Well, if you’re going for what some regard as the cream of the market jobs and you fight off all the considerable competition then you’ll end up on a graduate programme with lots of well-structured job rotation over the next 18-24 months.Good luck to you! However I know one large bank had almost 65,000 applications for just over 500 places on their global graduate programme last year and this is a common ‘Bulge Bracket’ graduate application ratio.
So maybe you don’t fancy odds of 130-1 against to get on those programmes. Let’s take the big banks and graduate schemes out of it for a moment and suppose you decide to apply directly to the second or third tier of banks, asset managers or FinTech companies (I can help there by the way). Now you might think that the opportunity at the FinTech company is a financial technology role…and the opportunity at the Fund Manager is some sort of junior money manager role…well absolutely not…or to put another way… the opportunities are so much more.
At any bank the job role possibilities include all of…and more
Trading/ sales/ research/ analyst/ human resources/ IT developer/ IT support/ project management/ business management/ finance/ marketing/ risk management
And strangely enough the list of roles at a Fund Management company include all of…and more
Trading/ sales/ research/ analyst/ human resources/ IT developer/ IT support/ project management/ business management/ finance/ marketing/ risk management
Even the FinTech company has most of those roles…i.e. sales/ human resources etc…
Conclusion: Suppose you are looking for a sales or human resource first ‘rung on the ladder’. Why not improve your chances by picking a sector that isn’t obvious like FinTech companies or Ratings Agencies and approach them directly. Let everyone else apply to J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank.
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