Goldman is getting ready to recruit new people at all levels in Warsaw.
Goldman’s Warsaw office opened around four years ago and already employs over 300 staff across technology, operations and HR. There are signs that it intends to hire in plenty more.
A few weeks ago, Goldman moved its veteran campus recruiter Samantha Liakris to Warsaw, where she will head up graduate recruitment for Goldman’s operation in Poland. The Polish capital is home to Warsaw University of Technology and is therefore fertile ground for technology graduates. Liakris has worked in graduate recruitment at Goldman since 2010, first in America, then in London and now in Poland.
Goldman is also looking to bolster its capacity for hiring experienced candidates in Warsaw. On Monday, the firm began advertising a new role for a head of experienced hire recruitment in the city, preferably with experience of recruiting for technology and finance jobs. The ideal candidate must be fluent in English and Polish, suggesting Goldman wants to derive Warsaw hires from the local market rather than luring people across from London. The Warsaw office is run by North Americans: Brent Watson, a Canadian who’s worked for Goldman since 1994, is in charge of Goldman’s Polish operation, and David Grant, an MD who also grew up in Poland, runs technology there.
In January, Handelsblatt suggested that Goldman Sachs could halve its headcount in London and move thousands of roles to Europe, with Frankfurt and Warsaw the main beneficiaries. There have been a handful of senior hires at Goldman in Warsaw in recent months, including Rafal Kokoszka, an executive director who joined from a technology company in Finland.
While Goldman beefs up its hiring capacity in Warsaw, so far, there’s little sign of Goldman or other doing much more than preparing the ground in Germany. Banks are lining up to shift hundreds of trading jobs from London to Frankfurt. Morgan Stanley, Citi and Goldman Sachs alone are expected to move a combined 600+ sales and trading jobs to the German city in the coming years. “Move” is the operative word though: London staff will be asked to migrate to Frankfurt; and only if they decline will new traders be hired on the ground.
This might be why neither nor Citi nor Morgan Stanley are currently advertising any roles at all in Frankfurt. Goldman is advertising for two regulatory compliance professionals in the city and a couple of HR positions (albeit not in recruitment) as it seemingly gets ready for the ‘Brexodus’. Deutsche Bank, which said today that it’s preparing for a hard Brexit and plans to book most of its trades in Frankfurt after the event, is also advertising for a new global markets compliance professional in Germany, but no new traders. If you want to find a new job in Europe post-Brexit, try Goldman Sachs in Warsaw. If you’re a trader, you’ll probably have to move with the job you’re already in.
Follow @MadameButcher
Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com
Related articles:
What happens if you’re asked to move from London because of Brexit?You've been asked to move to Paris or Frankfurt (or Dublin). Do you have to go?
Will trading jobs really move out of London after Brexit?Brexit as Schrödinger's cat. - There are two very different accounts of Deutsche's plans for its traders in future. Both cannot be true.
Top graduates are turning away from investment banks after BrexitCould it be? High paying investment banking jobs are suddenly undesirable.
““