CAREERS ADVICE: How to secure a job at an Investment Bank

1. Understand the structure of an Investment Bank

Broadly speaking, an investment bank is divided into the front, middle and back office functional areas. There are many other areas, such as marketing and legal departments, but for the purpose of this article, we shall focus on the aforementioned areas.

Front Office:

The front office houses the revenue generators. These are the investment bankers, sales people and traders, whose responsibility it is to generate revenues for the firm in the form of fee income, in return for advisory services, or trading profits, from intelligently executing trades in the financial markets. The front office is divided into the public and private sides by an imaginary Chinese wall. This wall is intended to stop the flow of private information held in the private side, by investment bankers, to the public side, to sales people and traders, who could unfairly profit from such information against the rest of the market who are not privy to such information.

Skills required for a position in the front office vary from team to team and role to role, but generally they include strong communication skills, excellent spreadsheet skills, an analytical mind, pleasant soft skills (for clients and “upward management”), a head for numbers, the ability to work under pressure and or long hours.

As has been the case for the past eight to ten years, you will be hard pressed to find a front office team willing to hire a candidate without at least a 2:1 university degree. The better the university, the more likely it is that your CV will catch the eye of a hiring manager.

• The Private side of the Chinese Wall houses Investment Banking teams
o Corporate Finance
o Mergers & Acquisitions
o Equity Capital Markets
o Debt Capital Markets
• The Public side of the Chinese Wall houses Sales & Trading teams
o Salespeople sell financial products to corporations and financial institutions
o Traders market make and undertake proprietary trading in a variety of asset classes

Middle Office:

The middle office houses product control teams. It is their job to generate the profit and loss (P&L) accounts on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis for trading desks. Other responsibilities include investigating discrepancies between the trader’s expected P&L and that generated by the product control team.

The skills required include strong excel and VBA skills, good time management, strong communication skills and at times thick skin to deal with stressed traders.

Generally, a 2:1 university degree is required for an entry level position in the middle office. For experienced hire positions, increasingly, due to the oversupply of candidates in the current market, middle office departments have increased their candidate criteria and are now often looking for qualified accountants, although in years gone by this was not the case.

Back Office:

The back office houses a number of areas whose aim it is to settle and confirm trades executed by salespeople and traders with the other counterparties across the market. Skills required include strong spreadsheet skills and investigation skills. Often a university degree is not a prerequisite for a position in the back office. Teams include the following:
• Reconciliations
• Confirmations
• Settlement

2. Decide Who to Apply To:

Some global investment banks that you may consider applying to;

UK Investment Banks:
Barclays Capital
RBS

US Investment Banks:
Goldman Sachs
Morgan Stanley
Citigroup
JP Morgan
Bank of America Merrill Lynch

French Investment Banks:
Societe Generale
BNP Paribas

German Investment Banks:
Deutsche Bank
Dresdner Bank
Commerzbank Corporates and Markets (CBCM)

Asian Banks:
HSBC
Nomura

Suisse Investment Banks:
Credit Suisse
UBS

Corporate Finance Advisory Firms:
Lazard
Greenhill
Rothschild

3. Decide how to apply to them

You could apply directly to graduate or associate schemes (if you are an experienced hire). Bear in mind, timing is essential when applying to graduate schemes. Applications normally open in September for full time analyst positions and the sooner you apply the more chance you will have of securing an interview. Applicants always reach the tens of thousands for each global bank and are in the hundreds per position available. The faster you submit your applications the fewer graduates you are competing against. Alternatively you could contact recruitment companies and solicit their help for positions outside of graduate schemes, often a side route into investment banks, if you have missed application deadlines. A list of regularly used firms is as follows:

To Find Permanent Positions:

Cornell Partnership
http://www.cornellpartnership.com/
An excellent recruitment company who have deliver a personalised service to graduates and experienced hires alike. The company is run by talented and pleasant people who have great contacts in the markets and will be able to get you placed.

PER (Private Equity Recruitment)
http://www.perecruit.com/
This firm will help you find a front office entry level or experienced hire position in a Private Equity Firm or a Venture Capital Firm. Very organised. Deliver interviews. It is then down to you.

To Find Temporary or Permanent Positions:

Robert Walters
http://www.robertwalters.com/
This recruiter focuses on temporary and permanent positions in the Back and Middle offices of investment banks. One of the main recruiters in the city and has a large database of job opportunities.

Morgan Mckinley
http://www.morganmckinley.com/
Historically, this recruiter focussed on temporary and permanent positions in the Back and Middle offices of investment banks in the UK. Recently however, they have also branched out to offering jobs in the front office too. They also have offices worldwide and have a comprehensive range of recruitment consultants around the world. Again, one of the main recruiters in the city and has a large database of job opportunities.

Michael Page
http://www.michaelpage.co.uk/
Along the same lines as Morgan Mckinley, this recruiter offers temporary and permanent positions in the Back and Middle offices of investment banks as well as a comprehensive suite of front office positions too. They have offices worldwide and can assist with comprehensive searches of jobs on the global market. Again, one of the main recruiters in the city and has a large database of job opportunities.

Joslin Rowe
http://www.joslinrowe.com/
In a similar vein to Robert Walters, this recruiter focuses on temporary and permanent positions in the Back and Middle offices of investment banks. However, they do offer some front office positions. One of the main recruiters in the city and has a large database of job opportunities.

There are many other recruitment companies across the City of London that might also be useful. This list is a starting point.