SG
View from the bottom: my Hong Kong horror story
1 April 2009
In the second of her regular “View from the bottom” series, our columnist tells us about her trip to Hong Kong in search of work. The writer is a young Singaporean banker who worked on Wall Street and is now searching for a job in Asia.
I had been scheduled to interview for a position in Hong Kong as a replacement hire at an investment bank there. However, due to repeated conflicts with client meetings, my interview was rescheduled not once or twice, but three times.
Ultimately I had to fly back to Singapore without having the interview. Perhaps it was just an unfortunate series of events, but I thought the bank would have at least made an effort to meet me, given that I paid for my own flight and had a fixed departure date.
But alas, in this employer-led market, there is no shortage of candidates from which banks can cherry pick at their own convenience. They won’t be losing any sleep about not meeting me.
I did manage to see several headhunters in Hong Kong. While it came as no surprise that they are all being inundated with CVs from the US and Europe, I was shocked to discover that many foreign job-seekers are flying to Asia to meet headhunters, even before they have any interviews lined up.
Although a background in US or European financial services is sometimes valued in the Hong Kong job market, the recruiters also said that, more often than not, a lack of Asian work experience (or lack of fluency in Asian languages) is frowned upon. Having only worked on Wall Street - strike one against me!
Generally, the headhunters echoed the public sentiment that investment banks have both over-hired and over-compensated their staff. In fact, until very recently, the high pay and benefits on offer in Asia helped attract many senior US bankers to the region, resulting in less promotion opportunities in local offices. Some of these high-flyers also transferred in the hope that Asia would be a safer haven for their jobs and would be more insulated from the current crisis.
However, in reality, banking chief executives are based in New York, not Hong Kong, so their current priorities are with Wall Street. And their deputies in Asia are inclined to take a cautious, wait-and-see stance before embarking on any hiring plans here.
By contrast, I was told that some smaller institutions or regional banks - which are not so impacted by toxic securities on their books - are looking to expand their operations. This is especially true with respect to commercial banking or in-house M&A strategy teams.
Unfortunately on the investment banking front, with fewer deals in the market, hiring is concentrated on poaching senior relationship bankers, rather than juniors like me.
In fact, most headhunters reckon that Asia could suffer even more finance-sector layoffs. They might well be right. I have friends who were recently retrenched for the second time – that’s certainly disconcerting.
Just my humble opinion - you have to set yourself a cutoff date after which you recalibrate your search towards positions which are not directly in investment banking, but related.
What you mentioned about in-house M&A strategy teams sounds promising. The key thing is to keep on accumulating relevant experience. Also, in direct i-banking, there is likely to be fiercer competition - and no guarantee of job security even after you secure a job.
You can always step back into I-banking later when the markets rebound. But, for now, with pickings slim, I think its prudent to widen your search field.
Chok Dee!
Shadowjack 01 Apr 2009
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