eFinancialCareers

One (rather exasperated) headhunter recently told me: “Finding an excellent private banker is like finding an excellent doctor. There are plenty of general practitioners around, but there aren’t many amazing surgeons.” The talk last year was of firms only wanting the best, most cashed-up bankers, which was fair enough in the midst of the financial crisis. The problem now is that vacancy levels are rising again, but recruitment requirements remain... Read more

The job market is picking up, but candidates today still don’t have it all their own way. The expected first-half hiring mini-boom comes with a serious sting in its tail. Banks remain risk adverse, frustratingly unwilling to take a punt on people who ace their interviews, but whose skills or job histories are a bit off kilter. Issues that employers might have turned a blind eye to back in ‘06 or... Read more

For Singaporean bankers working in Hong Kong, London or New York, a trip home for Christmas this year isn’t just about catching up with family and friends. As expectations for 2010 recruitment continue to rise, many professionals are also using their short festive breaks to introduce themselves to agency recruiters and hiring managers, who are, by and large, more than happy to meet them in person. We’re not talking formal... Read more

There are three key reasons for the growing global popularity of deferred bonuses: 1) appeasing the public and governments by punishing risk-taking bankers; 2) cutting immediate compensation costs for cash-strapped banks; and 3) aiding retention because employees must stay on longer to secure all their money. But as firms in Asia Pacific gear up for increased hiring next year, do any of these justifications really make sense in this region? Banks have... Read more

Candidates today are a lot pluckier that they were a year ago. In the awful aftermath of Lehman Brothers, who would have bothered asking a prospective employer for a guaranteed bonus? Not only were banks consumed by cost-cutting, but 2008 bonus expectations weren’t that great anyway, so moving sans guarantee was no biggie. However, as 2009 draws to a slightly more cheerful end, many job seekers (employed ones that is) are... Read more

Two common, but contradictory, themes are dominating the Asian employment market these days: 1) firms are hiring more; and 2) unemployed candidates are still getting nowhere fast. There’s a pretty big gulf emerging between what banks expect to do in the near future (take on more staff) and how jobless bankers see their future (bleak). First the good news. Hiring rates have been rising for at least six months and the outlook... Read more

If New York and London are bearing the brunt of redundancies in the US and Europe respectively, is Hong Kong becoming the best place to wield the axe in Asia? And are there any glimmers of hope on the job front? Everyone’s cutting in Q4 Staff numbers are falling at almost every big Western bank in HK. Deutsche Bank trimmed from its credit proprietary trading team last week, following in the footsteps... Read more

Last year, or even three months ago, it would be unthinkable: Merrill Lynch and UBS private bankers asking headhunters about jobs at UOB, DBS and OCBC. But now it seems some of Singapore’s private bankers are keen to flee the big firms, hot on the heels of their nervous high-net-worth clients. As Asian investors think twice about keeping their millions in banks tarnished by the credit crunch, the... Read more

Who would have thought that a bank from jobs-for-life Japan would become the prime player in the high-level game of recruitment musical chairs that is sweeping across Asia? Nomura’s takeover of Lehman Brothers in Asia-Pacific saw it offering jobs to almost all the US firm’s 3,000 staff in the region. While about 2,600 have chosen the safe option, a few hundred Lehmanites are hurling themselves on the hiring market, leaving... Read more

It’s not so surprising that Standard Chartered was about the only bank brave enough to offer up a speaker at this week’s Singapore Human Capital Summit. Peter Sands, group chief executive of Stan Chart, had a broadly upbeat message to tell the gathering of HR and recruitment bigwigs from across Asia. While some of his speech strayed into the woollier worlds of corporate values, branding and leadership, he also... Read more