Taking on short-term or project-oriented positions can help you develop new skills and possibly move you into a full-time job in investment banking, according to an article in the Financial Times online. With financial firms and recruiters being flooded with resumes, it pays to be a little creative in your approach to your next job.
Put your time out of work to good use by upgrading your skills or doing volunteer work, suggests Jo Causon, director of corporate affairs at the Chartered Institute of Management in London. Consulting or taking on an interim managerial job is another good options to consider, because these jobs expose you to opportunities within a company. You are also more attractive to companies when you are already employed.
HSBC has slashed 1,100 jobs in its investment banking division in response to slumping financial markets. The cut last week represents roughly 4 percent of the bank’s total number of employees in its global banking and markets division. The cuts affect about 500 staff in London, including back office and temporary workers, with the remainder of the layouts being in Europe and the U.S.
However, the Financial Times reports that despite the gloomy prognosis for capital markets in 2009, HSBC is determined to focus its investment banking operations in emerging markets such as Asia and the Middle East, where executives believe the bank has strong growth prospects.
Not long ago, thousands of highly trained tech professionals were in the same position as many of today’s financial professionals, when major firms downsized and smaller companies vaporized in the great tech meltdown of 2001. If you are looking for jobs in banking, you’d be wise to follow some of the strategies the most successful job seekers back then used for landing on their feet, as highlighted in the Globe and Mail:
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Act Quickly: start your job search fast, given that so many others will be looking.
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Broaden your thinking: ask yourself whether you want to stay in your current field or consider a different field.
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Be flexible: don’t limit your search by geography. If you can relocate outside your city, region or even country, your options widen. Also consider smaller companies who may welcome the opportunity to hire someone with your skills and background. You may even have to take a temporary cut in compensation and work your way up again.
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Use online resources to the fullest. One recruiter tells us that during the tech meltdown, colleagues and friends created private email networking groups and circulated news and job leads among group members. That way if one group member heard about a job opening that didn’t apply to him, other members of the group could go for it. This type of networking rapidly multiplies the number of job leads you hear about. It also pays to prowl chat rooms and niche job sites, and use online tools such as Linked-In, Facebook and MySpace.
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Upgrade your skills. If you can afford it, this might be the perfect time to go back to school to acquire new skills and wait out the softness in the current job market for a year or two.
