The London Financial Job Market is like an iceberg. 10% of the iceberg sits above the water and everybody can see it for miles around.These are the Graduate Programme offered by Investment Banks, major Fund Managers and the largest Consultancy firms.

The fact that everyone can see them means that everyone applies to them especially with Sales & Trading at Morgan Stanley sounding a pretty glamorous occupation (it can be glamorous at times as I used to trade bonds there!). But unfortunately Investment Banks receive approximately 130 applications for each place (double this number for Goldman Sachs).  130:1 I don’t like the sound of that. If you’re a top student from a Top 15 university maybe your odds are 30:1 but they are still lousy odds. I am not advising not to apply if you CV is right up there, with hopefully Internship experience in your bag , and hopefully Opening City Doors can help you secure a position but I am advising you to be aware of the odds and consider other options.

The other options exist with 90% of the City job iceberg that sits just below or deep below the surface , not naturally visible to graduates as they haven’t worked in the City before.

I’ve worked for 8 banks and 1 major Vendor company so have an inside track on all this ( see About section). One of the founding concepts of Opening City doors is to make this job market visible to graduates.

 So what sits below the water where the odds of getting hired and starting your London Financial Market Career significantly increase the deeper you delve?. Certainly Tier 2 and Tier 3 financial institutions do and I talk about them in this section of OCD.

 Additionally there are the Vendor companies which is a completely overlooked sector of the market. Think Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters and TWO HUNDRED PLUS companies of all sorts of sizes that service the banks and the fund managers. I cover the Vendor sector in some depth. This is a great place to job search.

 I am not saying that getting your London Financial Market job, whether that be graduate programme, sales, trading, IT, Human resources etc.., is easy but I am recommending you consider everything that sits below the water and because of my unique career experience I assure you that no other blog or website focuses on the ‘below the water’ institutions.You are significantly increasing your chances of getting hired  via focusing here.

Good luck

Paul McCormick

 Founder Opening City Doors