ANNOUNCEMENT

Due to study and work commitments, I will only be taking new clients on an ad hoc basis

I will of course honour all existing commitments and will be happy to continue advising from this blog.

I plan to write 2 forthcoming articles, one on local employing institutions and another on the ” trading ” within the financial industry.

Also I have decided to take an even more direct approach and will be making more judgemental comments on individuals and organisations within the industry as I see fit.

Another thing is: in the past my articles have been well thought out but infrequent, from now on I will try to write more frequently but more spontaneously and less methodically.

Oh yes and leave your comments please ( after all this is free info) and you are most welcome to use anonymous names. In fact I prefer it that way

Talent Lab or totally talentless ?

OK, I’m going to save this post and change it into something that is relevant and current.

I have a client who wanted to get into regular retail banking sales, you know selling unit trusts, mortgages and all sorts of retail financial products.

Nothing wrong with that, in fact a bank’s main income comes from selling of one sort or another.

Very rarely do they ” play ” with their own money.

Anyway, he answers and ad from these clowns who used to call themselves Talent Lab changed now to Insan something.

So  he goes to the initial ‘ interview ‘ and makes the cut or so he thinks.

However no one from the bank was actually there and he was led to believe that Insan had the authority to select personnel  for the next round.

He was then ” officially ” told he made the next round of interviews and to wait for further instructions.

So wait and wait he did,at this stage I said I smell a rat and told him not to get his hopes up.

Lo and behold that was the last he heard of that.

Upshot of all this ? He wasted his time, money and hard pressed energy with this charade of a process.

 

Bottom line  = Insan if you don’t have the authority to interview and select then kindly keep your mouth shut, do  not conduct bogus interviews and selection just to masturbate your weak egos.

 

job seekers are not there for you to abuse, you morons.

Therefore when you guys apply to so call recruitment agencies and there are lots of them now – make very sure that the process is genuine otherwise you will wste a lot of time and money for nothing.

Ask : is the hirer actually going to be at the interview, if not then does the RA  have the authority to make selection.

Ring up the hirer if known and double check the above.

If they refuse to give the hirer’s name then I would tell them to F off and ditch them.

More or less guarantee that it will yield nothing if you pursue it.

This is the clowns’ homepage

http://akarinsan.com/ourlocation.html

OK good to be back and I got lots more for you all and I am letting it all hang out so it should be good.

ha ha

The Operation Theatre

What does an IB operation dept. do

There are many Ops depts but I’ll keep this to equities, what they do in a nutshell is make sure all the trades are actually settled. So that shares and bonds are actually delivered to the right people for the right amount for the right price and conversely the right amount of money goes to the seller.

All this within a reasonable time.

This will involve physically cross checking the transaction with the other party and ensuring that they also agree that they are the counter parties to that transaction.

They do other things too, like tot up the net buy and sell positions for margin to exchange purposes, if margins are needed to be kept.

This is of course is not glamour job in the classic sense, it’s not the front office of fund management or CF or dealing. But to me there are certain advantages of such a position especially in Malaysia.

Let’s face it even if you work for some of the so call big names in Msia. You won’t be doing much , JPM and BA have tiny offices here compared to their SG and HK dealings.

There is no CF and very little other dealings here.

In the big local houses – OK you can and will do the full range of services but as said before this will be full of pressure and 90% sure will be political stress [ ie. you have to lick the underside of someone you won't like very much ].

This is what you do for increased compensation.

You will end up unable to sleep with DEEP dark rings around your eyes – you know the deep kind that is the result of many nights lack of sleep . Your boss will know this and he will laugh at you because he has to do his own licking and this is his payback.

Sorry but this is mostly true.

Therefore what about Ops . Well usually you are left alone to do your job – just get your head down and make sure all the trades are matched. No pukima client who thinks  you owe them the world to look after, no pukima  boss to shadow you like a leech, no back biting by workmates looking to strike you down.

Just you and your trades. Don’t forget , less stress is very useful, less recovery time means you can do a lot of other things like study.

Also you pick up crucial but low profile skills which can be transferred to other jurisdictions like SG , HK and Europe and the pay is very high and the work flexible since it is usually contract basis.

But that is ok cause in Europe the pay can be as much as GBP 100 per hour and there is never a shortage of demand for this since most people see this as unglamorous  .

So you sneak under the radar, earn a good living, laff at the pseudo glamour suckers upgrade yourself and then apply for FO positions  in better jurisdictions.

Ha !

Don’ts are more important than do’s

 

It’s been a real long time since I posted but it’s been very hectic lately.

So today I want to talk about the things that you should do and even more important the  things that you should NOT do when you try to get in to IB. And it goes without saying that those of us who have been there before have seen the good , the bad and the ugly of I-Bank job applicants – that’s the I told you so part but we will get to that in a bit.

So let’start with the really important bits – WHAT NOT TO DO

Never ever try to out ego a financial institution – it will never work , it’s like spitting in the wind it will always end up splash on your own mug. FI’s , if you don’t know by now have large weak egos certainly much more than anything a newbie I-Banker could ever muster . But you shouldn’t anyway there’s no need for it unless of course you are the type that simply CANNOT control themselves.

Don’t ever have the attitude that you can go in and tell them what to do , Don’t define to them what they are and Don’t get company facts wrong !

Especially when you haven’t even put 1 toe inside – that’s just ridiculous and yet that’s what this one person tried if you can believe that.

Let’s call him / her X as there was some confusion even with this basic fact. X goes into an interview with StanChart full of confidence and self hype , bourne out of it’s own fantasies . The SC officer then asks X about SC’s products X spiels off some BS about wholesale banking and a few other minor products , to make things worse X then proceeds to tell the officer that SC is a global bank ,despite the fact that SC themselves say 90% of their profits come from non Western sources ! What a fool trying to define what the bank is and getting it totally wrong.

Understandably , the officer gets totally pissed off and leaves X with it’s mouth open and ego firmly punctured. What do you expect ?? Do you think that you can bluff the SC man who’s probably done hundreds of these interviews , I don’t think so , at least if you were going to try that sort of thing then try on a less obvious topic but NOT how much business they do and where . Joker. Sorry I have no respect for this person and usually I do not agree with the banks but this time I do .X has no right to whine about the issue as it was entirely at fault – what do you expect when you can’t even name 10% of their products and even told a outright lie about SC’s earnings . On top of that the attitude was shit – like he had a RIGHT to be in the bank. The officer is going to take 1 look at this and think “ yeah right boy keep your illusions that you are someone special to yourself cause right now you look like a psychopath , if you are like this now what will you be like once you get in “ .

A disaster is what this was.

So Moral here : do NOT lie about the bank’s facts and figures , never lie outright cause it will bite you in the ass. You can bend or stretch the truth but NEVER lie outright.

Do your homework and get your facts right , this should be a natural thing as if you are really interested in the post / industry , then researching as much as you can ACCURATELY should be as natural as eating .

The fact that this idiot got the most basic facts about SC wrong shows me that it had no genuine interest in the job , if it did the it would not have gotten such basic facts wrong.

Make sure the post matches more or less exactly what you want. So if you are really only interested in M & A’s / listings / debt issuance CF things , then be sure that the post is what this is . Never mind the labels , all sorts of labels can be used nowadays to describe all sorts of things. Investment banking can be used to describe a host of activities from CF to research to trading to operations – there is no hard and fast rule.

It is the FUNCTION that matters , if unsure call them & ask before you apply , and tell them that if it is not CF etc that you are not interested , if they don’t know then ask for someone who does , if they refuse then you can blow them off. A lot of banks HR these days need to fill X amount of applicants before they get their appraisals , so what you want they may not give a shit about and simply con you into being another number when you have no interest in it.

Related to this is : always be prepared to be tested / go the extra mile , NEVER be unprepared , as I said if you are genuine then this should come naturally. If you are not then expect shocks like another person who treated the whole thing as casual as going to the cinema on a Sunday night . Your entire attitude will be exposed like this girl was when asked if she was willing to work long hours – she got shocked and duly rejected.

Talk about making the most obvious mistake – IB is infamous for it’s long hours , you must expect that.

Oh and some people reading my posts about this make the mistake of believing that you should not reflect on your mistakes . No , no to try and analyse your mistakes is a good thing and with luck learn from them – even better.

A word about interviews , once you have one , it is an excellent chance to sell yourself , with HELP you should be converting 1 out 3 . That was my ratio anyway .

Also it ‘s OK to be rejected for the right reasons , you won’t fit into everyone’s plans and vice versa that’s for sure. But to lose for the WRONG reasons sucks .

Contrast the above experience with a couple of mine.

Interview 1

ING Sg with the Head of trading [ Late 90's ]

So I got this interview through a contact [ told you big i/vs only come with contacts ] for a sales trader position which is kind of like a execution stock broker for institutions.

If this was with a local house I wouldn’t have gone but since it was with ING I went for it

So I go inside and we sit down and started – he asked me a few questions , all of which I answered correctly but something was missing in there – what I call Spark , there was no connection between me and the guy. I knew the moment I left I didn’t get it and this was confirmed a few days later through a 3^rd party.

Contrast with interview 2

Shogun Oil Sg [ Late 90's ] with the MD and his #2

This is an example of how a good interview goes – smooth , relaxed , efficient but not over chummy [ if it ‘s too friendly they may be prepping you for the big letdown ].

So I get there , not a big place or name but they have a lot of European business . The #2 came in , sat down , he opens – asks about the KL market and Renong , at time was just before the crash . So with my finger on the money I told him with an explanation and a professional manner the market was toppish and to stay away from Renong . “ Very goood” he said and then everything just flowed from there , not long later the MD came in he gave a few testing comments to which I had good reposts and before long we were chatting like 3 friends in a pub. I had a very good feeling about this when I left and sure enough 3 days later I got the call. I actually turn them down as I still wanted to get into equities [ and later I got an offer ]. If this took place today I would probably have accepted Shogun.

But there it is : I won 1/ lost 1 , but BOTH times I performed well – so the loss was not cause of me but because we were not a good fit for each other and that’s the KEY – make sure you don’t lose due to your mistakes / bad preparation . Needless to say I can both get you the high level interviews and improve your performance many times over so that you maximize your chance and minimize losses due to bad preparation and lack of knowledge . And most of the fees are contingent on you getting the offer.

Investment Banking Lifestyle – a fly on the wall view

There’s been a lot of talk as to exactly what this means and it entails and it normally revolves around 3 topics : money , “ glamour “ and hours .
So as someone who has been there I think I can tell you something quite accurate about all this .
First off is the money good ? Yes of course it is , Let’s you start as a graduate in a decent shop at age 23/24 as a research analyst , you could easily be on R M7-10 k a month by the time you are 30, depending on exactly where you are . Obviously the bigger the institution / bigger the turnover the greater your rewards will be.
And turnover is the key word because don’t forget this is not an MNC which sells physical goods to the market , financial earnings through financial services are volatile and as you know this will depend on how good the market is each year. But usually in an average year , for a guy with 6/7 years experience , salary + bonus could be well within the range I mentioned .
Beyond that as you get into the CEO / Dept head levels , the pay levels are very impressive, RM 30 – 80k per month. A friend of mine in his 50’s , had a rather inconsistent career and had just come back after a long break [ a few years ] and he managed to pull RM30k per month as a research head , had he not taken a break his pay could be double that.

What’s the catch ? well quite simply , they will want their pint of blood from you . How ? it’s the hours and the pressure that kill people. Staying with the research example : yes , you will be left alone to do your own thing but this thing [ producing detailed analysis/reports on companies to invest ] have to be reproduced 15 x a month 180 x a year . The words monotonous and repetitive come to mind , and of course the hours are long as well , it will be something effectively like 7am – 9pm .
Well yes , like I said before in this world nothing is for free and no such thing as something for nothing not for that sort of money anyway .
So don’t ever say “ yes “ [ ie. Yes I do mind ! ] if you are asked “ Do you mind working long hours ? “ , if you want to get into IB. That’s for sure.
Other downsides , politics and job volatility . Many people still think this is like working for Nestles where you start as a graduate Jr manager , stay there 20 years and hopefully work your way up to GM or CEO. Nothing could be further from the truth especially in this environment.

Job “ stability “ in IB depends on markets and performance , markets depends on the economy but performance depends on both your productivity and your politicking . The economic factor is easy to explain , if the economy is good , investment market activity tends to be buoyant and fees for IB’s tend to be high , so good for the job market and those inside IB. Vice versa applies when the economy is not so good.

Then there is the politicking part , if you are lucky and end up in a good shop where they value performance over all else then that is fine but many places in IB are not like this. Whose ass you kiss matters. Example a major US Bank down in SG sacked a House FX trader who made them 10’s of millions in USD because he has a personal dispute with the Treasurer .
Let me ask you how fair is that , what do personal issues have to do with anything when you pull in them kind of returns ? But that is what happened.

So it is not uncommon for even senior staff to be gone within less than a year, like I said this ain’t a normal 9-5 industry.

Then there is the sexism : a woman who was not particularly well qualified and who was part of a team that lost 1million in the 90/s bull market was suddenly taken to another large US bank in HK to running a large equities house account . Why ? well to put it bluntly , she had nice tits and ass.
Yes it is grossly unfair to the men and women who work hard got the best of qualifications and who proved themselves at work only to be supplanted by this kind of crap.

But there you go : this stuff happens and I have to tell it like it is .
However you should not let all this put you off , the rewards are very high and this is exactly why I am here : to help you avoid and navigate through situations like this.

What about glamour ? well whether you are in Fund management , CF , or equity sales there will be clients to entertain , so there will be plenty of social occasions , drinks , receptions , meals , functions etc . So yes , I guess it is glamourous , especially to those who enjoy socializing.

That’s it, hope this answer many of your questions .

Head Hunters and Giving Head

Well , well it is no surprise , when I started to refer to head hunters , some 2 bit plagerizers started to jump on the band wagon and call themselves HH’s !

I mean what the f , if you are the likes of Watson Wyatt then yeah of course they are HH’s , who only go for senior staff with the likes of 10 years experience and so on , they are NOT remotely interested in freshers because the money is mickey mouse for MNC’s like them .

A HH goes out to actively ‘ hunt ‘ for senior staff , he calls them , he approaches them etc , a HH does not advertise on net forums for freshers.

So all those posting on that forum, get it through your think skull , if you recruit mainly freshers for low level jobs YOU ARE NOT A HEADHUNTER. You may call yourself anything I guess , but that does not make you a HH in the real sense . A cat calling itself a dog is still a cat !

You are f’g misleading the market if you say you are . You are no more than a job agency , full stop , don’t pretend to be a WW .

I mean the guy doesn’t even have a company and he calls himself a HH , HAHAHAHA. Giving head maybe but not head hunting that’s for sure .

And before anyone says it – No I am NOT a HH , never said I was , never want to be , I proudly work for the little guy .

 

 

 

I-Banking roles

Here are the basic functions within I-Banking , the only adjustments I would add is that the will be a physical division between Treasury and I-Banking functions [ all banks will have a treasury dept, but perhaps not an I-Bank . Eg. OCBC whose I-Bank division is in SG ] :

http://www.careers-in-finance.com/iboptions.htm

Therefore in terms of Trading, Structured finance,Derivatives,research , sales , Treasury will differ in terms on products .Basically treasury does all non equity products  and I-banking does the rest.

So forex , gov’t bonds , OTC and derivatives of , research and  sales of will be handled by Treasury. The rest I-banking.

treasury will trade  forex , govt. bonds, non equities products .

Jealous Pondans

I’m sure a lot of you will have noticed that there are a lot of fools out there who are jealous because they think I am showing off how great I am .

What a load of  bull. I mean if you are going to be jealous then at least get the reasons right , otherwise you tend to sound like a right moron.

This is why :

1) What I’ve done in I-Banking is nothing special , there are many many people who have doing 10x better . That’s for sure.  The point about putting up my bio is to show that I HAVE  actual experience and contacts inside the industry.

I mean it’s better to listen to some guy with experience rather than some fool posting on a forum who has no credentials .

2) There is no point of showing off  if I am not EVEN inside the industry. If I was some high flying fund manager then maybe it can be called showing off, laughing at the losers , but I am NOT , and if I was I would not have the time to maintain this blog I assure you of that . That’s the problem with these trolls , they don’t know what little time you have when you are inside I-B. You are totally involved with work that nothing else matters least the opinions of some jealous internet fag.

You see the source of the jealousy is their ignorance about how the industry works which vindicates what I am doing. Most of these people don’t even know what I-B is and what is retail banking.

They have NO IDEA what goes on inside I-Banking and certainly NO IDEA how to get in, otherwise they would know there is no reason to be ” jealous ” whatever the f that means . And what is sure is that if you have an attitude like this the chances of getting in are next to nil , cause there are even more bitter and more sneaky and more jealous people inside any of you will ever imagine. And without guidance you will die standing !

Don’t believe me please don’t , try it and see what happens, the fact that the pondans are here snipping and sniping proves they are nowhere near getting in to I-Banking.

And if you think that you have a right to demand information like this is for free , just because a few useless bums have posted on a forum some half-ass bits of info. You better think again , the same service in UK costs you over 20X my price. So don’t kid yourself nothing is truly free in life.

http://txinsider.wordpress.com/attention-hot-jobs/

http://www.harrisoncareers.com

Like I said nothing to be jealous about but still they are : Jealous Pondans

How good is good enough and how to get better

Let’s confine this discussion to the local MY IB market . A lot of people think to get into a top I-bank like CIMB or a foreign rep office you need to graduate from Harvard / Yale. That’s not true at ALL.

Just take a look at the board of CIMB , only the chairman himself comes from Oxford and his is a non operative role .

And this does not mean Malaysians are dumb, far from it but costs and familiarity are very large constraints. Also you must understand that the US / UK matkets are far larger , more varied and with much more depth, so naturally the knowledge has to be deeper and larger.

In any case this is a good thing, as what it means is that good grades from a 2^nd tier university will give you the necessary academics. Though I feel that overseas based whether all out or twinning is slightly preferred than local U’s , but I have seen in my time, plenty of local grads along with people from LSE , Essex , Curtin , UWA , Wisconsin , Oregon ,USC , Exeter , UEA , UCL .

What this means is that you won’t be at a disadvantage but you will be at the same level as most of the field , what you need to do is to differentiate yourself in a way that counts and makes you stand out.

Of course, if you are pre U right now, you need to know how to get to the best U’s on the least amount of money right ? unless your daddy is a billionaire , in which case you can just apply to the top UG and MBA programs around. Also how do you improve your qualifications if you are already a graduate or working in another industry trying to crossover to IB?

But what happens if you want to save money or can’t afford further education, is there any other way to crossover to I-Banking ? Yes there is , you can take another career route into IB , what is this ?

Well become a member and see for yourself.

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The Global Financial Crisis and the local IB scene .

Well , It can’t have escaped anyone that the ongoing economic crisis is going to create a big hole in the financial industries of the world , this is for sure . But how bad will it be for us in Malaysia as compared to the West.

 One thing that I am sure of, generally speaking 09 is going to be a very rough year. With news of 10’s of thousands of bankers losing their jobs in the US / UK / Europe and US 09 GDP estimates as low as -6% by some quarters [ my own feeling is that it will be -4/5%, still pretty bad ] , all this should come as no surprise . UK will not fare much better, as these 2 were the most leveraged and now they will be the worst hit.

 

What about East Asia ? SG is already in negative growth and 09Q1 is looking just as bad if not worse, HK is not faring much better. For us in MY , most economists are predicting between 3-5% GDP for 09 , I think it will be closer to 2% [ more by default rather than design ] , which is still very good considering most of the developed world if not the whole world is in recession .

 What does this mean for IB employment , well to me it’s quite clear that many Western bankers will look this way as a buffer to their own dying markets and from initial feedback it is already happening. Most will head to SG as HK has stricter laws on employing non HK nationals. I feel sorry for SG as they will bear the brunt of 10’s of thousands of Kwai lohs bearing down on their IB scene , things are going to be even harder for the locals .

 Why will they not descend here ? Many reasons , but primarily it is due to the very restrictive local employment policies [ effectively – the NEP ] , also the lower wages here .

 But why do we care , this a good thing . From my preliminary scoutings , this is confirmed – vacancies are still strong in some places yet in others there are cutbacks , net net things are currently about the same as in 08 .

So don’t worry too much , the opportunities are still there. However needless to say, it will be more competitive but not fatally so , meaning the Western hordes will not be here but more Malaysians who would have stayed on in the West will come back plus I predict a smattering of SG’ers seeking refuge here.

So one thing is for sure in this increasingly difficult environment you are going to need the best and most streetwise help you can get . Stay tuned, keep it here !

 

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