager. They do not show earning potential or career progression, but merely your employability in these sectors after securing an MBA.

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The weather in the UK confirms it: summer is over. And with the end of summer comes a theoretical resumption in hiring. Recruiters are back from holiday, candidates are back from holiday and line managers will be eager to use the headcount they’ve been given before the end of the year. Although recruitment firm Morgan McKinley said finance hiring in London remained more robust this summer than usual, September will almost certainly be more vigorous still: last year it was the third best month for new finance jobs in London according to Morgan McKinley’s monitor. 

This being so, we’ve scrutinized banks’ own recruitment websites to see which interesting jobs they’re advertising in London now. In our estimation, the 20 jobs below are the best and most interesting. Apply now before the last holiday stragglers return to their desks and up the competition.

1. UBS is looking for a new head of its artificial intelligence centre of excellence

2017 has been the year of artificial intelligence in finance. UBS is on it and has set up an ‘Artificial Intelligence Centre of Excellence’ to give strategic direction to all its AI programmes. The role is based in London or Zurich and involves interfacing directly with bank’s the chief technology officer.

2. Deutsche Bank is looking for a new rates trader (and a rates strategist)

Rates traders are making a comeback in 2017, with banks resorting to hiring traders who’ve been out of the market doing other things as talent becomes tight. Deutsche Bank’s rates trading business hasn’t had a great 2017 after making a big loss in the U.S. The German bank is trying to set things to rights and is hiring both an associate/VP level inflation trader and a VP/director level rates strategist in London.

3. Morgan Stanley is looking for a new aerospace and defence analyst

Sabre rattling between North Korea and the U.S. makes this an interesting if unnerving time to be covering the defence industry. Morgan Stanley wants a vice president (VP) level aerospace and defence analyst to cover stocks in Europe.

4. Bank of America Merrill Lynch is looking for someone to to build relationships with healthcare and not for profit clients

Bank of America is looking for a VP level relationship banker to work with the healthcare and charities sector. The role is located in the commercial bank but will involve cross-selling investment banking and fixed income products. You’ll need to know about U.S. healthcare providers in Europe.

5. Citi wants a new head of West European economics (at MD level)

Willem Buiter, Citi’s global chief economist has a pleasant life. As well as working at Citi, Buiter regularly adopts adjunct professor positions at universities of global renown, the most recent being at Columbia, where he’s teaching a course in financial regulation this autumn. Citi’s new vacancy for an MD-level head of Western European economics might not allow you quite this level of freedom, but it is an opportunity to get in at the top of what’s clearly an interesting team.

6. J.P. Morgan wants a quantitative researcher to work on algorithms and machine learning

Earlier this year, J.P. Morgan produced the definitive guide to machine learning in finance. Then it developed LOXM, a next-generation artificial intelligence programme to execute equities trades which it said is years ahead of rivals.  Now, it’s hiring an associate-level quantitative researcher to work its algorithmic and machine learning unit, developing mathematical models for equities electronic trading algorithms.

7. Goldman Sachs is also looking for a machine learning engineer

J.P. Morgan’s not alone in bolstering its machine learning skills. Goldman Sachs is looking for an analyst or associate-level strategist to work on machine learning products for its securities unit.

8. Citi wants a VP (and an associate) in leveraged finance

2017 has also been a bumper year for leveraged finance hiring. In June, Citi hired Toby Ali from Bank of America Merrill Lynch as co-head of leveraged finance for EMEA. It looks the bank is growing its leveraged finance team in London: it’s advertising for both an associate and a VP to join soon.

9. Deutsche Bank is looking for a senior engineer for its cross product valuation calculator

It’s well known that Deutsche Bank had historical problems with its disparate risk and pricing systems. The bank appears to have developed a cross product valuation calculator to establish the present value and risk data for its portfolio (which sounds like SecDB at Goldman Sachs). It’s looking for a senior engineer to work on this.

10. UBS is looking for an “ethical hacker”

If you like hacking, but don’t want to get arrested, you might want to work for UBS. The Swiss bank is advertising for an “ethical hacker”, otherwise known as a “penetration tester” to try breaking into its systems in order to determine where the weaknesses lie.

11. Credit Suisse is looking for a solutions structurer for its global markets team in London

Credit Suisse wants an associate or a VP to create, ‘ tailored financing solutions to address financing needs of borrower clients in the EMEA region.’

12. J.P. Morgan wants a data scientist for a new “intelligent solutions” division

As part of its embrace of all things machine learning, J.P. Morgan has created a new intelligent solutions division. This new group is tasked with looking for ways to “transform and leverage J.P. Morgan’s proprietary data assets” through data science, machine learning and big data. The division is hiring a data scientist.

13. Goldman Sachs wants a team leader for its high touch securities strategists

If you’re a “high touch” salesperson or sales-trader, you’re dealing with the most demanding most high value clients who like to interact with human beings. This doesn’t mean that you won’t be supported by, “data analytics and automation” Goldman is looking for someone to lead the team of strategists which provide this support.

14. J.P. Morgan is looking for a new rates trader

Deutsche isn’t the only one bolstering its rates team. J.P. Morgan is also looking for a new VP level Euro/US$ rates trader in London. J.P. leads the G10 rates space globally. 

15. Citi wants a VP for its TMT investment banking business

If you want to work with technology firms without leaving an investment bank, you should head to Citi. The U.S. bank is hiring a VP for its technology media and telecoms investment banking team in London.

16. UBS wants someone for a new data analytics platform

UBS doesn’t just have an AI centre of excellence, it also has a new data analytics platform called “wave.” It’s looking for a software engineer to work on this.

17. BNP Paribas is looking for a senior associate for its high yield team

As with leveraged finance, so with high yield. BNP Paribas has been hiring across credit this year and is now looking for a senior associate for high yield and leveraged loan origination in London.

18. Goldman Sachs is looking for someone to help automate equity derivatives trading

After several difficult quarters in fixed income, Goldman Sachs’ electronic equities division looks comparatively very healthy.  Under CFO Marty Chavez, the bank is automating as much as possible and is looking for a strat to work on its equity derivatives automation team. The bank is building a new equity options algorithmic trading platform.

19. J.P. Morgan is looking for a VP in global index research

As index trading takes over the fixed income markets, J.P. Morgan is hiring someone for its leading global index research group. The VP will produce research notes on market developments impacting bank’s index, and learn how they’re constructed and discuss issues with clients.

20. Credit Suisse is looking for people for its new risk data platform

There’s a clear trend here: risk data is hot. Credit Suisse has got something called RDF (Risk Data Fabric), which it describes as a “big data store” accessible by all its global markets businesses. It’s looking for a Java developer to join the RDF team.

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It’s quicker to make associate at Goldman Sachs than it used to be. Whereas you used to have slog at analyst level for three years before hitting associate, you’re now an analyst for only two years and are promoted to associate one year early. In theory, that first associate year is a time of exploration. – When it was introduced, Goldman president David Solomon said Goldman’s new first year associates would get a chance to try out other teams and work out what they wanted to do next.

But what if you don’t get promoted?

Goldman’s early associate promotions happened this month and one London recruiter says he’s encountered candidates who say they’re being ousted from the firm after failing to move up. The implication is that the hurdle for progression is higher and not everyone in the analyst program is clearing it.

Goldman Sachs declined to comment on its analyst promotions. Goldman isn’t the only bank to promote analysts to associates after two years: Deutsche, Credit Suisse, Citi, RBS and J.P. Morgan do the same. Are the accelerate programs simply an opportunity for banks to trial juniors for two years and then remove them if they don’t make the cut? Maybe.

At Goldman at least, however, the situation may be less dire than ejected analysts suggest. Our understanding is that almost everyone has been promoted to associate this year and that only 5% have been let go – in line with Goldman’s policy of dropping the lowest performers across all its divisions. Recruiters say those who are ousted can easily go on to find jobs with lower tier banks. 

As well as promoting analysts to associates after two years, there are signs that Goldman has been hiring new elite associates in. This month, for example, it recruited Shounak Das from Macquarie Capital for its European Equity Capital Markets team. Das joined as an associate despite spending only two years as an analyst at Macquarie.

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Investment banks employ tens of thousands of people in technology, and the key people leading these divisions are increasingly shifting between organisations. But talent is scarce, and a new senior hire at UBS has just relocated from Hong Kong to London for a major new job.

Rich Crossley, who moved to Hong Kong in 2015 as CIO for J.P. Morgan’s APAC operation, has just joined UBS as its new global head of equities technology. This is a return to equities specialisation for Crossley – before joining J.P. Morgan, he was global head of equities technology at Citi.

Equities sales and trading is a key function at UBS. The Swiss bank ranked top for equity trading market share in Europe for the second year running in Greenwich Associates new rankings released last week and also leads the algorithmic trading ranking.

UBS has been active in hiring senior technologists within its investment bank. As well as Crossley, it hired Neil Boston as its new head of investment banking technology and UK regional lead. Boston joined in June after a two-year stint at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML). Despite his broad remit at UBS, Boston has a background in fixed income currencies and commodities, having previously led the technology for this division at BAML. The suggestion is, therefore, that UBS has just filled the two key technology roles for its markets business.

Investment banks have been scrambling to hire senior technology professionals as IT becomes ever more central to the way they operate across both their sales and trading divisions and advisory functions. While they’re competing for developers and data science professionals with large technology firms like Google and Facebook, they tend to poach from one another for leadership roles.

One of the most significant moves in recent weeks is the departure of Michael Grimaldi, Deutsche Bank’s chief information officer for its corporate and investment bank, who left earlier this month for J.P. Morgan. He will hold multiple roles at the U.S. investment bank including chief information officer for its global markets business, the head of global corporate and investment bank engineering as well as the CIO across J.P. Morgan’s EMEA operations.

But banks have been hiring in senior technologists across the board. Gary Smolyanskiy, who oversaw Goldman Sachs’ cloud infrastructure, has joined as Americas head of technology infrastructure services at Barclays in New York. Nick Doddy, the European managing director of group technology and operation (GTO) strategy and innovation team at Deutsche Bank, also joined Barclays as a managing director within its business architecture division.

At Deutsche, Ashu Joglekar, its head of global credit and flow rates IT, left earlier this month to join Wells Fargo while Shel Xu, who was head of trade management technology at Credit Suisse, joined as a managing director in June.

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Are you planning to pursue a different job on Wall Street next year? Even if you plan to stick around at your current firm until you get your 2017 bonus next year, it’s best to get an early jump on preparing forca job search, which starts long before you send that first resume out.

Step up your performance

Late summer through to to the end of the year is a great way of ensuring you’re hitting your goals and getting noticed.

“A strong performance could mean a bigger bonus, providing a financial cushion for your search, especially if you decide to leave to look,” says Caroline Ceniza-Levine, a career expert and co-founder of SixFigureStart.

“A strong performance will also lead to better references, and prospective employers do pay attention to references,” she says.

Challenge yourself to take on a really hard project, so you can talk about something novel, difficult and exciting in your next interview, says Amy Adler, a career coach at Five Strengths Career Transition Experts.

Build relationships

Relationships are the key to accessing the “hidden job market” – unadvertised or early-access jobs – where the best jobs are these days. Build your network now.

Reconnect with people you’ve been out of touch with, using a simple “hello and update” email.

“Remind them of what you’re doing, what you’re looking to do down the road, and ask about them,” says Robert Hellmann, the founder of Hellmann Career Consulting.

Match your skills to potential employers’ needs or skills gaps

Find an organization whose values match yours and that has challenges to which you have a solution, suggests Kim Ann Curtin, the founder and CEO of The Wall Street Coach

Cultivate relationships at various Wall Street firms and pay attention to what you hear about each organization.

“Ask yourself, ‘What skills do I have and what companies are best suited to my strengths?” she says. “Find that out by talking and building relationships with people across the spectrum – go to networking events to find out what’s going on with them, whether the company’s not promoting them or they just got promoted.

Make time for networking

Early autumn through the end of the year is also great for networking.

“The fall is busy with professional associations hosting events again after a quiet summer,” Ceniza-Levine says. “The holidays are a natural time to network – office parties and sending out greetings to contacts you may not have spoken to in a while.

Shift your mindset

You have to think of yourself in terms of your contributions to a prospective employer, rather than thinking, “I need a job; I want a job; why can’t I get anywhere?”

“It’s not about you; it’s about the employer, which requires a mindset shift,” Curtin says. “You’ll be much more successful in getting them to see you as different from everybody else.

Keep yourself informed about what’s happening across the industry

Read up on influencers in your industry, so you are up-to-date on the latest trends in your specific job function, Adler says.

You have to be plugged into the ups and downs of the major firms on Wall Street, Curtin says.

“Target a handful of prospective companies you like, do your research and pay attention to what’s happening,” she says. “Are they hiring? Laying off people? Being plugged into the industry and the competitors of the companies you’re targeting is key.”

Improve your social media presence

To get noticed by recruiters, build a strong presence on social media. Hellmann says that this means three things:

• creating a powerful, keyword-rich profile;
• build a quality network of people you know in some way from any walk of life where you might be open to helping them and the reverse; and
• follow thought-leaders in the industry on Twitter and join relevant LinkedIn groups.

“Do these things to improve your likelihood of being found on LinkedIn for opportunities,” Hellmann says. “When the time comes, you’ll use this presence to find people to reach out to as well.”

Consider writing one or two long-form blog posts or articles to push out across social media that demonstrate expertise beyond what your resume or profile shows.

“I had a client who recently received an interview and an offer because of just such a post,” Hellmann says.
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I’m American born, but I’ve spent my career working for a succession of major European and U.S. investment banks in London. I came here in 1995 and I became a British citizen in 2003.  I’ve loved and lived in London, but now I’m going home.

It’s Brexit. Of course, it’s Brexit (Doh!). But it’s not just that. It’s also the British economy and Britain as a whole. The country has lost its ebullience; the economy is sick and the people are among the most indebted in the world.  Brexit can only make matters worse. In the next few years, it seems the UK will voluntarily put itself through a Brexit-induced recession. Inflation is rising but it’s almost impossible for the Bank of England to increase interest rates. Manufacturing and consumer spending are slowing. The housing market is likely to go into reverse and many finance jobs are likely to leave. London is losing its lustre. I remember this city in 1995; it was a parochial place with hardly any good restaurants, where you couldn’t get takeaway coffee and the tube stopped twice a day; the IRA bombed Canary Wharf. Are we going back to the future?

In New York, it’s a different matter. It’s not just that the U.S. economy is healthier, but that the U.S. markets are deeper. There are more clients, the platforms are bigger. And U.S. markets will be less affected by MiFID II. 

I’m not saying it will be easy for me to get a job on Wall Street, but I know New York. I’ve lived there and I still own an apartment there. I already have a network of clients and colleagues there – although I’ve been based in the UK, I’ve traveled to the U.S. regularly and have always worked on international teams. I think I’m in with a chance.

Of course there’s nothing unusual about an American banker leaving London. In 2009, I was part of a group of 10 Americans who got together every few months – the rest all went home long ago. It’s been standard practice for Americans to come to London for two or three years before going back and demanding a promotion on the back of their “international experience.” The Americans who stay on tend to be married to Europeans, although this isn’t the case for me.

I have some regrets about leaving. There’s a sense of history in the UK. You can walk down a street and see a building that was built in the 1700s or 1800s – not many U.S. cities have that. You can travel to Europe easily, although I wouldn’t move there; Frankfurt’s too small and Paris is only good if you speak French.

In New York, you can be in the Caribbean in three hours. You can drive up the coast to Maine and New England. You can be in Florida in two and a half hours and California in 5.5 (if you fly). America’s massiveness is part of its problem and part of its appeal. I hope to find a job in its bigger pond; I’m leaving these murky waters behind.

Clara Rand is the pseudonym of a senior U.S. securities professional in London 

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Guy Hands, the founder of private equity firm Terra Firma has a theory – to avoid attracting money-motivated graduates who are also applying for jobs at Goldman Sachs, cut pay and wipe out bonuses for juniors. At Terra Firma, which is based in the UK, the upside for analysts joining the firm’s graduate programme is that if they hold out for five years it will put down a 40% deposit to help these millennial employees get a foothold in the notoriously expensive London property market.

The problem is that most other private equity firms are not following suit. Not only are investment banks creating a golden cage for their young recruits, buy-side firms are offering even more to entry level and junior employees to sway them across from big banks. New figures from Wall Street Oasis suggest that private equity firms pay their first year analysts the same on average as bulge bracket banks – namely $102k. After that, private equity firms stretch ahead.

In their second year, analysts in PE bring in $140k (compared to $113k at a large bank) and by the time they make it to VP, private equity professionals are earning an average of $69k more.

More to the point, most junior private equity jobs are missing one vital element of overall compensation – carried interest, or a share of the profits an investment generates. Certain larger private equity firms pay their analysts carried interest, but most start at associate level, according to separate figures from Preqin. It becomes a bigger deal once you hit director level, with carry hitting close to $1m, and then senior staff can get $3.3m plus.

Not all PE firms pay the same, however. Respondents to WSO’s survey said that The Riverside Company offers the best pay, followed by Fortess Investment Group and then buyout giants Carlyle Group and KKR.

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When is a banker not a banker? How about when he’s a former project manager turned, “head of tax transparent fund implementation,” at a major global custodian who has time for some serious hobbies on the side?  

This is the case with 46 year-old James Hillery, the celebrated “banker” on the popular U.K. TV show, The Great British Bake off.

Alongside his senior “tax implementation” day job at Northern Trust in London, Hillery has time to participate in Bake Off, to write and maintain a beautifully presented food blog, management an allotment, walk the dog and feed his chickens.  He describes himself as a “serial hobbyist” and posts regular photos of food he’s made to his Twitter account even on weekdays. Other bankers working 100 hour weeks may well look on in envy.

Of course, Hillery isn’t really a banker. – He’s a former project manager in a senior regulatory role at a custody firm. He does, however, work in finance and he demonstrates that some jobs in the industry aren’t all-consuming and do allow for a very fulsome life on the side. Despite the career misnomer he may also be a good ambassador for “bankers”, who are still vilified by a large proportion of the British public for causing the financial crisis.

Separately, Goldman Sachs is having to explain itself. Reuters reports that Goldman is going to be detailing precisely how it plans to turn around its fixed income trading business at the Barclays Global Financial Services Conference in September. The unprecedented explanation follows a 40% fall in Goldman’s fixed income trading revenues in the second quarter and some unsatisfactory responses to investors’ questions from new CFO Marty Chavez. The explanation will be delivered by former CFO, Harvey Schwartz.

Meanwhile:

Goldman Sachs still wants to be number one in Asian ECM even though it only ranked 15th last year. It has to aspire: the Chinese market is huge. (Financial Times)

VTB Group hired Ronan Connolly, the former head of equities trading at Nomura, as its global head of equities. (Financial News) 

Bankers at Ireland’s bailed-out banks currently have their salaries limited to €500k ($598k) and are banned from receiving bonuses. This may change now that the Irish economy’s booming again. (Bloomberg) 

BAML bankers with deferred stock bonuses can thank Warren Buffett. (Business Insider)

World’s new richest man sells women’s clothes. (Business Insider) 

Neither Citi nor Chase has lent to Trump since the mid-1990s. Deutsche Bank, however, always comes through. (Financial Times) 

Coffee cravings ruin your memory and metacognition. (British Psychological Society Digest) 

I failed to prevent my kid going to college. (James Altucher) 

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Point72 has poached a new head of algorithmic trading from Citadel in another sign that the family office is embracing a quantitative approach.

Jerrell Watts, the former head of algorithmic execution and order routing at Citadel, who has worked across both its hedge fund and securities business, joined Steve Cohen’s firm as head of algorithmic trading earlier this month.

Around two thirds of investments at Point72, which manages around $11bn of founder Steve Cohen’s money, are applied through a traditional discretionary model, and the remainder is invested through quant strategies.

Matthew Granade, managing director and chief intelligence officer at Point72, has this year been espousing the need for portfolio managers at the firm to embrace the so-called ‘quantamental’ approach, which merges computer and human-based decision making. All new graduate hires at the firm are now required to undergo some data science and computer programming training, he said at a conference in January.

Watts has a PhD in computer science from the California Institute of Technology and has held various senior quant roles at both investment banks and hedge funds during a 19-year finance career.

He worked at Citadel in New York for nearly eight years, before departing in April 2016. Like many hedge funds, Citadel often imposes one-year non-compete clauses on senior staff, which may explain the gap between jobs.

Before joining Citadel, Watts worked as portfolio manager and quantitative researcher within Merrill Lynch’s high frequency market making business. Prior to this, he established Lehman Brothers’ equity options automated trading operation in New York.

Point72 has also hired Raghav Misra for a trading analytics role. He was previously at J.P. Morgan in New York.

Follow @paultclarke

Contact: pclarke@efinancialcareers.com

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““

It’s over, and I made it – I received an offer to join my investment bank, which finally means I can swap Red Bull and coffee for a little champagne.

If the defining image of the financial crisis is bankers trudging out of Lehman Brothers’ offices with their possessions in a cardboard box, the process for choosing intern conversions is a little less dramatic.

Those with offers are given an envelope and walk around the office holding this with a big grin on their face. Those who didn’t make the cut simply left the office immediately with no ceremony whatsoever. This is sad – of course the bank doesn’t owe us anything, but it’s still a bit strange to spend the summer with a group of people, consider them your friends and then not even have a chance to say goodbye. Like clearing for university, these guys are now going to try to leverage their experience this summer to secure a job at another bank. Good luck to them, but it’s not a position I’d like to be in.

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve struggled with the long hours and never making it out of the office before 2am, but this isn’t the case for every bank. Bank of America Merrill Lynch requires its interns to leave the office before midnight and not to work at all during the weekend. This is a policy adopted after the death of BAML intern Moritz Erhardt in 2013. He died of natural causes, but worries were raised that he was working too hard after pulling consecutive all-nighters.

Apart from anything else, this made me wonder how their interns managed to get all their work done and do the necessary networking to secure an offer. The past few weeks have been a carefully orchestrated campaign of setting up coffees with senior bankers and working hard to show those on my desk that I’m worth hiring.

There are a few reasons why I believe certain interns didn’t make it. Firstly, I’d say it’s not down to business conditions – the bank could have hired all the interns if it wanted to, but chose to cut a few loose.

It’s also not all about networking. Yes, you need advocates in various business lines to give you the thumbs up, but you can spend too long cultivating contacts. Interns here spent loads of time setting up little dates with senior bankers to butter them up and impress them, but they let their work slip and this is just not acceptable.

If you want an offer, I think you need to be humble and competent. Personally, I’ve learned a lot about Excel and PowerPoint here, but a lot of interns came in thinking they know it all. The result was that they had ‘their’ way of doing things and kind of refused to learn the necessary hoops the bank requires you to jump through. Nothing pisses an analyst off more than having to redo an intern’s work, and then have them refuse to change.

For the past few weeks, a bunch of us have been working on a merger simulation case study based on a recent deal the bank completed. Essentially, we’ve been creating pitchbooks, pulling apart the financial aspects of the deal and presenting our rationale for taking the deal forward in a certain way. It’s been great to use our brains on this project, as a lot of the work you’re given as an intern can be quite basic.

This feeds into the bank’s decision to hire you – that and how you demonstrate softer factors like an ability to work in a team – so don’t underestimate it.

It’s weird, I have an offer on the table from a big investment bank and still a year left at university. For the past two years, I’ve combined my studies with a single-minded goal of getting into an investment bank after graduation. Now I have that job, I’m looking forward to taking it easier before the hard work really starts next September.

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 experience here. 

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