No, according to hiring managers and recruiters. Although applicants rarely mail in résumés these days, the job search isn't going paperless. In fact, experts say, a paper résumé can make or break a bid for a job.
Amy-Louise Goldberg, head of the human capital practice at Leslie Kavanagh Associates, says she still prefers candidates to arrive at interviews with résumés in hand.
Although Ms. Goldberg may do a Web search on prospective hires and review their LinkedIn profiles, she likes to write notes on the paper résumés during interviews and checks for any grammatical errors—which can be signs, she says, of a person who isn't attentive to details.
Your Questions Answered
Millennials often forget to bring a paper résumé to an interview, which can hurt their chances at landing a job, says Jaime Klein, founder of Inspire Human Resources, which operates as an outsourced HR department for other companies. "A résumé on nice stock paper shows you have a sense of decorum, especially since the millennials are being interviewed by Gen X-ers or Boomers," says Ms. Klein.
Southworth Co., which sells formal résumé paper at OfficeMax, Staples and other retailers, says sales of résumé paper were flat in 2011, but grew 3% to 5% annually between 2000 and 2010. That growth comes over a decade when printer-paper sales fell, says Southworth. Their best seller, at $8.99 a pop: the 100-sheet pack of watermarked, 100% cotton ivory résumé paper.
Paper is still top currency at job fairs, where recruiters expect a hard-copy résumé. David Krantz, a 34-year-old mechanical engineer in Richland, Wash., recently attended a job fair with dozens of paper résumés in hand. He secured a handful of interviews and brought additional paper résumés to those meetings.
"Something that's real instead of virtual makes it easier for the interviewers to concentrate," says Mr. Krantz. He eventually accepted one of three job offers.
Still, the printed résumé is evolving. Patricia Brennan, head of talent at ?What If! Innovation Partners, a consulting firm, says she's now seeing résumés that feature QR codes, which can be scanned with a smartphone and direct recruiters to additional information, such as a candidate's website or presentation.
The codes are a high-tech novelty, but they still keep paper in the equation, Ms. Brennan says. "You still have to print it out to use it," she says.
Your Résumé vs.
Oblivion
Inundated Companies Resort to Software to Sift Job Applications
for Right Skills
Many job seekers have long suspected their
online employment applications disappear into a black hole, never to be seen
again. Their fears may not be far off the mark, as more companies rely on
technology to winnow out less-qualified candidates.
Recruiters and hiring managers are overwhelmed
by the volume of résumés pouring in, thanks to the weak job market and new
tools that let applicants apply for a job with as little as one mouse click.
The professional networking website LinkedIn recently introduced an "apply
now" button on its job postings that sends the data in a job seeker's
profile directly to a potential employer.
While job boards and networking websites help
companies broadcast openings to a wide audience, potentially increasing the
chance the perfect candidate will reply, the resulting flood of applications
tends to include a lot of duds. Most recruiters report that at least 50% of job
hunters don't possess the basic qualifications for the jobs they are pursuing.
To cut through the clutter, many large and
midsize companies have turned to applicant-tracking systems to search resumes
for the right skills and experience. The systems, which can cost from $5,000 to
hundreds of thousands dollars, are efficient, but not foolproof.
Ed Struzik, anInternational Business MachinesCorp. expert on the systems, puts the proportion
of large companies using them in the "high 90%" range, and said it
would "be very rare to find a Fortune 500 company without one."
At many large companies the tracking systems
screen out about half of all résumés, says John Sullivan, a management
professor at San Francisco State University.
No wonder:StarbucksCorp. attracted 7.6 million job applicants over
the past 12 months for about 65,000 corporate and retail job openings;Procter & GambleInc. got nearly a million applications last year
for 2,000 new or vacant positions. Both companies use the systems.
Although they originally evolved to help
employers scan paper résumés into a database, do basic screening and trace an
applicant's path through the interview and hiring process, today's tracking
systems are programmed to scan for keywords, former employers, years of
experience and schools attended to identify candidates of likely interest.
Then, they rank the applicants. Those with low scores generally don't make it
to the next round.
The screening systems are one way companies are
seeking to cut the costs of hiring a new employee, which now averages $3,479,
according to human-resources consulting firm Bersin & Associates. Big
companies, some of which cut their human-resources staffs during the recession,
now spend about 7% of their external recruitment budgets on applicant-tracking
systems, the firm says.
AtPNC Financial Services Group,
which has used applicant-tracking system software for 15 years, an applicant
for a bank-teller job is filtered out if his résumé doesn't indicate that he
has two to three years of cash-handling experience. PNC emails rejected applicants
within a day, suggesting they search its website for jobs for which they are
better qualified, says Jillian Snavely, senior recruiting manager.
A recruiter reviews the applicants who make it
through the first cut. They get a live or automated phone interview.
The tracking software has its pitfalls. It may
miss the most-qualified applicant if that person doesn't game the system by
larding his or her résumé with keywords from the job description, according to
Mark Mehler, co-founder of consulting firm Career Xroads, which advises
companies on staffing.
But the idea isn't to replace human screeners
entirely. Experts say the systems simply narrow the field to a size hiring
managers can handle. They also stress that, despite advances in the software,
the single best method of getting a job remains a referral from a company
employee.
One small error, such as listing the name of a
former employer after the years worked there, instead of before, can ruin a
great candidate's chances.
"There are some things parsers are just too
stupid to figure out," says Bersin & Associates Chief Executive Josh
Bersin. And they do add to job seekers' impression that submitting applications
online is largely futile, especially when that person customizes a résumé for a
job that seems a natural fit.
"I kind of wonder if some of the jobs I'm
applying to even exist," says Asa Denton, a 31-year-old software
programmer in Reno, Nev., who has been job hunting for four months.
Elaine Orler, president of Talent Function Group
LLC and an expert on the tracking systems, says they should be more
candidate-friendly. In the future, she said, forward-thinking companies will
allow applicants to check the status of their applications online. The bottom
line, she added: "Candidates deserve respect."
For all their flaws, recruiters generally prefer
the automated systems. Texas Roadhouse Inc., a restaurant operator with 350
locations, plans to adopt a tracking system this year to handle the flow of
applications for hourly jobs.
Julie Juvera, head of human resources at the
chain's headquarters in Louisville, Ky., said she gets as many as 400 résumés
for a job opening within 24 hours after listing it online. "We used to
hand-write a postcard to every single applicant saying 'thank you so much for
applying.' But that's become too overwhelming and tedious."
Now the company sends an automated email to an
applicant to tell him his résumé is being reviewed, and that it will contact
him if it is considering him for a job.
Résumé overload isn't just a big-company
problem. Job seekers often are surprised when they don't hear back from small
businesses. Small businesses rarely hire enough people to make an
applicant-tracking system cost-effective, but even a one-time posting on a
well-trafficked job board like Monster.com can garner hundreds of responses.
Only 19% of hiring managers at small companies
look at a majority of the résumés they receive, and 47% said they review just a
few, according to a recent survey by Information Strategies Inc., publisher of
Your HR Digest, an online newsletter.
When Mr. Denton, the software programmer, sent
his résumé toGoogle, Inc. andWalt DisneyCo., he wasn't terribly surprised when he
received nothing but an email acknowledgment, but he expected a more personal
response from a small Reno company.
When he called to ask for an update on his
application, he was told the company's vice president was in charge of hiring,
and surmised that the executive was too busy to read through the submissions.
"What I'm going to do is turn up on their doorstep," said Mr. Denton.
"I really have nothing to lose."
— Rachel Emma Silverman
contributed to this article.
JPMorgan to Hire in 2012
By Julie Steinberg
Despite a weak second half and continued market volatility last year, JP Morgan add 20,300 employees and intends to keep hiring in certain areas in 2012.
The bank increased total headcount to 260,157, an 8% increase over the year-earlier period, the bank said in its latest earnings report.
Retail financial services accounted for most of the growth. The group's headcount increased by 16,200 people in 2011, with roughly 4,000 people coming in the fourth quarter alone. JPMorgan added 240 retail bank branches in 2011.
On a conference call this morning, Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said the bank will continue to add branches and employees, particularly in California and Florida. "We're adding private bankers, we're adding branches overseas," Dimon said. "We opened 20 branches overseas. All those things add people."
"To that extent that we can open a branch and get a good return, we're going to do it," he said. "We're going to modify the size, location and services of the branch but we're going to continue opening [them] as long we think we're going to get a good return."
Around 600 investment bankers left or were dismissed in the fourth quarter, with the unit shrinking to 25,999 employees.
JP Morgan also said its unit handling defaulted mortgages will contract this year after expanding the last couple years. The bank hired between 15,000 and 20,000 people to handle defaulted mortgages and foreclosed assets, according to Dimon, and "that number has peaked and will come down," he said.
Compensation per employee in the investment bank fell to an average of $341,552, down from $369,651 in 2010. The compensation ratio, or the percentage of the division's revenue paid out as compensation, fell to 34% in 2011 from 37% in 2010.
"We think we paid appropriately given the performance of the investment bank," said Chief Financial Officer Doug Braunstein, who was also on the call. "We expect [the compensation ratio] to return to appropriate levels. We'll see what the markets bring."
Capital Markets IT Professionals in Strong Demand
It is a good time to be an IT professional in the capital markets space. The number one priority for Wall Street hiring managers is to find talented IT professionals, according to a study from eFinancialCareers.
Financial firms indicate that finding and hiring technology talent is the number one priority in 2012, according to a study fromeFinancialCareers.com, a network of job sites for professionals in the financial space. "You can't escape technology because it is the backbone of the firm, it is client service, it is how to complete a transaction," says Constance Melrose, managing director, eFinancialCareers.com, Americas. "Financial services companies understand that in order to increase business intelligence, or to make smarter trades, or to understand risk, technology sits behind all of those decisions and processes."
That's not to say everything is looking up on Wall Street. In December alone, Wall Street lost 3,900 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. On eFinancialCareers, however, technology job listings are holding steady. Technology job postings on the site are essentially flat year over year, outpacing a general decline of 5 percent in all Wall Street job postings to start 2012, according to eFinancialCareers. Moreover, the United States isn't the hottest market for capital markets jobs. According to eFinancialCareers, on January 1, there were just 1,210 jobs posted in the United States, while there were 2,845 in the U.K, 2,480 in Asia/Pacific and 1,374 in Continental Europe & Middle East.
The second highest priority after technologists, in terms of activity on eFinancialCareers in December 2011, was quantitative analysts, according to Melrose. "For some, especially in the capital markets space, quantitative analysis is just technology by another name," she adds.
For technologists looking for a job in the capital markets, different types of firms look for different skill sets. "A technologist who has financial services experience always is at a premium," says Melrose. "However, when you talk to buys side organizations, they are more willing to take people without financial services experience, where sell side firms, for the most part, definitely want people with experience." Melrose says buy side firms are often looking for quants or individuals with a PhD in engineering or computer science to develop investment ideas with a different point of view.
The third highest hiring priority for firms is risk risk management, according to the survey of 200 outside recruiters and hiring managers from Wall Street firms including asset managers, investment banks, broker/dealers and hedge funds. Firms have extended risk principles to every aspect of their business -- including compensation. With two years of uninterrupted monthly year/year growth, the demand for risk talent continues, according to eFinancialCareers. "Financial regulatory reform has certainly been a boon for financial technologists," notes Melrose.
Q: I am a senior executive
and haven't looked for a job in more than 10 years. How can I make my résumé
more current by today's standards?
A:While the résumé as you know it from 10 years
ago is still alive and kicking, there have been a number of modifications to
it. No longer do job candidates simply present a Word document of their
qualifications. Today, they need to craft a package both online and off to
present to a prospective employer. This needs to include both a résumé and an
online profile as well as an easy way for a prospective employer or recruiter
to move back and forth between the two.
Embrace technology. The biggest change is also the most expected
one: a move toward technology. An online networking presence is no longer just
an option but a requirement.
In today's executive search market, if you're
not on LinkedIn, you don't exist," says Wendy Enelow, author of
"Expert Resumes for Managers and Executives" and "Best Resumes
for $100,000+ Jobs." Ms. Enelow suggests including live email links on
your Microsoft Word résumé and live links to your LinkedIn profile. "Make
it easy for recruiters and hiring managers to contact you with one click to
your email and one click to your LinkedIn profile," she says.
Don't make assumptions.The job market is in a transition stage when it
comes to applications and how they are submitted, says Mary Henige, General
Motors' director of social media and digital communications. Therefore, a lot
of how you present yourself should depend on the hiring manager's preference,
she says. If you're not sure what that is, it's best to cover all of your
bases. "I recommend that a candidate include both a link to his or her
résumé and an attachment but to never assume it's one way or another unless
it's clear," says Ms. Henige.
Expansion is good.The one-page rule for résumés no longer holds
true, according to Howard Seidel, a partner at Essex Partners, a Boston-based senior
level career management firm. "While one page makes sense when you have
little experience, it doesn't make sense when, as a senior executive, you have
10, 20 or more years of experience," he says. "Executive typically do
themselves an injustice by keeping the résumé to a page." Mr. Seidel
suggests expanding to two or three pages but giving the first page enough punch
to entice the reader to delve further.
Overused is out.At first glance, "team player" and
"innovative" might sound like good words to use on your résumé, but
that would be a mistake, according to Krista Canfield, a spokesperson for
LinkedIn. The business networking site recently combed through millions of user
profiles and came up with a list of the top 10 overused terms. These included innovative,
dynamic, motivated, extensive experience, results-oriented, proven track
record, team player, fast-paced, problem solver, and entrepreneurial.
"Your online profile is a valuable piece of
professional real estate," says Ms. Canfield. "The problem with using
generic words and phrases in your profile and résumé is that hundreds, if not
thousands, of other professionals are describing themselves the exact same
way." She suggests replacing the overused terms with descriptions of those
specific projects that you have worked on, which resulted in concrete results
for your clients.
Looks still count.Even with the explosion of email over the last
decade, aesthetics still matter, says Mr. Seidel. In some ways, they are more
important than ever. "In addition to information overload, many employers
experience résumé overload," he says. "If an employer or a recruiter
is seeking you out because of a reputation, the résumé's appearance may not
matter. If you are seeking out an employer's attention, its appearance often
does matter."
Scanned not read.One thing that has not changed is employers
scanning résumés rather than reading them word-for-word, says Kathryn Ullrich,
an executive career consultant in Silicon Valley and author of "Getting to
the Top: Strategies for Career Success." To differentiate yourself from
the pack, broadcast your brand. One way to do this, says Ms. Ullrich, is to
replace an old-school phrase like "summary" at the top of your résumé
with your brand: "social media marketing" or "finance director,
software," for example. "Invite a longer, deeper look at your résumé
by making your brand stand out," she says.
You can now add another place to your list of where to find a retail finance job: South Africa.
The country added 53,000 jobs in finance, real estate, insurance and related businesses in the third quarter. Total employment in the finance industry increased in November, for the fourth month in a row, by 0.7% to 1.63 million.
Banks like Standard Bank Group, FirstRand, Nedbank Group and Barclays' Absa Group are trying to entice the 9 million South Africans who don't have bank accounts to use their services.
Smaller lenders, like Capitec and First National Bank, are also hiring. Capitec hires around 200 new employees every month, and First National Bank has brought on more than 800 for its branches.
"Banking employment will continue to grow next year," a Johannesburg economist told Bloomberg. "There is strong growth in the unrecorded economy and it's their banking needs that are being tapped into."
It's not just retail businesses that need folks. JPMorgan's corporate bank has been hiring in the country, and bankers with mining and natural resources experience, as well as currency traders, are in hot demand.
Companies Searching Facebook, LinkedIn for
Job Candidates
By Joseph Walker November 17, 2011
Companies are spending more this year on recruiting but are focusing their dollars on more high-tech methods than in the past, a new report suggests. Additionally, more companies are hiring their own full-time recruiters or temporary contract recruiters to cut down on the costs of outside recruiting agencies, the report from Bersin & Associates, a human resources consulting firm, found.
"There are shifts in how companies are allocating their money," said Karen O'Leonard, an analyst and author of the Bersin study. "In the long-term, the shifts will save companies money."
The report, The Talent Acquisition Factbook 2011, is based on surveys of 414 companies ranging from small to large businesses, conducted in June and July of 2011. Respondents were chosen from Bersin's and LinkedIn's databases.
Job boards and internal candidates were the biggest sources of filled open positions, accounting for about 38% of all hires. Third party recruiting agencies accounted for just 9% of filled positions, but consumed about one-third of recruiting budgets, the reports said. The cost of using an agency averaged about 21% of a new hire's first-year salary, the report said.
While job boards and outside recruiting agencies were still among the most popular methods of recruiting, some companies are shifting their spending into more high-tech strategies. One company cited in the report, Colorado-based engineering and construction firm CH2M HILL, shifted half of its recruiting budget away from job boards to professional networking sites like LinkedIn and Viadeo, and social media tools like Facebook, a company spokesperson said.
Some companies are also exploring newer software-based approaches to recruiting. Many companies use what are known as Applicant Tracking Systems. These software programs collect and collate all of the personal and professional information a job candidate submits online, and then ranks each candidate according to how well they match up to a given job description.
But candidates who are passed over for a given job essentially disappear from the system, even if they might be a good candidate for a future job opening, said Katherine Jones, director of research and human capital management at Bersin. "It's an Industrial Revolution-age concept," she said.
As an alternative, more companies are using Candidate Relationship Management software like LinkedIn's Recruiter tool or Avature's CRM Web 2.0, which allows companies to track and communicate with candidates who may or may not have applied for a job with the company. In this way, companies can develop a talent pipeline for a position before it even opens. This kind of software allows companies to keep candidates on the "backburner until something comes up and then they can start pursuing them aggressively," Jones said.
LinkedIn started off as somewhat of a punch line – a social network for professionals? Who would use such a thing? After all social networking is about socialising not getting a job. Well the critics have most certainly been proved wrong and LinkedIn is now one of the biggest social networks in the world and it is increasingly affecting the way people get their jobs. Indeed, people with recruitment jobs often use it to track down applicants, and headhunt people from other organisations.
So can you use LinkedIn to get a job? Absolutely and here’s how…
1. Have a great profile: This is common sense, but it seems people think being on LinkedIn is enough – yet your profile is just like a resume and it needs to be letter perfect for people to take you seriously. So flesh it out fully and spell and grammar check everything religiously. Also be sure to avoid terms like “guru”, “whiz” and “ninja” when you describe yourself. There are so many self-proclaimed social media gurus on LinkedIn - it’s enough to make a recruiter blanch.
2. Get recommended: Recommendations are one of the most powerful ways to boost your profile as they provide genuine insight into how you work – best of all, you can choose who speaks for you, making this a great way to sell yourself to prospective employers.
3. Upgrade your account: LinkedIn is a free service, but to really get the most of it you may need to pay a bit of money. For job seekers there are three tiers of account: Job Seeker Basic, Job Seeker and Job Seeker Plus. These allow you to see who has looked at your profile and contact people who you are not connected to (otherwise this is impossible), while also moving you to the top of searches. This may be a tough bullet to bite when you are looking for a job, but it will be well worth it if it helps you land a new gig.
4. Build up relationships with recruiters: Recruiters are just like anyone, they like to help out people they know. So identify key recruitment agencies, and then get in contact with key people there who specialise in your sector. Send them an email, and then try and connect on LinkedIn – fire them an introductory message so they can see how good your profile is and then see what happens. It’s also worth following them on Twitter as many recruiters now post openings that way.
5. Optimise your social media profile: LinkedIn is a great tool – but if a recruiter or HR manager is using it, then they are likely to be savvy with other social media networks. So make sure you have a tidy Facebookprofile (or that you can’t be found via search) and an interesting and industry relevant Twitter feed. You don’t want to look incredibly professional on LinkedIn and like a fool on another, easily accessible, platform.
If you are looking for a job, you need to utilise LinkedIn. It is an incredibly powerful tool, and it can help you get a job. That said, it has not replaced traditional job hunting, and it should just be one element in your approach to getting a job.
In one bright spot of finance hiring, private equity firms say they are hiring compliance officers to meet new registration requirements at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Under The Dodd-Frank Act, the financial reform bill that was signed into law in July 2010, private equity firms with more than $150 million in assets under management are required to register with the SEC and maintain records for each fund they manage. The SEC pushed back the deadline for registration from July 21, 2011 to March 30, 2012, giving firms more time to hire, said experts at the Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst Conference in New York.
A compliance officer is responsible for ensuring that the firm is abiding by regulatory requirements. At a private equity firm, he or she helps with SEC registration, maintains records for review by the government and drafts a compliance manual for the firm. Chief compliance officers can come from legal or finance backgrounds and tend to have at least five to seven years of experience, recruiters say.
"There are plenty of opportunities in compliance right now, and there will be plenty more once registration for private fund advisers becomes effective in March 2012," said Paula Bosco, the chief compliance officer at New Mountain Capital, a New York-based private equity firm with more than $8.5 billion in assets under management.
After firms register, they'll have to record the number of assets under management, type of assets held and counterparty risk exposure for each fund they manage.
Hundreds of firms or more still have to register, according to Jason Ment, chief compliance officer at StepStone Group LLC, a private equity firm overseeing over $30 billion dollars of private equity allocations, including $7.6 billion assets under management.
Firms can find compliance officers both inside and outside their ranks. Some firms manage by making their chief financial officers or legal counsel assume the position of chief compliance officer, said Bosco.
John Malfettone, a panelist and senior managing director at New York-based private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice who oversees compliance, said firms with between $150 million and $4 billion in assets under management will probably make compliance a part-time endeavor of the chief operating officer, for example.
Or firms can add a compliance officer to their staff. Fisher Lynch Capital, a San Mateo, California-based boutique private equity firm, recently hired a full-time chief compliance officer to help with the new regulations, said Debbie Richard, the firm's chief financial officer.
If firms don't want to add a person in-house, they can hire a compliance consultant like ACA Compliance Group or Counselworks, which provide compliance help on retainer, said Ment of StepStone Group. The consultant will draft the compliance manual, code of ethics, set up record-keeping, and work as a shadow to the chief compliance officer.
Ment said these firms have been ramping up hiring for compliance professionals over the past 18 months as a result of Dodd-Frank and that employment opportunities will continue to be available over the coming months. He hired a vice president of legal and compliance earlier this year who had a law degree and some compliance experience.
The best way to find a job is through existing personal connections, Ment said. "The resume alone can't convince someone of your judgment, so having a personal relationship with the person helps and becomes important," he said.
Lawyers who want to become compliance officers should know that the interviews don't resemble those at a law firm. "A lot of law firm interviews are largely personality interviews, the skill set almost being assumed based on your years of service at a firm," he said. "When interviewing at an investment firm, I don't think skill set is presumed. Be prepared to speak about how well you can do the job and why. Also, have a view on industry trends and things in the news are affecting the industry."
When Ment was interviewing candidates for his firm, he noted that the applicants who didn't have a view on industry trends came across as lacking the right perspective for the job.
Cantor Fitzgerald & Co is looking to hire up to 20 analysts after agreeing a deal with S&P Capital IQ to jointly supply research reports to institutional clients.
Cantor said in a statement yesterday that it will distribute and market global company equity research, strategy research and industry surveys that are co-branded with S&P Capital IQ, a unit of McGraw-Hill.
Under the agreement, Cantor's clients will also have direct access to S&P Capital IQ's equity analysts, S&P Capital IQ hosted issuer meetings, analyst events, seminars and investment conferences.
Shawn Matthews, chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, said the firm plans to expand its relatively small research team.
Matthews told Financial News: "The depth and breadth of Capital IQ and its global reach gives us a significant presence as we continue to expand our own franchise. We are looking to add 15 to 20 analysts by the end of the year who will cover sectors in alignment with our banking business."
Matthews said the firm had been growing market share in equities, although he declined to comment on the specific number. He said: "We will be looking to pass people in the next year."
Cantor Fitzgerald & Co also said yesterday that Jeffrey Lumby has been appointed head of equity capital markets.
Lumby has been at Cantor since 2001 and was previously a senior managing director responsible for the firm's controlled equity offering product, an at-the-market structure which allows listed companies to sell newly issued shares in the normal secondary market at prevailing market prices over time, instead of the underwriter agreeing to sell shares at a fixed price all at once.
The company said Lumby and his team have led more than 100 at‐the‐market offerings with a value in excess of $14bn.
Lumby will report to Matthews and work closely with Jarred Kessler, global head of equities, and with Steven Kantor, executive managing director and global head of investment banking.
LinkedIn is the social media platform of choice for many business owners and professionals. Whenever I write a post about LinkedIn, dozens of readers email me saying they get more, in terms of making and maintaining connections that provide a tangible benefit, from LinkedIn than from Facebook or Twitter combined.
LinkedIn Groups. Groups are like informal communities based on industries, professions, themes, niche topics… since any LinkedIn member can create one, there are nearly a million groups. Find the right groups and you can keep up with news and trends, make connections, ask and answer questions…
So let’s find the right groups for you. (I’ll start basic, so feel free to skip ahead.)
1. Determine your goal. It’s unlikely anyone group will meet all your needs. Decide whether you’re looking to connect with potential clients, establish your credentials and authority, learn more about your field — whatever you hope to achieve. Start with one goal; you can always branch out later.
2. Use the search tool. Go to the Groups Directory page (or click the Groups link at the top after you sign in) and enter a search term based on your goal. But keep in mind broad terms will generate broad results; if I use “writing” I get over 1,700 results; “writer” yields 358 results. Think about what you’re looking for and be as specific as possible.
3. Borrow leads. Searching is useful, but so is following the lead of people you respect. Go to any profile page and check out the groups that person belongs to; chances are one or two match your goals. (Plus, joining the same groups increases your chances of connecting with the people you hope to connect with.) Chances are influential people in your industry are members of useful groups — why not follow their lead?
4. Check out the possibilities. Search results list groups in descending order based on the number of members. Under each group is a brief description. Sometimes the description is helpful, other times the group has veered away from its original purpose. The only way to know is to…
5. Join a few groups. The only way to know if a group is worthwhile is to check it out, so pick a few that seem interesting and join. (You can be a member of up to 50 groups, and you can leave a group at any time, so there’s no harm in experimenting.) Read recent discussions and click the “Members” link to find out who else is in the group. If you find heavy hitters or people you respect, that’s a good sign.
Keep in mind some groups are members-only; the manager of the group must accept you before you can see discussions or participate. Members-only groups tend to be more focused and less spammy, but there are lots of open groups that are just as on-topic and spam-free.
6. Evaluate the potential. Check out the quality of the discussions or updates. Are article or resource references relevant and valuable? Are discussions of interest? Are there sufficient members to create a vibrant group? Think about your goal and determine if the group is likely to help you reach that goal — and keep in mind you can always leave if your initial impression turns out to be wrong.
7. Then wait. Don’t be the guy who barges into a discussion at a party. Sit back, watch, listen, and get a feel for how the group operates. Then gradually start to participate, and start by responding to questions or topics raised by others. Get a real feel for the group, and let the group get a feel for you, before you start driving discussions. Otherwise you’re that guy.
8. Stay reasonably active. You don’t have to participate every day, but you should be somewhat regular. (Otherwise why join the group?) That’s especially true if you hope to establish yourself as an authority; it’s hard to spark great discussions and answer questions if you’re never around.
9. Consider starting a group. Anyone can found a group. If you do, and your group becomes popular, you can drive traffic to your website and send free weekly messages to group members — all of whom opted in. But wait until you really understand how groups operate before you found a group, and think about how you can differentiate your group from the hundreds of thousands that already exist. Otherwise you may just belong to a group of one.
CFA Trumps B School for Finance
WRITTEN BY: JAMES - SEP• 01•11
There is a great scene in the movie Goodwill Hunting where Matt Damon comes to the defense of Ben Affleck in a bar when a preppy stuck up Harvard kid tries to embarrass Affleck when the poor guy is just trying to get laid. As the conversation plays out, Damon, in a Boston accent, ends up saying something to the effect of, “See, the sad thing about a guy like you is in 50 years you’re gonna staht doin some thinkin on your own and you’re gonna come up with the fact that there are two certaintees in life. One, don’t do that. And Two, you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a fucking education you coulda got for a dollah fifty in late chahges at the public library.” Aside from Goodwill Hunting being one of the greatest movies ever made, this quote perfectly embodies the point I am about to make.
For those of you who do not already know, the CFA consists of 3 levels or exams over the course of at least one and a half years of study (the limitation is due to the fact that the tests are offered sparingly throughout the year). Each test takes about 200-300+ hours of studying for you to even have a legitimate chance of passing. The pass rate for each test is almost always below 50% and the pass rate for the whole program is much worse. I went to a very good business school and did well. Not once, undergrad or grad, did I ever read a textbook front to back. Heck, some of my books I never even opened and I spent over $200k on my education, not to mention the opportunity costs involved in forgoing work. I did this, like everyone else who does it, because I knew that people perceive you to be smarter, more ambitious, hard working, etc if you obtain that $200k overpriced piece of paper. In addition, your future wages on the aggregate are directly correlated with whether or not you have a degree. Also, I bought the story that college was worth its weight in gold. However, after studying for and passing the first two CFA exams I came to realize that not only did I learn more on my own than I did during 5 years of school from the CFA Program (and I was a double major in finance and global perspectives with a minor in accountancy), but also I did so at less than 1% of the cost (books about $3k and school + opportunity cost over $300k easy).
A friend of mine had a professor that asked his class on its first day of school why they were there. Everyone looked around the room at each other as if to say, “Ummm obviously to learn, get a degree, get a job etc.” One brave soul eventually responded as such in spite of the fact that the correct answer to the question appeared to be conspicuously obvious. As anticipated, or others would have spoken up faster (there are always students over eager to show they are smart and studious on the first day), the professor disagreed as he quickly dismissed that idea and followed it up by explaining that they were there to get laid. He said, “You study hard to get good grades, so that you can get a good job, so that you can make a lot of money, so that you can buy a fancy yacht, so that you can attract mates. It’s all about the survival instinct and evolution really.” This makes a lot of sense to me. How does this relate to deciding whether or not to go to B-School? Keep reading; I shall enlighten you.
Business/graduate school is only worth it if you go to a Top 20 school AND you use the network. The only reason you go to business school in the first place is to make money. You go to business school essentially, to get laid and to provide yourself and family with financial security in the years to come. No one logical (unless they just enjoy school or have Peter Pan Syndrome) wants to pay $100k+ and give up 2 years of their lives and wages if they are not going to make a significant amount of money on top of what they are already being paid. Especially for people interested in finance, the CFA provides a much more affordable and reputable path academically. Anyone can do their homework and write passing papers. Schools want you to succeed because they are in business to take your money. They can’t and won’t fail the majority like the CFA can. As long as you show up to class and pretend you care you will pass regardless of where you attend school. A lot of people can obtain a degree if they are willing to put in the time and have the money. The CFA is different and requires self discipline and tenacious work ethic as no one is pushing you along, holding your hand, and encouraging you to see it through. School is a waste of money compared to what you can do on your own if you put in the time and effort. You just have to believe in yourself.
Bottom Line: You don’t need to pay for someone to hold your hand and thanks to the CFA you don’t have to pay for the extra piece of paper either as the designation carries the same recognition as a Top 20 B school degree in the finance world. Save your money. Forget B school, work hard, be creative, and have fun without wasting hundreds of thousands and years of your money and time.
The Best-Kept Job-Interview Secret
By Kelly Eggers
You straighten your tie and check your teeth for lettuce before the big interview with your potential boss, but there's another interview you should be prepared for -- that with the company's receptionist. He or she is the first person you meet when you arrive at a prospective employer and the last person you see before you leave. Here are ten things receptionists would tell you if they could.
More from SmartMoney:
1. "I'm often underestimated."
Whether it involves visiting a doctor's office, hitting the local fitness center or just heading off to work, there's nary a day many folks won't find themselves interacting with an office receptionist. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports there are more than 1 million receptionists in the U.S., and though the recession knocked more than 45,000 of them out of work between 2008 and 2009, it seems they've begun to get their groove back: The sector is expected to grow by about 15 percent through 2018. While visitors often regard receptionists as mere support staff, it's a mistake to disregard them, considering their position as an office point person. They're "the keepers of information in an office and, because of that, are in positions of power," says Hali Chambers, a former medical receptionist in West Virginia who now works in sales. And since many recession-affected offices also have staff wearing multiple hats, the receptionist you meet could be something closer to a hiring manager. All good reasons to "be polite and professional at all times to whomever is at the desk," says Crystal Brown-Tatum, a former corporate receptionist in Texas.
2. "It's my job not to put you through."
In today's world, office receptionists often serve more as a buffer to busy professionals than as a conduit. In keeping, many uphold company policies that prevent them from putting callers through directly or sharing additional contact information, like in-house e-mail and cell phone numbers. "If the boss doesn't want to be bothered with minute, unimportant information, then I'll get chewed out if I try to transfer the call," says Linda Avalos, a veteran receptionist who has worked in a variety of settings in California. Instead, callers may be encouraged to leave a voice-mail message with little assurance they'll hear back. Looking for a way out of phone tag limbo? Ask the receptionist to send an e-mail to the boss on your behalf, for example. However begrudgingly he or she agrees to do it, it might well be your ticket to a response.
3. "I don't actually work here."
In the wake of the recession, many companies, particularly smaller ones, have begun outsourcing front-office staff to save money. How does it work? Ruby Receptionists, a firm that provides receptionists who work out of its Portland, Ore., office to more than 1,100 companies around the country, trains staff to meet the specific needs of clients: how they'd like calls about job openings and sales pitches handled, for example. But the system doesn't always work seamlessly. There always seems to be "certain information we don't have," says Ruby CEO Jill Nelson. Nevertheless, off-site reception has become a booming business; Bill Grodnik, president and CEO of Davinci Virtual Office Solutions, estimates that of his firm's more than 8,000 clients, 75 percent use its virtual reception services. And while there are only two or three big players in the "virtual reception" industry, Nelson says the field is teeming with smaller, regional outfits. That means the chances of calling an office down the block and speaking with a receptionist miles away are probably greater than you think. Want to know whom you're dealing with -- and where they're located? "People don't necessarily know we're off-site," says Nelson. "But if they ask, we tell them."
4. "I'm not your personal assistant."
If you think the receptionist in the office where you work has it easy, think again. He or she probably has a laundry list that needs tackling on any given day, and it doesn't necessarily include helping you close a sale or pick up your kids from school. That goes for outside visitors as well; people often come into an office expecting the receptionist to leap to their assistance, finding them a satellite location's phone number, for instance, or providing a rundown of the company's business and personnel. "People come in asking for answers to questions that could be answered with a Google search," says Chambers. For the best results, be courteous -- and brief. "There is a lot of demand on [receptionists'] attention, so the more concise you can be, the better."
5. "I may tell a fib or two..."
It happens all the time: You arrive for an appointment at, say, the doctor's office, and are told it'll be "just a few minutes." But half an hour later, you're still waiting. What gives? "We had one very annoying doctor who was chronically late," says Chambers, the medical receptionist. His lateness drove her -- not to mention his patients -- up the wall. "We were constantly apologizing," she says. The fact is, receptionists are restricted from sharing much information about how things run behind the scenes. "I can't tell you that our decision-making process takes time," says Maria Santos, a receptionist for a banking-software-development firm in
Dubai, so when "I tell you that I'll let you know in one or two weeks, chances are, you'll be waiting for one or two months." Asking some gently probing questions, like whether this is a busy time or where you are in the queue, can help you get a clearer picture of reality.
6. "...but don't even try to lie to me."
Depending on the office, receptionists might interact with anywhere from 20 to 200 people a day -- meaning a seasoned pro has heard every trick in the book and has a well-tuned ear for those trying to outsmart the system in some way, whether it's an aggressive approach to getting
put through to the boss or finagling a meeting with inflated credentials. Generally speaking, receptionists want to help, but only if the caller
or visitor comes across as honest and their behavior seems aboveboard. In other words, don't call and say you represent a bank interested in the company's product when the name of the firm you work for is obviously an event organizer's, says Santos. "If you lie," she says, "you won't get anywhere near the boss."
7. "I'm reading you like a book."
Receptionists are often the eyes and ears of an office. It's part of their job to know who's coming and going and to form impressions of visitors by careful observation. That's important to keep in mind, especially for those on a job interview, a sales call or any other matter in which one's conduct and social skills count for something. A word to the wise while waiting: Show a little respect and common sense. Striking up a conversation with a busy receptionist won't score you any points, for example, and neither will chatting loudly on your cell. "Receptionists will be asked, and they'll report back the time someone got there and what they did while they were waiting," says Emily Allen, manager of communications and publications for the International Association of Administrative Professionals. It's best to behave as though every move you make is being monitored, because it probably is, she says.
8. "You really don't want to work here."
Any receptionist worth his salt knows that sharing war stories about the office is inappropriate, especially with a job candidate digging for a little insider information. Not only is it unprofessional to disclose disdain for the job, for coworkers or for the work environment, but it might also be a violation of company policy. Furthermore, it's not the responsibility of a receptionist to do due diligence for those going through the interview process. Out of respect for the company, says Santos, when job candidates pump her for details about office politics, she keeps her opinions to herself, preferring to let people "discover and decide for themselves."
9. "The doctor will never be available when you want."
Especially in big, busy medical practices, making an appointment to see the doctor can feel nearly impossible. It might seem like the receptionists are being difficult when they tell you to call months in advance, but there are a lot of variables in play. For starters, doctors often like to set aside specific times for certain kinds of appointments. For example, says Ellen Huxtable, a seasoned former receptionist from Illinois, certain types of appointments, like those that require fasting in advance, are often scheduled for highly coveted morning hours. And certain portions of the weekly schedule may be reserved strictly for physicals or even for sales calls from pharmaceutical reps and other vendors. The idea is "to consolidate these visits," says Huxtable. Which may explain why you can never seem to get a Thursday afternoon appointment with your general practitioner. Receptionists suggest having a few options in mind on different days of the week, especially when scheduling an initial appointment.
10. "Be careful what you wish for."
While many receptionists say they tend to play by the rules and let visitors navigate office personnel and politics on their own, a few admit to softening a bit toward the occasional courteous guest who is clearly nervous about a meeting. They probably won't provide much backstory on any impending conflict or the clashing ambitions involved, but they might be persuaded to share a word of caution now and again. "A receptionist is not going to be a fountain of information," says Daryl Pigat, a metro market manager at staffing firm Robert Half International, "but they may give a couple of pointers." Then again, visitors may not even want to hear what the receptionist has to say. "It's not in anyone's best interest to tell someone that the person they're meeting with is going to be combative or tough," says Pigat
Rarely a day goes by when I don’t hear grumbles and rants from jobseekers about recruiters. “She said
she’d call and she hasn’t!”, one will moan or “He won’t keep in the loop about
my application” another will wail.
Generally the complaints are these:
§Recruiters do not follow up with me
on my job application.
§Recruiters are disinterested in
helping me get into a new area.
§The recruiter wanted me to change my
resume! The nerve!
§Recruiters won’t tell me the name of
the company.
All of these criticisms come down to misunderstanding the
role of the recruiter in relation to you, the jobseeker.
First let’s look at how the relationship works best.
The recruiter can be a jobseeker’s best friend.
Particularly if you are a “hot candidate”. By “hot” it means you have a
consistent work record (preferably with well-known companies), your skills are
in short supply and in great demand, you have a strong industry network, and
you are a match for the position the recruiter has in mind. If you fit that
bill, then things will be smooth sailing. The recruiter will brief you on the
employer’s needs, give you inside information about what to mention to press
their hot buttons, follow-up with you and the employer post-interview and take
an active role in communicating the remuneration expectations and offers. If
you are to be the recruiter’s friend, you will help them in passing along
contacts of similarly qualified candidates so a relationship can be built. This
is the perfect win/win jobseeker/recruiter relationship.
Let’s look at the myths surrounding the
recruiter/jobseeker relationship.
§Complaint: Recruiters do not follow
up with me on my job application.
It is a common mistake that many jobseekers make to think
of a recruiter as their “agent”. A recruiter is not helping you find a job;
you’re not paying this person, he or she is not your manager or agent. A
recruiter is hired by the employer to fill a position. Consequently recruiters’
allegiance is to the person with the purse strings, not the product (you). As a
result, if you send in an application for a job and you’re not a match, the
recruiter is not going to call you and scout around town for a job to match
your skills. That’s your job!
§Recruiters are disinterested in
helping me get into a new area.
We’ve already discussed what it means to be a “hot
candidate”. Hot candidates are quickly and easily placed because there is a
demand for their services. Conversely if you are the type of candidate that
doesn’t form a ready “fit” such as a career changer with no experience and a lot
of enthusiasm for entering a new field, then it is doubtful that the recruiter
can build and sell a successful case for your hire as it doesn’t meet the
employer’s brief. The employer is very unlikely to say “Get me a person with a
lot of enthusiasm and no experience for this role!” It may be rude to show a
level of disinterest in your great dream to achieve employment bliss, but
frankly, you really are, on the whole, wasting their time. This is not the best
forum for you to get a job. Look instead to your network, people you know who
can get you before employers who are ready to take a chance because they see
potential in you.
§Recruiter wanted me to change my
resume! The nerve!
We all get a bit precious and protective of our resumes.
(Especially when we have paid big dollars to get them written professionally).
Jobseekers often become outraged at some of the old-fashioned, outdated or on
the surface, ridiculous pieces of advice they receive from recruiters to change
their resumes. What jobseekers forget is that the recruiter has insight and
knowledge into the client’s needs and preferences. They will suggest these
changes because they know that these are the employer’s “hot buttons”. Be
flexible. No-one is asking you to change your $700 resume permanently. This is
extra work that the recruiter believes will help you, help them to get paid if
you are successful, and help the employer see your value. Will it kill you to
do a “one-off” version of your resume for this job only for the sake of a great
job?
§Recruiters won’t tell me the name of
the company.
Let’s be fair. Recruiters are being paid by an employer to
seek the right person. If the employer wanted to do the hiring, it would be
done by the company, so this is clearly their preferred method. Frequently it
is a sensitive situation to be handled confidentially. It could be that the
announcement to shareholders has to be properly timed, or a person acting in
the role must be managed out. Rest assured. If you are a hot candidate, you
will be told everything. If you’re not a hot candidate, you don’t need to know.
It won’t matter other than for “sticky beak” potential.
Now that you know that the recruiter has great potential
to help you enormously, here’s how you can help them help you.
§Don’t stalk them daily asking if he
or she has found anything for you
§Don’t ask for constant updates on
your application. Sometimes days go past without anything happening. Learn
patience. It’s a virtue.
§Don’t get angry. It never helps
anybody and people really do feel less inclined to go that extra mile if you’re
going to be difficult.
§Don’t arrive at an interview looking
like you have walked straight from the nightclub to the
recruiter’s office. An interview is an interview regardless of whether it
is with the employer or the employer’s representative (the search consultant).
Remember recruiters are going to recommend you (or not) based on your skills,
appearance and demeanour. Act like the professional you are.
§Come prepared. Do homework. Ask
intelligent questions.
§Don’t try to beat around the bush,
give clichéd fluffy replies, lie or mislead. These people are pros. They can
smell “stretching the truth” at fifty paces.
§Do what they say. If they ask you
tweak your resume and wear a red tie to interview, just do it.
§If you would consider a counter-offer
from your current employer then say so. It is wasting everyone’s time to leave
them and the employer high and dry.
The relationship between recruiters and jobseekers can be
mutually beneficial, as long as you understand your role in the process.
Two things happened recently that prompted me to write this article. The first, was an issue on the CDI e-list where a member was distressed by a client's over-reaction to criticism he received of his new résumé completed just days before. The second was a Dr Phil show I caught during lunch that dissected disputes and arguments-many of them caused when one person's expectations were not being anticipated or met.
For instance a couple may quarrel over a holiday destination-he has his heart set on a camping trip, while she thought they were going to a five-star resort. Her expectations of lying back and drinking Mai Tais by the pool have been replaced with a spade and a roll of toilet paper. The breakdown comes when expectations are not communicated from the outset. If neither person knows of, or has an inkling of, the other's expectations or desires, then the "situation" when it appears comes as a shock-a revelation causing disappointment that quickly turns to anger.
What became clear to me with these two instances is how we, as résumé writers need to manage our client's expectations to avoid disputes, disappointments and miscommunications.
Take the average client who hasn't been job hunting for a while. He's been through your coaching, your questioning processes, he's collaborated on the résumé and he's invested in you. He's puffed up, confident and proud and ready to take on the world.
Imagine the distress he feels when the first place he takes his résumé to is a recruiter who looks at his "masterpiece" disdainfully and tells him to move dates, relocate this and that information, and then criticizes the document in such a way that destroys your client's brittle and newly found confidence. He feels embarrassed that he has not met the expectations of a person who has the potential to place him in a job, he is horrified that he has not been savvy enough to know this already, and growing inside is anger at himself for paying hard-earned money for something that hasn't worked and at the résumé writer he trusted and has let him down.
Immediately he is on the phone or writing an email to the unsuspecting résumé writer who bears the brunt of his embarrassment and anger, and seemingly right out of the blue!
When the writer tries to calm his fears, explain the situation and cite his or her levels of success in the field, the client is having none of it. His trust in listening to that résumé writer is broken and he feels betrayed.
So how do we as résumé writers prevent this situation from occurring? If our client leaves us unprepared for the realities of the job search with just a résumé, a broad smile on his face and the conviction that a job is around the corner now he has the best résumé in the world, then his hopes are going to be quickly dashed.
The answer then is to manage your client's expectations. This could come in the form of a conversation if you are an in-person service or in the email of thanks when you are wrapping the project up if you work virtually.
Now let's be clear, I am not suggesting you provide the client with a scary list of all the things that could and do go wrong. I'm simply proposing that a warning of some of the issues he will face will prepare him from being blindsided!
Wouldn't it be better when he sends his résumé off for a free critique to an aggressive company to know that there are people who use résumé critiques solely as a sales tool and would criticize it no matter what? Wouldn't it save him time to know that sometimes his résumé may not print properly on every printer he comes across and how to overcome those problems? Wouldn't your client nod sagely when a recruiter asked him to change his résumé knowing that this is standard practice when recruiters may have insight of a particular employer's wants and needs?
Establishing trust is not just about making a client feel great about the résumé you have prepared. It's about educating him on what he may find when he takes it into the world. Forewarned is forearmed and when that inevitable suggestion from a recruiter, manager or friend happens as we all know it will, your client will be in the frame of mind to expect it.
Sample letter I have created a sample "Send off" letter using some of my own thoughts, Laura DeCarlo's advice on the e-list and an adapted paragraph from our member Robin Schlinger who was the catalyst for writing this article. Feel free to adapt and use and special thanks to all who contributed to that discussion.
Hi Client Name,
We've done it! Congratulations to us! Your final documents have been prepared and completed and they're ready to go! (That doesn't mean we can't talk though-if you want to discuss anything or ask me a question, I'm always available on email at XXX@XXX.com).
Before we part ways and you embark on the next part of your journey, it's worth noting a couple of things:
First, technical issues. If you find that the documents don't print as you expect, you'll see a printing help sheet attached with your final documents. This will explain why your documents may look and print differently on different computers and software and give you some quick and easy fixes. Just follow the instructions and all will be fine; if you still have problems, don't think you can't contact me. I'm here for you, just drop me an email and we'll work it out.
Next. You're leaving our warm and collaborative environment to venture into the cold job-seeking world so a timely word of warning. The purpose of the resume, cover letter and any documents produced for you is to get noticed and interviewed by hiring managers and recruiters. If recruiters want you to tweak your documents for presentation to a client, don't be upset or perturbed or think that their advice is a rebuke or criticism of you (or me!). Remember, the resume we produced together has already worked by gaining their attention!
Most job search consultants have insight into their client's preferences and what experience or skills will hit their "hot buttons". While you're at it, it would probably be prudent to read my article here: http://www.theexecutivebrand.com/2009/09/30/recruiters-a-jobseekers-friend-or-foe/to understand the specifics of working with recruiters and agencies.
If at any time you are asked to amend your resume and you find yourself floundering, I can produce a different resume format or make the tweaks they want and I am pleased to give you a quote on that. Some of the requests made by people you come across for certain roles may seem odd, old-fashioned and sometimes against everything you've ever believed about presenting yourself, but despite that, my advice is to go "with the flow"; the recruiter/job search consultant will be your advocate for that position and has a vested interest in your success (if you are the successful candidate he or she will receive commission!)
It is important to note that you use any recruiter's "special request" resume for that recruiter and only for that recruiter. (Please see my attached instruction sheet called "Maintaining your master document" on how to keep the original document in pristine condition and keeping a log of different versions you send to different people).
Oh, I mustn't forget! Feel free to follow me on Twitter http://twitter.com/XXX and Linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/in/XXX. Feel free to network. (It's a good thing!)
Good luck and hope you have great success with your new resume!
Warmest regards,
Gayle
PS...One more thing! You have been provided an outstanding job search tool. If you are curious about receiving external feedback from some firms providing resume critiques online, be advised that this is usually a sales and marketing exercise to bring in new business. Many services are aggressive in getting the sale and use emotive (and canned) responses designed to secure your business. Proceed with caution and skepticism. If you opt for a critique from such firms I'll think up a canned response to match! (ha ha). We recommend that if you are thinking of doing this or have done this that you do a Google search citing the company name and the word "scam" or "ripoff" after that.
PPS... Good luck! Let me know how you go!
Gayle Howard is President of Top Margin Career Marketing and is CDI's Director of Certifications. She can be contacted at gayle@gaylehoward.com.
Networking Is Still The Best Way To Find A Job, Survey Says
Despite the explosion of online job search tools, from job boards to networking sites like LinkedIn, the conventional wisdom among career coaches holds that most people still find jobs through networking. But whenever I’ve asked coaches for evidence of this, they demure, failing to remember where they read that statistic.
So it’s interesting to get some concrete numbers, from a new survey from Right Management, an arm of Milwaukee-based staffing giant Manpower Group, that offers outplacement services and career coaching. The survey analyzes data from 59,133 clients Right Management advised over the last three years. In 2010, 41% said they landed a job through networking. Here is a chart showing the survey results:
Source of New Job
2010
2009
2008
Networking
41%
45%
41%
Internet Job Board
25%
19%
19%
Agency/Search firm
11%
9%
11%
Direct Approach
8%
8%
8%
Online Network (2010)
4%
na
na
Advertisement
2%
7%
7%
Other
10%
12%
14%
Only 8% said they found a new position through a direct approach, a technique I’ve recommended here. However, it’s possible, and increasingly easy, to enhance direct contact with networking, especially if you combine online tools with an old-school personal approach. Through LinkedIn and Facebook, locate friends and contacts who are connected to the company where you want to work. Reach out to those contacts through personalized emails and phone calls. Ask if you can mention them in an email or call to your target. If your connection is willing to put in a word for you with the target, all the better.
Carly McVey, Right Management’ Vice President of Career Management, comments on the rapidly blurring lines between traditional and online networking. Says McVey in the release from Right Management: “Online social networking may not always be separate from traditional networking since one so often leads to the other. A job seeker uses the Inernet to track down former associates or acquaintances and then reaches out to them in person.”
Updating a Résumé for 2011
Q: I am a senior executive and haven't looked for a job in more than
10 years.
How can I make my résumé more current by today's
standards?
A: While the résumé as you know it from 10 years ago is still
alive and kicking, there have been a number of modifications to it. No longer
do job candidates simply present a Word document of their qualifications.
Today, they need to craft a package both online and off to present to a
prospective employer. This needs to include both a résumé and an online profile
as well as an easy way for a prospective employer or recruiter to move back and
forth between the two.
Embrace technology. The biggest change is also the most expected
one: a move toward technology. An online networking presence is no longer just
an option but a requirement.
In
today's executive search market, if you're not on LinkedIn, you don't
exist," says Wendy Enelow, author of "Expert Resumes for Managers and
Executives" and "Best Resumes for $100,000+ Jobs." Ms. Enelow
suggests including live email links on your Microsoft Word résumé and live
links to your LinkedIn profile. "Make it easy for recruiters and hiring
managers to contact you with one click to your email and one click to your
LinkedIn profile," she says.
Don't make assumptions. The job market is in a transition stage
when it comes to applications and how they are submitted, says Mary Henige,
General Motors' director of social media and digital communications. Therefore,
a lot of how you present yourself should depend on the hiring manager's
preference, she says. If you're not sure what that is, it's best to cover all
of your bases. "I recommend that a candidate include both a link to his or
her résumé and an attachment but to never assume it's one way or another unless
it's clear," says Ms. Henige.
Expansion is good. The one-page rule for résumés no longer
holds true, according to Howard Seidel, a partner at Essex Partners, a
Boston-based senior level career management firm. "While one page makes
sense when you have little experience, it doesn't make sense when, as a senior
executive, you have 10, 20 or more years of experience," he says.
"Executive typically do themselves an injustice by keeping the résumé to a
page." Mr. Seidel suggests expanding to two or three pages but giving the
first page enough punch to entice the reader to delve further.
Overused is out. At first glance, "team player"
and "innovative" might sound like good words to use on your résumé,
but that would be a mistake, according to Krista Canfield, a spokesperson for
LinkedIn. The business networking site recently combed through millions of user
profiles and came up with a list of the top 10 overused terms. These included
innovative, dynamic, motivated, extensive experience, results-oriented, proven
track record, team player, fast-paced, problem solver, and entrepreneurial.
"Your
online profile is a valuable piece of professional real estate," says Ms.
Canfield. "The problem with using generic words and phrases in your
profile and résumé is that hundreds, if not thousands, of other professionals
are describing themselves the exact same way." She suggests replacing the
overused terms with descriptions of those specific projects that you have
worked on, which resulted in concrete results for your clients.
Looks still count. Even with the explosion of email over the
last decade, aesthetics still matter, says Mr. Seidel. In some ways, they are
more important than ever. "In addition to information overload, many
employers experience résumé overload," he says. "If an employer or a
recruiter is seeking you out because of a reputation, the résumé's appearance
may not matter. If you are seeking out an employer's attention, its appearance
often does matter."
Scanned not read. One thing that has not changed is
employers scanning résumés rather than reading them word-for-word, says Kathryn
Ullrich, an executive career consultant in Silicon Valley and author of
"Getting to the Top: Strategies for Career Success." To differentiate
yourself from the pack, broadcast your brand. One way to do this, says Ms.
Ullrich, is to replace an old-school phrase like "summary" at the top
of your résumé with your brand: "social media marketing" or "finance
director, software," for example. "Invite a longer, deeper look at
your résumé by making your brand stand out," she says.
As Profits Wane, Wall Street Braces for New Layoffs
SUSANNE CRAIG, On Thursday June 16, 2011, 10:01 pm EDT
Wall Street plans to get smaller this summer. Faced with weak markets and uncertainty over regulations, many of the biggest firms are preparing for deep cuts in jobs and other costs.
The cutback plans are emerging even as Wall Street firms have mostly recovered from the financial crisis and are reporting substantial profits again. But those profits are not as big as they were before the crisis, and it is expected that in the coming months it will be even more difficult for firms to make money. Worries about debt in Europe and the shape that the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul rules will ultimately take, combined with the usual summer doldrums, are prompting banks to act.
"It's a tense environment right now," said Glenn Schorr, an analyst with the investment bank Nomura.
Even Goldman Sachs, Wall Street's most profitable firm, is retrenching. Senior executives at Goldman have concluded they need to cut 10 percent, or $1 billion, of noncompensation expenses over the next 12 months, according to a person close to the matter who was not authorized to speak on the record. The big pullback will cause Goldman employees, who have already been ordered to cut costs, to re-examine every aspect of their business.
The firm, this person said, had not set final targets for layoffs, but Goldman was "certain" to shrink headcount in the coming months. Decisions on bonuses are still months away, but they are sure to come down as well if business does not pick up.
Bank of America is also examining its expenses and is likely in the next few months to cut some staff members from its securities division, according to one senior executive at that firm who was not authorized to speak on the record. And Credit Suisse is in the process of identifying people to cut in its investment banking unit, according to a person briefed on that bank's plans.
Morgan Stanley is expected to cut at least 300 low-producing brokers in its wealth management division this year, more than the firm initially expected, and has announced plans to cut $1 billion in noncompensation expenses over the next three years. Unlike many of its rivals, however, the firm so far has no plans to cut staff members from its investment banking and trading division, which has added hundreds of employees over the last two years or so as part of a rebuilding effort after the financial crisis.
Some firms have already wielded the ax. In January, Barclays Capital cut 600 people, or more than 2 percent of its worldwide staff, citing a business slowdown, and recently cut more employees for "performance-related reasons," according to a person briefed on the cuts but not authorized to speak on the record. A third of the January cuts were in New York.
Regulatory overhaul has weighed on the decisions to cut back, senior bank executives say. Regulation has caused some Wall Street banks to exit some businesses, like proprietary trading. Rules that require banks to hold more capital will probably cause some firms to end certain business lines as they decide they can more effectively deploy the capital elsewhere. On products like derivatives, firms will lose revenue as instruments once traded off exchanges will move into open markets.
While many financial rules are still to be written, some firms have decided that they cannot afford to wait any longer. The last significant industrywide job cuts were in early 2009. In the first quarter of that year Goldman alone cut its work force by almost 9 percent. Since then, most firms have held steady on their head counts or have added to them slightly. That will change this summer.
The scale of the expected cuts is bad news for the New York City economy, which depends heavily on a booming financial industry to pay taxes and fill its restaurants. And they will come as the national economy is still struggling to find its footing since the financial crisis.
Not all is doom and gloom. Wall Street is benefiting from the boom in social media and technology public offerings. In recent weeks big names like Pandora Media and Linkedin have gone public, brought to market by banks. So far this year, companies have raised $29.3 billion in public offerings, up more than 200 percent from a year ago. This year is on track to be the most lucrative since the technology boom in 2000, according toThomson Reuters data.
The profit picture is also somewhat more stable for diversified companies like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup, which have large commercial retail banking operations in addition to those in trading and sales. JPMorgan has no immediate plans to cut head count in trading, according to a person briefed on the matter but not authorized to speak on the record. The bank is, however, trying to reduce noncompensation expenses.
But firms like Bank of America are still paying for mortgage sins of days gone by, which have dimmed their profit pictures. Earlier this year Bank of America put aside another $1 billion to cover claims from outside investors who lost money and want the firm to buy back billions of dollars in bad Countrywide Financial mortgages. The Durbin Amendment, a proposed restriction on debit card fees, is also expected to reduce profits when it comes into effect next month.
For those firms that depend on trading, it is clear how much the engines of Wall Street have slowed. Return on equity, the amount a firm earns on its common stock outstanding and an important measure of financial performance, has decreased significantly in the years since the credit crisis. Industrywide return on equity was 8.2 percent in 2010, down from 17.5 percent in 2005, according to Nomura.
And this year there is another reason that is prompting Wall Street to act more swiftly on cuts. Wall Street typically pays out roughly half of its revenue in compensation, and firms often wait until late summer to cull staff when they have a better sense of revenue for the year. The newest cuts are expected to come earlier this year because of recent changes in the way employees are paid.
Traditionally, Wall Street employees get most of their annual pay in the form of a one-time year-end bonus. But after the credit crisis most firms changed the way they compensated employees in an effort to discourage excessive risk-taking, increasing base salaries while reducing performance-related payments. As a result, banks are paying out more compensation as the year goes on, forcing firms to re-evaluate staffing levels earlier in the year because more of their compensation costs are now fixed.
Firms are also trying to cut noncompensation expenses and are looking for ways to cut fat. Goldman's goal to cut $1 billion in noncompensation expenses this year is significant, analysts say. There will be immediate and significant savings from the fall off in trading volumes.
Trading firms pay fees to trade, and lower volumes could result in an annual savings of $200 million at Goldman alone, one analyst estimated. Those savings will come naturally, but most will not, and banks will be forced to rein in everything, including travel and professional fees.
Jefferies Hires to Grow Out of 'Boutique' Status
By Julie Steinberg
Monday June 13, 2011
New York-based investment bank Jefferies has been on a hiring spree across many
of its businesses, especially in the past few months as it picked up several new
managing directors. The frenetic hiring activity will slow in the second half of the
year, a source familiar with the matter said.
Throughout April, May and June, the firm announced hires in fixed income, Asia equities sales and trading, real estateinvestment banking, financial institutions investment banking and global equity research. Jefferies picked up talent from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and other bulge-bracket banks.
A spate of hires announced in the spring are the fruits of recruiting activity in January and February as Jefferies was eager to capitalize on investment bankers ready to leave firms after receiving their annual bonuses, the source said. The end of the winter recruiting season prompted Jefferies to scale back its hiring.
The company had scooped up scores of fleeing bankers from larger Wall Street firms in the wake of the financial crisis and had continued hiring in 2010, increasing headcount by 353 employees from early 2010 through early 2011. The firm has said that it wants to compete with the bulge-bracket, and as a result, has stopped referring to itself as a boutique investment bank in recent months.
Jefferies declined to comment for this story.
CEO Richard Handler cautioned in March that the hiring would slow to a trickle, saying that "we feel like, at this point, we're making selected additions as opposed to the whole scale hires that we had historically."
Recent Hires
The firm announced today that Tim Sullivan and Harold DeRolph will join as managing director's in the firm's investment grade corporate bond business in the fixed income division.
Sullivan comes from UBS where he was a managing director in credit trading. DeRolph was at Citadel Securities where he was a portfolio manager for distressed credit and event-driven equities.
The announcement came on the heels of several others this week, including Susan Bonsell will join as an MD in fixed income sales in Dallas and Clifford Lanier will join as an MD and head of fixed income cross product sales. According to the firm, there are nearly 525 professionals globally in the fixed income business.
Results
The hiring appears to have done the firm some good. In March, net revenues were up 31% from the year earlier period, and investment banking revenues were up 21%, while global trading revenues were up 32%. The firm was recently ranked the No. 2 equity broker for North America and the No. 8 equity broker globally by Bloomberg. It was ranked No. 1 in U.S. stock picking in the 2011 Financial Times/StarMine equity research analysis for 2010.
Jefferies will report its second quarter earnings on June 21.
It takes hard work to clean up a mess. The subprime wreckage is no exception.
Banks still aren't doing enough to rework mortgages under the federal Home Affordable Modification Program, according to a new government report. We get a report like this from Uncle Sam every month, but yesterday's version was particularly damning. Specifically, it said the government will stop paying subsidies to Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo until they do a better job of reworking delinquent mortgages for their clients.
When I wrote about these efforts a year ago, BofA had hired almost 10,700 "default-management" staff; JPMorgan had added at least 3,600 such workers and Wells Fargo enlisted about 11,000 "home retention" specialists.
Now, it looks like they're going to need even more. Or, they'll have to find more thorough and efficient replacements for their current staff.
Both options are relatively expensive, but the cost of doing nothing isn't cheap either. The three banks pocketed a collective $24 million in mortgage subsidies last month.
To be sure, the work isn't glamorous. It involves cold-calls, not cocktails with clients. And it goes down in strip-malls, not swanky hotel conference rooms. It doesn't even require a lot of mental horsepower. But those who roll up their sleeves and dig into this stuff are very directly helping the economy and homeowners, or rather partial homeowners. Or, as banks like to call them: clients.
Friday was a dark day for the U.S. jobs picture, but the finance industry stayed relatively bright.
The sector added 3,000 positions, but the unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 6.8% in May from 6.7% in April. That's because about 12,000 new people joined the finance labor market.
Those who have jobs are fairly confident. A measure of job security among finance and insurance workers is near a record high, at least since Scorelogix, a Delaware-based research firm, started compiling the fear index in 2008. All U.S. workers are feeling more secure in recent months, but the security index scores for workers at banks, brokerages and insurance employees remain about 53% higher than those for the economy overall.
As a Cajun friend of mine often says: worry is a useless emotion anyway.
Citi Spree Continues (FINS) The big bank has lured Andrew Baum, a leading healthcare/pharmaceuticals analyst from Morgan Stanley. A physician by training, Baum has more industry cred than most.
The Play's the Thing (WSJ) Columbia Business School's Executive MBA program is building a leadership course based on Shakespeare's plays. Here's the short version: read Henry V, not Henry VI or King Lear.
From Russia (WSJ) VTB Capital, a sovereign Russian bank, is planning to get one-third of its investment banking revenue from outside the motherland. It hired a formerGoldman Sachs partner to fuel that effort.
The big banks and consultancies are back on b-school campuses in force, luring grads with opulent pay packages.
A new report released this morning by Training the Street found that half the trainees it surveyed were juggling more than one job offer. That's up from 39% last spring. Roughly one-fifth of those surveyed said they had at least four offers, according to the New York-based firm, which preps b-schoolers for the job market and trains analysts and associates for Wall Street firms.
Some 52% of respondents said they were "very satisfied" with their options, up from 46% last year. And 18% of those surveyed said their offers topped $125,000 a year.
Wall Street, it seems, is rebuilding the bottom of its talent pyramid.
Q: I
am a senior executive and haven't looked for a job in more than 10 years. How
can I make my résumé more current by today's standards?
-Boston, Mass.
A: While the résumé as you know it from 10 years ago is still
alive and kicking, there have been a number of modifications to it. No longer
do job candidates simply present a Word document of their qualifications.
Today, they need to craft a package both online and off to present to a
prospective employer. This needs to include both a résumé and an online profile
as well as an easy way for a prospective employer or recruiter to move back and
forth between the two.
Embrace technology. The biggest change is also the most expected one: a move toward
technology. An online networking presence is no longer just an option but a
requirement.
In today's executive
search market, if you're not on LinkedIn, you don't exist," says Wendy
Enelow, author of "Expert Resumes for Managers and Executives" and
"Best Resumes for $100,000+ Jobs." Ms. Enelow suggests including live
email links on your Microsoft Word résumé and live links to your LinkedIn
profile. "Make it easy for recruiters and hiring managers to contact you
with one click to your email and one click to your LinkedIn profile," she
says.
Don't make assumptions. The job market is in a transition stage when it comes to
applications and how they are submitted, says Mary Henige, General Motors'
director of social media and digital communications. Therefore, a lot of how
you present yourself should depend on the hiring manager's preference, she
says. If you're not sure what that is, it's best to cover all of your bases.
"I recommend that a candidate include both a link to his or her résumé and
an attachment but to never assume it's one way or another unless it's
clear," says Ms. Henige.
Expansion is good. The one-page rule for résumés no longer holds true,
according to Howard Seidel, a partner at Essex Partners, a Boston-based senior
level career management firm. "While one page makes sense when you have
little experience, it doesn't make sense when, as a senior executive, you have
10, 20 or more years of experience," he says. "Executive typically do
themselves an injustice by keeping the résumé to a page." Mr. Seidel
suggests expanding to two or three pages but giving the first page enough punch
to entice the reader to delve further.
Overused is out. At first glance, "team player" and
"innovative" might sound like good words to use on your résumé, but
that would be a mistake, according to Krista Canfield, a spokesperson for
LinkedIn. The business networking site recently combed through millions of user
profiles and came up with a list of the top 10 overused terms. These included
innovative, dynamic, motivated, extensive experience, results-oriented, proven
track record, team player, fast-paced, problem solver, and entrepreneurial.
"Your online
profile is a valuable piece of professional real estate," says Ms.
Canfield. "The problem with using generic words and phrases in your
profile and résumé is that hundreds, if not thousands, of other professionals
are describing themselves the exact same way." She suggests replacing the
overused terms with descriptions of those specific projects that you have
worked on, which resulted in concrete results for your clients.
Looks still count. Even with the explosion of email over the last decade,
aesthetics still matter, says Mr. Seidel. In some ways, they are more important
than ever. "In addition to information overload, many employers experience
résumé overload," he says. "If an employer or a recruiter is seeking
you out because of a reputation, the résumé's appearance may not matter. If you
are seeking out an employer's attention, its appearance often does
matter."
Scanned not read. One thing that has not changed is employers scanning résumés
rather than reading them word-for-word, says Kathryn Ullrich, an executive
career consultant in Silicon Valley and author of "Getting to the Top:
Strategies for Career Success." To differentiate yourself from the pack,
broadcast your brand. One way to do this, says Ms. Ullrich, is to replace an
old-school phrase like "summary" at the top of your résumé with your
brand: "social media marketing" or "finance director,
software," for example. "Invite a longer, deeper look at your résumé
by making your brand stand out," she says.
Seven Ways to Keep Your Resume Out of
the Trash
If your resume and cover letter seem to be
lost in the black hole of job applications, you're not alone. In a 2009 survey of
10,628 job seekers conducted by New York-based executive
recruiter FPC, 42% said not getting a response to their resumes was their
biggest frustration.
While not all hiring managers are the same, we
gathered a few common suggestions from staffing agents and career coaches on
following up with non-responsive recruiters that may help get the feedback
you're looking for.
Job seekers need to appease the recruiter on this
one. It may seem unfair, but in the end, they're in charge of hiring you and
you need to play by their rules.
Make a Connection
While it isn't by definition "follow
up," one thing some experts suggest is making a connection with the hiring
manager or another well-connected staffer before or at the same time you submit
your application. "I generally recommend that you place a call before you
even apply," says David Adams, vice president of learning and development
for Adecco Group North America, a global staffing agency.
It's not necessarily easy, but if you do a
little sleuthing, you might be able to find someone inside the business.
"After you have sent [your application], try to find a warm way in to that
organization," says Howard Seidel, Ed.D., J.D., Partner at Essex Partners,
a Boston-based executive consulting firm. Try LinkedIn's company search pages,
or Google to find a hiring manager or the name of a person within your desired
department. Keep in mind that many companies have a standard format for e-mail
addresses; If you can find an e-mail for someone within the company, once you
track down the name of the hiring manager, you might be able to figure out
their e-mail address.
For example, reach out to them and tell them
you're interested, or politely let them know you've applied, and would like
some additional information about the job. "If you can make a personal
connection before you send an e-mail, you're far more likely to find someone to
champion your cause before you're stuck in the resume database with everyone
else," says Adams.
Provide Something Useful
"If you're going to follow up, weekly
isn't necessarily bad," says Adams, "but if you're asking the same
question every week, you suddenly become more of a pest than someone who is
professionally persistent."
Don't send an e-mail each week asking if the
recipient is interested in you, or if they need any additional information.
Instead, says Adams, send something they'll find useful that shows you're still
thinking in terms of the job.
"Information about their competitor, a
news article, a sample of your work, or something that aligns with what someone
would need to be doing in the position are all professionally persistent,"
he says.
Stick to the 30-Second Rule
"Whatever you have to say, if you can't
say it, read it, or get the point across in 30 seconds or less, you're awfully
optimistic that they'll read it or listen to it," says Adams. "Do not
ask about their day, how they are feeling, about the weather, or attempt in any
way to make the call personal," adds Randy Merrell, vice president of
operations at Elite Network, a San Francisco-based search firm. The same policy
goes for emails: "If they have to scroll to read your email, they're not
going to," says Adams.
Also, when you're leaving contact information
in a message, be sure to make it as simple as possible for the recipient to jot
it down. Leave your number slowly and twice -- once at the beginning of a
voicemail, and once at the end, Merrell suggests.
Try Not to Sound Desperate
"Your tone is really important,"
says Adams. "With each subsequent follow up, if you come across in any way
desperate or frustrated, you will lose." Make sure that you always sound
optimistic, interested, and excited, he says. "If you start showing a little
bit of attitude because they are taking longer to get back to you than you
think is reasonable, that will raise a red flag."
Merrell says that if you must, you can
establish some sense of urgency early on -- but this is a place to tread
lightly. "If you are nearing a decision in your job search, suggest that a
meeting be scheduled as soon as possible to allow the hiring manager a proper
shot at meeting with you," he says, "but be careful not to come off
as coy, or arrogant. No one likes that."
Stick to their Timeline
Take a lesson from the Morgan Stanley applicant
who completely ruined his chances of employment by assuming
that not hearing back for two weeks meant he was out of the running: Don't
assume you know the timeframe in which a company will make a decision.
"I've seen it often -- it can take a
company two or three months to make a hiring decision," says Adams.
"There are a lot of things happening within an organization," so
don't make any assumptions about when a decision is or isn't being made. If it
starts to take a while, sending weekly follow up will become over-the-top.
Start spacing it out a bit more.
Don't Assume the Worst
"Never self-select out," says Donald
Asher, author of Cracking the Hidden Job Market. You might be a
seventh choice, and think you should give up, but keep in mind the number of
circumstances that can knock one of those frontrunners out, says Asher.
For every candidate in front of you, hiring
managers will check references, run background checks, and do final interviews
-- processes which can take days or weeks to complete. And those ahead of you
could turn down an offer. You won't do yourself any favors by giving up and
taking yourself out of the running.
But Don't Expect the Best
"Job seekers need to properly set their
expectations when applying to jobs on web sites or job boards," says
Merrell. If you're considering jobs at big-name companies like Google and Apple,
he cautions, you could be competing with hundreds -- or even thousands -- of
applicants. "If you expect to get a call back any time soon, or to even
get someone live to answer your application, you are asking for a lot."
Job boarding, as a general rule, isn't an
effective way to job-hunt on its own. "It's a percentage of your search
you don't want to leave out," says Seidel, "but you don't want to
live by a diet of job boards. You really have to work other angles in the
search."
If you've tried, tried, and tried again, and don't
see any promise in the job, don't continue to invest your time following up.
Dedicate it instead to tasks like networking, adapting your application
materials to each job listing and following up on new, more promising leads.
Citigroup plans to add 500 bankers andtraders to better serve corporate and institutional clients in the next two years.
The hiring would boost the headcount in the firm's institutional services unit by 2.1% to roughly 24,500. Citi confirmed the strategy, news of which first appeared in the Financial Times.
Citi is also on the hunt for 300 private bankers in the U.S. and Asia, and CEO Vikram Pandit has pledged to add 7,500 workers in China by 2014. However, the company has been shrinking. In the past year, Citi's total headcount fell by 3,000, or 1.1%.
Hedge funds are hauling it in and they are going to need more people -- from managers
to analysts -- to deploy all that cash. They are sitting on nearly $2 trillion in assets under management, according to recent counts. And three-quarters of hedge fund managers said they expect more funds to launch this year.
American Express added 1,400 workers in the first three months of the year and is on the hunt for more talent, as its corporate card division and small-business intitiatives find traction.
The world's largest money manager still has a relatively small staff, but its first quarter results were anything but small. As it boosted profits by more than one-third, BlackRock added 200 workers to bring headcount to 9,300.
Job Openings
Rise to Highest Point Since September 2008
WASHINGTON -- Businesses in February
posted the largest number of job openings in more than two years, evidence that
hiring is picking up as the economy grows.
The Labor Department said Wednesday that employers advertised 3.1 million
available jobs that month, the most since September 2008. That was the height
of the financial crisis, when Lehman Brothers collapsed.
The competition for those jobs is easing, though still intense. The
department's report shows that there were 4.4 people, on average, competing for
each available job in February. That's down from nearly 7 in July 2009, but
still above the approximately 2 to 1 ratio that exists in a healthy economy.
A rise in employment advertisements is the latest sign that companies are
stepping up hiring. The private sector in March added more than 200,000 jobs
for a second straight month, the first time that's happened since 2006. And the
unemployment rate fell to 8.8 percent, the lowest level in two years.
Job openings are usually filled
within one to three months after posting, which means the report can be an
indicator of future hiring activity. If that holds true, April could be another
strong month for job growth.
The number of jobs advertised has increased by nearly 1 million since they
bottomed out in July 2009, a month after the recession ended. But they are
still well below the 4.4 million openings that were advertised in December
2007, when the recession began.
Openings rose sharply in professional and business services, which include
accountants, legal services and temporary help agencies. Education and health
care and hotels and restaurants also posted big jumps in job postings. Openings
in state and local governments, which fell sharply last month, edged up
slightly.
There's a Lot of Hiring Going on in Electronic Trading
After a yearlong souping up of its equities electronic client solutions group, JPMorgan finally appears ready to duke it out with the competition. Given the comments of the group's management, it seems likely that they'll be in the market for even more tech, project management and business development folks. Indeed, the equities electronic client solutions group's had pretty strong hiring over the past year.
While this push might seem baffling, given the recent cutbacks in back office jobs at JPMorgan, it's clear that the emphasis is on the algo and electronic trading side of the business. And, that sort of push isn't only going on at JPMorgan. All of the big banks and tech providers, ECNs and related firms are focusing on electronic trading technology upgrades, so expect hiring in the space to stay strong.
ECNs are busy making their electronic trading platforms top of the line. Instinet recently completed a build out of its Canadian electronic trading. Bloomberg is rolling out a number of new algos, with a big push behind global equity portfolio trading. Bloomberg is also on the prowl for pros on the FX electronic trading sales side and fixed income electronic trading sales, software and support end.
As always, tech firms and IT professionals are benefitting from the continued growth in electronic trading. Trading platform providers - the ones servicing dealers and customers - are actively looking for project managers. Individuals need to be customer-friendly, have deep market knowledge, and be experienced in e-trading platforms as they deal with trading and tech support, integration, business development and more. Look for those with specific expertise on the FX and fixed income side of electronic trading to be in serious demand.
Six Best Books to Read for a Career in Hedge Funds
By Julie Steinberg
If you're planning to break into hedge funds or want to accelerate your career in the industry,
it's useful to read the same books that bigwigs in the field do.
We spoke to Roy Cohen, career coach and author of The Wall Street Professional's Survival Guide: Success Secrets of a Career Coach, who gave an insider's view of books that hedge fund professionals -- his clients -- deem essential reads for those in the industry.
1. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
This 2010 chronicle published by W.W. Norton & Company gives an overview of the factors that led to the housing crisis and credit crunch. Michael Lewis, the well-known journalist and author of "Liar's Poker," reports on what led to Lehman's demise and also highlights the people who predicted the crash. Hedge fund professionals are attracted to this book because it details one of the biggest events of their careers.
Key takeaway: Never say never.
2. The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History by Gregory Zuckerman
John Paulson is the wealthiest hedge fund-er on Forbes's list of billionaires, and people turn to this 2009 book published by Crown Business to figure out why. Wall Street Journal reporter Gregory Zuckerman paints the picture of Paulson, the man who famously bet against the housing market and netted billions. Paulson is a fascinating figure for those who dream of many zeros on their paychecks, and that interest doesn't look like it will abate any time soon.
Key takeaway: Sometimes it's good to go against the grain.
3. Hedgehogging by Barton Biggs
This colorful, gossipy guide to the personalities in the industry gets behind the curtain at hedge funds, notoriously opaque firms. It's penned by Barton Biggs, a money manager at Traxis Partners, a New York-based hedge fund; the information is firsthand. The book, published by Wiley in 2008, makes the masters at funds more accessible. It's more of a guide to the investors than a guide to investments, one commenter notes on Amazon.
Key takeaway: Meet your role models -- if you can't in real life, at least on the page.
4. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Investors tend to assume that events will unfold a certain way based on past occurrences, but this 2007 Random House book challenges that point of view. Taleb draws on his experience as philosopher, professor, and trader to posit that unexpected or rare events exert large impacts that can rattle Wall Street's dependence on predictability. "Investing morphs over time based on new information, sometimes good, sometimes tragic," Cohen said.
Key takeaway: Not everything will go according to plan.
5. Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein
Published in 1996 by Random House, this book gets to the heart of Buffett's investment techniques. "It allows for some insight into Buffett's brain," Cohen said. Roger Lowenstein, a financial journalist who has worked for the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, offers minute details of Buffett's life, including his relationship with his wife and mistress, and pieces together how one man built his fortune from scratch.
Key takeaway: If you want to be like Buffett, this is as close to a step-by-step guide as you're going to get.
6. The Money Masters Series by John Train
Train's first book, The Money Masters, was published in 1994 by HarperBusiness and followed up with The New Money Masters and Masters of Our Times. Train, who founded an investment advisory firm and co-founded "The Paris Review," doesn't try to be as gossipy as Biggs. Instead, these books examine what makes some of the world's most successful investors tick. Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett, John Templeton, and Philip Fisher are all put under the microscope.
Key takeaway: The best investors deliver consistent returns.
Accountants and Finance Staff in Demand, Says Survey
By Julie Steinberg
Finance staff and accountants will be in demand in the second quarter of 2011, the Robert Half Financial Hiring Index indicated.
Of the 1,400 CFO respondents to the survey regarding hiring plans, 85% said they expect to make no changes to their current staffing levels. The remainder are split on hiring with 7% planning to add accounting and finance professionals and 7% anticipating making cuts. The even split is down two points from the forecast for the first quarter, when 8% of CFOs said they would hire and 6% said they would lay off, resulting in a net 2% planning to hire.
The numbers don't tell the whole story, according to Brett Good, a senior district president with Robert Half. The survey doesn't take into account the market's recent improvement.
"We expect slight increases in hiring during the second quarter," he said. "For three out of four weeks we've seen declines in the number of unemployment claims."
Good said the zero percent was a "conservative estimate" that will increase as the quarter gets underway.
Robert Half has seen an increase in requisitions for accountants, financial analysts and business systems analysts and expects them to continue into the second quarter.
The survey also found that most hiring will take place in the Pacific states (Alaska, California, Oregon, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington). A net 7% of CFOs plan to hire in those states, followed by the Middle Atlantic region (New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania), where a net 5% of CFOs anticipate bringing on staff.
Two other recent surveys, one of CPAs by AICPA and the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler MBA program and the other by CFO magazine and Duke University, also show thatfinance executives plan to hire in 2011.
Man Group, the London-based alternative asset management company, announced three new U.S. hires today.
Todd Kata will join the firm as a senior analyst on the equities team within hedge fundresearch. He will be based in New York and report to Robin Lowe, head of equities. He will be responsible for sourcing and monitoring long/short equity funds. Prior to joining Man, he was a managing director at Calypso Capital, a New York-based long/short equity manager. He also spent time in equity and fixed income trading and has worked at The Carlyle Group and Morgan Stanley. He graduated from Princeton.
Jeremie Ho Hio Hen will join as an analyst on the portfolio management team. He will report to Art Holly, head of portfolio management for North America. He will be responsible for research and constructing analytical models. He was previously a rates and foreign exchange trader atJPMorgan.
Michael Callahan will join the North American sales team and focus on U.S. institutional and family office relationships. He will report to Raffaele Costa, head of North America and and Europe sales. Callahan was previously a vice president at the Blackstone Group.
Over the past several months, Man Group has been beefing up its U.S. presence. In January, it hired Miriam Tai as head of United States consultant relations, a newly created position. The former director of global consultant relations at BlackRock, is a liaison to investors who want the firms they invest in to be vetted beforehand. She also represents Man to U.S. institutional investors.
Man also brought on four new hires to the North American sales and marketing team in September, with the intent of ramping up its U.S. institutional private client businesses. The new roles have focused on developing Man's relationships with major private banks in Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles and New York.
Wells Fargo will add 1,000 employees to its payrolls at more than 400 mid-Atlantic retail bank branches.
The hiring reflects the bank's expansion into Wachovia's territory. Since the merger at the end of 2008, Wells Fargo has hired 600 employees for branches.
Hiring will take place in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., all by mid-May. The process is meant to be completed before Wachovia fully integrates with Wells Fargo and switches to its systems and brand.
The bank is planning to hire tellers, personal bankers, and store managers. It's alsocompeting with JPMorgan, which plans to add up to 2,000 branches within five years and hire up to 15,000 people to staff them.
Brisk hiring in February pushed the U.S.
unemployment rate below 9% for the first time in nearly two years—a development
that reflects a broadening recovery but also underscores how much ground the
economy has yet to regain.
The U.S. unemployment
rate slipped to 8.9% in February, the lowest rate in nearly two years. WSJ's
Sudeep Reddy and Phil Izzo report the private sector added 222,000 jobs. Also,
January's employment figures were revised upward to 63,000 jobs added.
Employers rebounded from a harsh winter to add
192,000 jobs to nonfarm payrolls in February as the unemployment rate fell one
notch to 8.9%, the lowest level since April 2009, the Labor Department reported
Friday. Broad-based private-sector gains in manufacturing and service
industries more than offset accelerating layoffs by state and local
governments, while stable wages suggested subdued inflation pressures.
At the same time, though, one key gauge of the
labor market's health—the labor force participation rate, which measures the
percentage of adults who have jobs or are seeking them—remained stuck at its
lowest point since the mid-1980s.
A low participation rate both saps the economy's
long-term growth potential and can obscure deeper problems in the labor market.
If, for example, labor force participation today were at the same level as
before the recession, the jobless rate would have been 11.5% in February.
Meanwhile, employers must contend with the
implications of the rising price of oil, which hit a 2.5-year high, closing at
$104.42 a barrel Friday.
"It's a recovery but it's still a very
muted recovery," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global
Insight, a forecasting firm. "To get to a strong recovery, you'd want to
be adding 300,000 to payrolls a month. We're clearly a long, long way from
that."
Including revisions to previous monthly reports,
the economy has added an average of 136,000 jobs a month since November, just
barely more than the 100,000 a month needed to keep up with typical growth in
the labor force.
As of February, the number of workers on U.S.
payrolls was 7.5 million below the December 2007 level.
Among those discouraged by the job market's slow
recovery is Glen Hineman, a 58-year-old Westland, Mich., resident who lost his
job as a supervisor and a steel processor in August 2008.
The recession has
driven many young people out of the job market and back to school. At the same
time, many people over age 55, with their savings depleted, are back at work or
looking for work. See the U.S. labor force participation rate, which measures
the employed and unemployed in the labor force as a percent of the population.
He has exhausted his unemployment benefits and
stopped searching for work about a month ago. Mr. Hineman said he looked for
work but had little success, aside from brief stints with the U.S. Census
Bureau, and sorting and bagging frozen mice to be sold to pet stores as food.
Mr. Hineman said concerns that he might need a
hip replacement led him to abandon his search. He is considering applying for
disability because he can't draw from his pension for a few more years.
"Ideally I'd like to go back to work,"
Mr. Hineman said. "I'm not ready for retirement, but I just have a feeling
that it's being forced on me."
Even as hiring picks up, more people are
suffering long bouts of unemployment or giving up completely on finding a job.
As of February, 4.4 million people had been out
of work for more than a year. The labor force participation rate stood at
64.2%, down from 66% in December 2007 when the recession began.
Economists worry that many of the nation's
idle—particularly men—won't return to the work force because they lack the
college degree or higher education required for many job openings, or because
their skills have atrophied.
A growing number of workers with health problems
are applying for Social Security Disability Insurance benefits. The disability
rolls, where many beneficiaries remain for life, have surged more than 14%
since the recession began, to nearly 10.2 million in December 2010.
"We already know from the number of people
who have entered the disability rolls that there's going to be a permanent hit
to the labor force participation rate," said Lawrence Katz, a Harvard
University economist. "That's both costly to them—they're going to be less
happy—and costly to us to lose someone who could be a productive worker."
February's increase in private employment added
to other indicators, such as falling jobless claims, that suggest the labor
market is gaining momentum. The booming manufacturing sector added 33,000 jobs,
while service providers such as truckers, bankers and accountants gained
152,000, up from 33,000 the previous month.
The sharpest declines came in state and local
governments, which shed a total of 30,000 jobs, compared with 8,000 in January.
"Things are looking better," said Rich
Weinberg, chief executive of Lighting Science Group Corp., a manufacturer of
LED lighting products that added 17 jobs last month, bringing its payroll to
600.
He said the company has seen sales accelerate as
its customers, which include major retailers, become more willing to spend on
new projects. The Satellite Beach, Fla., company picked up engineers and
researchers from a nearby NASA facility that is shedding jobs as its funding
drops.
The White House and lawmakers from both sides of
the aisle called the latest figures welcome news. Austan Goolsbee, chairman of
the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said the administration's
initiatives—such as a payroll-tax cut—"are creating the conditions for
sustained growth and job creation."
House Speaker John Boehner, meanwhile, credited
the improvement to "the hard work of the American people" and the
extension of income-tax cuts into 2012.
"Now we must build on it by eliminating the
job-crushing uncertainty being caused by excessive spending, borrowing, and
regulating in Washington," he said.
The jobs report won't be a game changer for the
Federal Reserve, where officials are on track to complete a $600 billion
bond-buying program in June and remain more concerned about the weak labor
market than about the potential inflationary effects of rising commodity
prices.
In one sign of muted inflationary pressures,
average hourly earnings rose only one cent in February, to $22.87.
February's job growth will provide U.S. consumers
with a much-needed income boost, but possibly not enough to offset the pain of
rising energy prices. Climbing commodity costs and uncertainty about the
outlook for consumer spending have some employers wary of ramping up hiring.
"The only thing that drives hiring is
demand," said Dave Cote, CEO of Honeywell InternationalInc., which has been
cautiously increasing its U.S. employment since mid-2010. "Until you're
sure the sales are there, you're not going to hire."
The Blackstone Group, Goldman Sachs and Northwestern Mutual are among firms that offer the best Wall Street internships, according to Vault.com, a career website that offers rankings, advice and job listings.
When it comes to getting a job in finance, having an internship at a top investment bank or private equity firm on your resume can give you an edge, according to the Vault survey. And not only do employers like seeing experience on a resume, landing an internship will help you get a foot in the door of the finance world.
For the survey, Vault examined compensation, perks (including housing, transportation and access to exclusive events), mentorship programs, hands-on work, pay, prestige, and responses of an intern experience survey it distributed to interns at companies in 2010.
Some usual suspects grace the list (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley), but what made internships at AT&T and Northwestern Mutual, two other companies that ranked, so good?
"The top 10 is not just about prestige," said David Limm, Vault's education editor. "So while Goldman makes the list, AT&T and Northwestern do, too, because of their career advancement opportunities."
One intern at AT&T said that they were "responsible for five major projects throughout the summer. Time management was key because I worked on several simultaneously."
At Northwestern Mutual, interns get to work directly with clients after working with a mentor. They also have to pass a state licensing exam.
Limm said that the internship at Northwestern Mutual has long been considered among the best, and that interns receive substantive training and become familiar with products, sales methods, policies and procedures. About a third of interns are offered full-time positions.
For AT&T's Financial Leadership program, about half of interns are offered full-time positions.
Here are Vault's top finance internships, in alphabetical order (the site didn't rank them):
One intern described working at Credit Suisse as "better than chocolate." Another appreciated getting the chance to perform regression analysis "on various securities in order to determine proper hedging tactics" at Deutsche. Surprised by any omissions on the list? Confused about some inclusions? E-mail us to tell us why.
At
times, getting your resume in front of the eyes of a hiring manager can
be such a challenge, that when you finally hear back and receive an
interview, it can feel like you've practically gotten the job. You
enthusiastically prepare for the big day, and when it comes, all seems
to go well. But later on you receive another correspondence telling you
that you just didn't quite make the cut. So what went wrong? Here are a
few reasons you may not have gotten the job, despite a seemingly great
interview.
Apparent Lack of Interest in the Actual Job
You
may be sitting there thinking, "There's no way I showed any shortage of
interest during that job interview, I was exuding enthusiasm for that
position." While that may be true, if hiring managers sense that you're
extremely keen on getting any job, not specifically the one they're
offering, they may decide to pass on you. They want to ensure that you
have a genuine interest in joining their company in this role, to know
that you are a great fit and will do the job well. If your interviewers
perceive that you are anxious to land whatever job comes along, they
might assume that you aren't particularly interested in what they have
to offer. Counter this assumption by asking relevant questions during
the interview, and by speaking intelligently about the position.
Someone Within the Company Filled the Role
Sometimes,
in the midst of the hiring process, a candidate who already works for
the company will come along. Or a current employee of the company will
refer a friend for the open position. Unfortunately, no matter how well
you hit it off with the hiring manager during the interview, the company
is more likely to go with a candidate who already works within the
organization and knows the ropes; or a candidate that another colleague
vouched for. While there isn't much you can do when this happens, try to
nip this problem in the bud by networking with individuals in the
company beforehand, so that you have a leg up as well.
The Job Description Changed
This
tends to happen more with newly created positions. As hiring managers
are interviewing candidates and determining the logistics of the new
position, they sometimes realize that the duties or qualifications
required for the job may have changed. While you may have been the ideal
candidate at the time you interviewed, it's possible that the job
description changed even a few days later. Again, there is not much you
can do here, but if you know that you are interviewing for a new
position, stress your ability to learn and adapt quickly, and your
eagerness to catch up in the areas where you may be lacking a bit.
Don't
take it personally when a great interview doesn't turn into a job.
Chances are, you will never really know the exact reason why you were
not selected. The best you can do is to take what you can from the
experience, brush off the loss, and move on to the next opportunity!
Good luck,
The Doostang Team
Cantor Fitzgerald Hiring 100 for Equities Business in 2011
The
firm announced today that Jarred Kessler will join as global head of
equities and will be based in New York. He will oversee the expansion of
the firms' global equity capital markets and report to Cantor CEO Shawn Matthews. The firm's hiring plans are in conjunction with Kessler's appointment.
Kessler joins from Credit Suisse, where he managed the credit-focused focused equities business. Prior to Credit Suisse, he worked at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. His appointment signifies Cantor's commitment to building out its global equity franchise. Last October, the firm hired Stephen Kendall to head up its European equities team. He had served as the head of the equity strategy group at Nomura.
"Jarred
brings a significant amount of talent in the distressed world, which
fits well into our cross-asset business model," Matthews said in an
interview.
Matthews said Cantor added almost 100 sales and trading
employees in 2010. The firm plans to build out the options and
exchange-traded funds businesses.
"We're excited about the equity market, maybe contrary to everyone else," Matthews said.
The
firm wants to hire sales and trading professionals with experience "who
can bring their book to any platform," Matthews said.
Before
calling back, it's a good idea to have answers to questions that
headhunters typically ask, said Jeff Heath, president of New York-based
Landstone Group, which specializes in placing executives with large
consumer technology companies.
Heath shared the following list of questions that job seekers should be able to answer -- and what to say when asked.
Why did you call me back?
Calling
the recruiter back in the first place implies that you're thinking
about new opportunities; this question helps the recruiter understand
why.
"Is it money, advancement, a bad environment? Is the person overworked -- or not stepping up?" said Heath.
(And, no, trying to be clever by saying 'because you called me' won't impress anyone.)
What is your best contribution/accomplishment to your job in the last 12 months?
This is your chance to showcase your greatest strength. Don't be shy. "Sell yourself hard," Heath said. "Be confident."
What are your three top attributes that separate you from a peer?
Many
people answer this question with something vague, Heath said. That
shows "a lack of understanding of your own strengths." And if you can't
name them, who will?
What type of job do you see yourself in next...and why?
You
should be realistic and clear, Heath said. "This shows your ability to
understand how you can apply and command the skills you -- or the
recruiter -- are marketing."
What would you do if presented your current job today -- would you accept it again?
In your answer, you should talk about what you've learned and how you've grown professionally, said Heath.
The new year promises better opportunities for
job seekers in the finance sector, with recruiters and analysts
expecting increased hiring — especially in private equity, hedge funds,
wealth management, compliance and commercial banking.
That marks a turnaround after several tough years, although 2010 figures signaled the potential for improvement as unemployment in the sector fell to 6.4% in December compared to 7.2% a year earlier.
Read about the 2011 outlook for hiring in the finance sector in this special report from FINS Finance.
Finance Hiring Outlook 2011
Hedge funds, mezz finance and compliance are just three of the hot
sectors you should check out if you're looking to make a career move
this year.
Who's Hiring?
Here are some of the companies that are hiring for the in-demand jobs this year -- along with what it takes to work there.
Hedge Funds Roaring Back to Life
Increased inflows are inspiring hedge funds to hire. In a recent survey,
60% of 200 hedge-fund managers said they are planning on adding staff
in 2011.
KPMG advisory recruiters talk hiring
Posted on Wednesday, January 26, 2011 3:29:57 PM GMT | Post a comment
Recruiters in KPMG’s advisory unit recently took the time to answer some questions for Vault readers regarding the firm’s plans to hire a quarter of a million new employees in five years. Specifically, the recruiters talked about what kinds of consultants they’re actively seeking, in terms of experience, expertise and overall ability.
Without further ado:
Q: KPMG recently announced its intentions to hire roughly 250,000 new employees in the next five years. Will the firm's advisory division also see big headcount increases in that timeframe?
A: Yes, the Advisory business is one of the key growth areas for KPMG in the US and globally, and therefore in order to meet our growth expectations, we do expect to significantly increase headcount in Advisory over the next five years. In the U.S. alone, Advisory is hiring more than 100 people per month.
Q: In terms of experience, what type of candidate will see the most attention from advisory recruiters? Entry-level? Mid-level? Manager-level?
A: Currently, KPMG Advisory is actively recruiting at all levels, but our greatest need is for mid-level talent. However, our needs tend to change depending upon client needs, so all levels are encouraged to apply.
Q: What particular skills do KPMG's advisory recruiters value? Is the division looking for quant-jocks, versatile strategists, or those with more job-specific skill sets?
A: KPMG Advisory is hiring across our three service groups – Transactions & Restructuring, Performance & Technology, and Risk & Compliance. Within those groups, we have a wide array of needs that require job-specific skill sets, such as in technology, risk management and transaction services, and are also looking for versatile strategists and project managers. We also have some positions that require industry-specific experience, with high demand right now in Financial Services, Health Care, Pharmaceutical, and Energy.
However, beyond job-specific skill sets and/or industry experience, the most important skill that we are looking for is excellent consultative abilities. Talented individuals that can meet with clients, recognize and articulate high value solutions, and then implement those solutions are critical to our success.
Q: What kind of working experience awaits newly-hired KPMG consultants?
A: KPMG offers an award-winning work environment, the opportunity to work with leading companies on challenging projects, outstanding career development programs, global work opportunities, and the chance to work with some of the best and brightest people around the world.
Q: Are applications accepted cyclically or on a rolling basis?
A: Experienced hires are accepted on a rolling basis. We encourage interested and qualified candidates to continually visit our career site and apply to any of our global opportunities athttp://www.kpmg.com/US/en/JoinUs/Pages/default.aspx.
Finance Hiring Outlook 2011 -- Most Active Sectors
By Julie Steinberg
This year the finance industry will continue bouncing back from a dismal 2008 and 2009 that saw hundreds of thousands of jobs disappear from the business.
Wealth management firms, commercial banks and firms that extend
mezzanine financing are just some that plan to add staff. Here are the
five areas projected to make the most hires.
With
ordinary loans still hard to come by, companies are turning to
mezzanine financing. That means many firms that dabble in this type of
lending will expand staff this year to meet demand.
Mezzanine
finance is a system of lending that can take the form of unsecured debt
or preferred stock. This type of financing is offered by private funds,
such as Praesidian Capital, or under the umbrella of a larger firm, such
as JPMorgan's Highbridge Principal Strategies.
"Mezz
will be a critical component in most buyout capital structures," in the
upcoming year, said Michael Hahn, co-founder and managing general
partner of BlenCap Mezzanine LP, a Minneaoplis-based mezz firm. Though
he stressed that the market is small in terms of active participants,
Hahn predicted that "to the extent there will be new entrants to the
market, more demand for lending talent at all levels should pick up
somewhat."
While the correlation between fundraising and hiring
isn't exact, increased activity is prompting more hiring across all
levels, lawyers, recruiters and lenders say. Highbridge and New York
Capital Life Partners are two that plan to add staff.
In 2008, there were 41 mezzanine funds raising capital, comprising 5% of all private equity
fundraising, according to data prepared for FINS by Preqin, an
alternative assets research firm. As a result of the crisis, the number
of funds shrunk to 20, comprising 3% of private equity fundraising in
2010. There are currently 56 funds raising capital, comprising 5% of
such fundraising.
Traditional bank loans are more difficult for
growing companies to obtain, according to David Barnitt, an advisor to
mezzanine funds, because global financial regulations are discouraging
financial institutions from taking on risk. That's resulted in companies
increasingly turning to mezzanine financing to obtain loans.
Fred
Goltz, head of KKR Asset Management's mezzanine business, agrees. "2010
was a busier year and our capital deployment was significantly higher
than we expected," he said. "I think going into 2011 we will continue to
be busy. I would anticipate being able to put out capital."
Investors are bouncing back from the financial crisis and need talented managers to oversee their assets.
"The volatility of the past two years is creating demand for good advice," said George Wilbanks, a recruiter who specializes in wealth management
at Russell Reynolds, a New York City-based search firm. "Smaller,
conservative boutiques and private banks at larger firms are both
hiring."
Russell Reynolds said the percentage of searches for
wealth management within its buy-side practice grew to 19.5% last year
from 7% in 2007. Companies are hiring individuals who have experience
with high-net worth and ultra-high net worth clients, rather than retail
brokers who might oversee clients with less than a million in assets.
Demand
will increase in 2011 as more firms "ramp up and strengthen" their
teams, according to Jeannie Hwang, executive director at RMG Associates,
a Seattle-based executive recruitment firm, who works closely with
high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth family advisory firms.
A
Global Wealth 2010 report compiled by Boston Consulting Group, the
Boston-based management consultancy, found that global wealth increased
11.5% to $115.5 trillion in 2009 from $100 trillion in 2008. Managed
assets are estimated to grow an average 6% annually through 2014.
In
the U.S., assets under management increased 15.1% to $35.1 trillion in
2009 from $30.5 trillion in 2008. BCG predicts that number will
increase to $43.4 trillion by the end of 2014.
Similarly, the
number of millionaire households in the U.S. increased 15.1% in 2009
from 2008. Globally, the number of millionaire households increased 17%
from 2008 to 2009.
All those newly minted millionaires need top talent looking after their assets.
Government agencies, private equity firms, hedge funds,
and banks have been gearing up for months to face a rapidly evolving
regulatory environment. That trend will accelerate in 2011 as firms race
to meet the July 21 deadline of complying with some rules under
Dodd-Frank. Hedge funds and private equity firms with over $150 million
assets under management must register with the SEC by that time if they have not already done so.
Community
banks will have to file more information under the Mortgage Reform and
Anti-Predatory Lending Act of Dodd-Frank. The newly created Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau will also collect more data from the
industry but there's no information on the details of that program yet,
said Karen Thomas, senior executive vice president for government
relations and public policy at the Independent Community Bankers of
America, a Washington, D.C.-based lobby.
And the slowdown won't stop in July. Over the next 18 months, U.S. regulators are supposed to issue more than 100 rules or studies in conjunction with Dodd-Frank.
The firms that didn't have to register before Dodd-Frank or invest heavily in risk management
before the financial crisis will have to catch up. Industry
participants are expecting thousands of positions to be filled over the
next year.
"The industry did not invest enough in risk management
in the good times when more risk was being taken," said Bill Githens,
the president and CEO of the Risk Management Association, a
Philadelphia-based industry group that focuses on advancing the use of
sound risk principles in the financial services industry. "The bar is
being raised and the expectations of executive management, regulatory
agencies and boards of directors are much more demanding."
Recruiters
believe that the initial reluctance to staff up due to uncertainty
about what the regulations would require will dissipate in the later
months of 2011.
The several thousand hedge funds that were waiting
to see what Dodd-Frank held in store are now searching for qualified
staff, said Jack Kelly, managing director at Compliance Search Group. He
says the demand for compliance personnel across all levels has
increased several hundred percent at his recruitment firm since the
beginning of last year.
The recent spate of insider trading arrests and investigations has also prompted the need for compliance officers.
"Whether it's an investment bank
or a broker-dealer, firms will need to deal with this overarching
regulatory wave that's coming. Firms really need to shore up their
infrastructure," Kelly said.
Increased demand has enabled firms to
specify exactly what they're looking for, according to Matt Kelly, the
editor-in-chief of Compliance Week, a trade magazine.
"A lot of
the jobs are cross-disciplinary," he said. "You might need an accounting
specialist with an appreciation for securities law. It can be very
difficult to find someone who has a broader perspective and depths in
several fields."
The new trend in risk management centers on this
holistic approach, said Kevin Blakely, Chief Risk Office for Huntington
Bancshares, the Columbus, Ohio-based bank, and the former president of
the Risk Management Association. "One of the lessons we learned is
everyone owns risk," he said. "We've put risk officers in each of our
business segments that report to the head of each business."
It hasn't been the best few years for commercial banking operations, but that's about to change.
"We're
seeing signs of recovery," said Bob Seiwert, senior vice president at
the Washington, D.C.-based American Bankers Association and the head of
the ABA Center for Commercial Lending and Business Banking. "The
economy's not completely there, but we're making good progress. With
recovery you'll see increased loan demand."
That increased demand
will translate into more hiring, said Doug Rickart, a banking division
director with Menlo Park, Calif.-based recruiting firm Robert Half.
Another
driver of growth is the looming retirement of thousands of baby boomers
from commercial banks, Seiwert said. "There are 8,000 banks with people
retiring," he added. "Those slots need to be filled."
Although
the number of people expected to retire can't be quantified, Seiwert
said that traditionally, commercial banks have attracted older workers.
Younger ones tend to head to flashy Wall Street firms. Over the next
several years, however, those empty spots at commercial banks may
attract 20- and 30-somethings.
For the first time since late 2008, weekly commercial and industrial-loan growth hit positive numbers in the first week of January, according to Federal Reserve data. Loan growth saw a percent change of 0.2% in November 2010 and 7.2% in December 2010.
Matt O'Connor, a bank analyst at Deutsche Bank, wrote in a January 7, 2011 note: "Recent loan demand commentary was generally more positive, particularly for C&I [commercial and industrial]."
At JPMorgan, loans to mid-sized companies increased 4% and commercial term loans increased 2% from the third quarter to the fourth.
Glocap,
a New York City-based search firm, saw more demand from hedge funds for
staff at the end of the fourth quarter and the first week of January.
Much of the hiring will take place at established funds looking to start
up in new areas, according to Adam Zoia, the firm's founder and CEO.
"Based
on our pipeline as a search firm, this year looks to be stronger than
last year in terms of amount of people we added to the space," Zoia
said.
J. Patrick Gorman, co-founder of iFind Group, an executive
search firm, believes that hedge funds will "desperately hire people"
this year due to "massive needs." There were layoffs in 2009, regulatory
changes in 2010, and thus more hiring should occur in 2011, he said.
Gorman believes much of the hiring will happen toward the later end of
the year as companies sort out their compliance hiring plans.
Gorman
said there was a 30% pickup in hiring for accounting, middle and back
office, regulatory, and non-front office from all of his clients between
2009 and 2010. For the big banks and large megafunds, there was a 42%
increase.
"The new trend is for small firms to be more
institutionalized, he said. "Requirements from investors and regulators
means you need a more robust operations platform. You need to hire all
these people to be considered a real business."
Gorman expects to do 50% more searches for hedge funds this year than in 2009 and up to 30% more than in 2010.
More
hedge funds are being launched. During the first three quarters of
2010, there were 715 funds launched, according to Hedge Fund Research, a
Chicago-based company that does hedge fund research and analysis. There
were 585 liquidations. For the first three quarters in 2009, there were
554 launches and 858 liquidations.
The number of hedge funds fell
from 7,634 in 2007 to 6,845 in 2008. Since then, the industry has been
mostly treading water with small increases. At the end of 2009, there
were 6,883. By the fourth quarter of 2010, there were 7,164 hedge funds.
The
driver for hedge fund hiring stems from institutional investors who
want to have diversified portfolio, Zoia said. Though funds didn't have a
blow-out 2010, they outperformed the market, "and that's of significant
value to pension funds and high-net worth individuals," he said. Zoia
said that another driver of hedge fund growth is the amount of assets
under management, which grew to $1.917 trillion last year, approaching
the peak of $1.93 trillion set in the second quarter of 2008.
Finance Hiring Outlook 2011 -- Most Active Companies
Mezzanine finance, wealth management, compliance/risk management, commercial banking and hedge funds
are most likely to hire finance professionals in 2011. Here are the
companies hiring in these areas and the qualifications you need to get
the job.
-- Positions in Demand: Junior analysts, associates and senior-level talent.
-- Qualifications: Analysts should have one to two years of investment banking
experience, said Doug Rickart, a banking division director with Menlo
Park, Calif.-based recruiting firm Robert Half. For an associate
position, applicants should have three to five years of analyst
experience and an MBA. Analysts and associates will do work on the front
end of debt-related transactions -- modeling and analytical skills will
be required.
Fred Goltz, the head of KKR Asset Management's
mezzanine business, said that most of the group's hires come from a
credit background. He's looking for people who have worked with credit
products and are concerned about risk and the stability of the companies
that they're lending to.
"The work that we do by and large has a
credit focus. We're much more concerned about getting our interest paid
and our principal back than having a triple return on the equity side,"
he said.
An understanding of credit and risk is the most important
qualification for an applicant, but Goltz also stressed relationship
skills.
"Transactions and relationships begin and end over the
course of potentially eight years," he said. "A lot of this business is
about maintaining that relationship."
-- Who's Hiring: The mezzanine fund Highbridge Principal Strategies, contained within JPMorgan's asset management
firm Highbridge, is in growth mode. A person familiar with the matter
said the fund has been hiring and is gradually building the business.
New
York Capital Life Partners, an asset manager, will bring on talent
toward the later part of the year, said Thomas Haubenstricker, the
firm's CEO. "We'll most likely add junior investment professionals who
have typically had some sort of banking experience with one of the large
firms," he said. The hires are generally pre-MBA. The team has 17
investment professionals and more than 40 overall.
-- Positions in Demand: Junior associate bankers and seasoned private bankers/wealth managers.
"The
hiring activity is going to be across the board as boutiques and banks
ramp up their businesses," Rickart said. "You'll need those people who
have more senior skills to manage the relationships to develop the
portfolios. But you'll need junior analytic work as well."
-- Qualifications: For senior positions, you need seven to ten years experience.
"A
little bit of gray goes a long way," said George Wilbanks, a Wealth
Management specialist at Russell Reynolds, an international executive
search firm. "A client wants to see someone who's lived through a market
slide and will be a little more cautious about what they recommend."
Institutional
is the key buzz word of 2011. Applicants who want to work in the
ultra-high-net-worth sector should have institutional experience. That
means starting their careers in investment banking or money management
so as to have a strong grasp on how to deliver customized solutions for
discerning customers.
Firms will never turn their noses down at
CFA and CPA designations, either. They're not necessarily required, but
they'll "definitely give applicants an edge over those who don't have
these," said Jeannie Hwang, executive director of client services at RMG
Associates, a recruiting firm that caters to high-net-worth and
ultra-high-net-worth clients.
Just like in compliance,
specialization is a buzz word in wealth management circles. Hwang said
she's seen greater demand for CPAs with tax strategies and estate
planning backgrounds, as well as applicants who specialize in investment
management and multi-generation planning.
-- Who's Hiring: Barclays
Wealth will hire between 450 and 650 wealth management-related
positions in its offices in the U.S. (and one in Buenos Aires) by 2014.
Though it's not written in stone, the expectation is to add between 70
and 120 investment reps each year. The focus is on seasoned
professionals, but there's room for junior talent to assist them.
Deutsche Bank
will add over 30 relationship managers each year for the next two
years. There are currently over 220 relationship bankers for the bank in
the region among a total staff of close to 700. The bank's goal is to
hire experienced, senior level talent as it attempts to double its
business by 2012.
JPMorgan will increase its wealth management
teams in Europe, the Middle East and Africa by 15% to 20% a year for the
next two to three years. Hiring has already started and the firm is
looking to hire across all levels. Each private banker works alongside a
wealth advisor and client service specialist, for which the firm is
also hiring. In Europe, the company will focus on the United Kingdom,
Switzerland, Italy, France, and Spain in particular.
--
Qualifications: Employers are looking for statistical skills that
underpin quantitative risk analysis, said Rickart. Companies expect an
undergraduate degree in economics, mathematics or statistics for an
entry-level job. For senior positions, they like to see advanced degrees
like a masters of science in statistics or an MBA in financial
engineering. "Quant culture is going to continue to be a culture that's
important," Rickart said.
The trend for 2011 in compliance and
risk management, besides a holistic approach to risk, is all about
specialty, said Chad Champion, a senior recruiter at The Mergis Group, a
division of Spherion, an international recruitment firm. "Each line of
business is looking for very specific servicing experience," he said.
"For example, a broker dealer will look for someone who has experiences
with examinations and surveillance."
-- Who's Hiring: Huntington Bancshares,
an Ohio-based lender, will hire at least 10 more people this year, said
Kevin Blakely, the bank's chief risk officer and the former CEO of Risk
Management Association, a Philadelphia-based industry group that
focuses on advancing the use of sound risk principles in the financial
services industry. He said the typical hire has a minimum of 10 years
experience and has already hired 25 people to build out the team.
PayPal,
the online payment subsidiary of eBay, is planning to bring on more
than 250 compliance officers in 2011 for its offices around the world.
-- Positions in Demand: Commercial lenders/relationship managers, credit analysts.
"There
will be jobs in the cash management arena," said Bob Seiwert, senior
vice president at the American Bankers Association and the head of the
ABA Center for Commercial Lending and Business Banking. "The jobs focus
on engineering a corporation's cash flow."
-- Qualifications: For
credit analysts, you need to be strong in financial statement analysis
and have an accounting background with economics courses. Commercial
lenders need to be well-versed in risk assessment as they'll focus on
making loans to particular companies.
"You can start out as a
credit analyst," Seiwert said. "You'll need communication skills to
become a relationship manager or commercial lender as you'll need to
manage the relationship between the bank and the company."
People
skills are paramount. Credit analysts will work on a team and need to be
able to get along well with the relationship manager. They also need to
be able to work with the client to figure out their existing cash
management systems and determine what challenges they're facing.
-- Who's Hiring: HSBC's
commercial banking division in the United States is planning to hire
staff in California and Florida, said spokesperson Juanita Gutierrez.
The bank plans to hire commercial relationship managers and specialists
in trade, payments and cash management. The majority of the positions
will serve the needs of international companies with annual sales from
$30 million to $250 million. The firm wants to capitalize on U.S.
companies looking overseas for growth opportunities.
--
Positions in Demand: Investor relations, operations, hedge fund
administration, accounting, compliance, analysts, risk managers,
traders.
-- Qualifications: In the back-office, funds will hire
people who can help out on regulatory disclosure, tax and compliance,
said J. Patrick Gorman, founder of iFind Group, an executive search
firm. Requirements vary according to position (e.g., a tax position will
require an accounting background and a CPA).
For investment
professionals, Gorman said experience with fixed income products is
still in demand and has also seen increased demand for equities
backgrounds. A junior trader doesn't necessarily have to have years of
experience or an MBA. Some funds may require a minimum number of years
of experience.
-- Who's Hiring: SAC Capital
is searching for a tax analyst and a quantitative statistical research
analysts, according to the most recent postings on its website. Bridgewater Associates
has several research analyst, trading and portfolio management
positions available on its website, in addition to back-office positions
in IT. British firm Polar Capital announced it was planning to hire and acquire new teams to drive assets-under-management-growth.
U.S. companies
optimistic about the economy plan to hire more workers in coming months,
a quarterly survey released Monday found, another signal that the jobs
market is turning up.
The fourth-quarter poll of 84
companies by the National Association for Business Economics found 42%
expected to increase jobs in the next six months. That is up from 29% in
the first quarter of 2010. Only 7% of companies in the latest survey
predict they will shed jobs in the coming six months, down from 23% at
the start of last year.
"It looks like the opening melody of a
true recovery in the labor market," said Shawn DuBravac, economist at
the Consumer Electronics Association, a trade group, and chairman of the
NABE committee that conducts the survey.
The U.S. economy has been growing for a
year and a half but companies have been slow to ramp up hiring. That
may change soon as the economy is widely expected to pick up steam. To
meet higher demand, many businesses have relied mainly on existing
workers to increase output. But there is a limit to how much they can
boost productivity.
"The economy is potentially at a
turning point in job creation," said Randall Kroszner, a professor at
the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a former Fed
governor.
NABE surveyed companies in various
industries including manufacturing and finance. The poll, conducted from
Dec. 17 to Jan. 5, found the gap between companies planning to hire
workers over the next six months and those that expect to shed jobs
widened to the highest level since 1998.
To be sure, the 2007-2009 recession was
so deep that a lot more jobs need to be created to make a dent in the
high unemployment rate, now at 9.4%. The U.S. government's jobs report
for December shows hiring remains weak.
But the recent drop in weekly jobless
claims points to a stronger labor market, and the tax-cut package
approved at the end of 2010 is seen as likely to help the economy this
year.
More than half the companies surveyed—especially those in
manufacturing, mining and agriculture–expect to see a favorable impact
on sales from the tax-cut deal. Companies generally have raised their
expectations for growth this year.
All of the survey's four major industry sectors—goods-producing;
services; finance, insurance and real estate; and transportation,
utilities, information and communications—registered stronger demand in
the final three months of 2010.
Economists in the private sector and government are increasingly optimistic about the pace of the recovery.
Strong U.S. consumer spending during the holiday season has raised
expectations for growth, despite a persistently poor outlook for
housing.
The economy expanded by a 2.6% annual rate in the third quarter and
is expected to have grown by more than 3.0% in the final three months of
2010, as well as in each quarter this year, according to a Wall Street
Journal survey of economists published this month. When Federal Reserve
officials meet this week, they are expected to raise their growth
forecasts for 2011 slightly.
There's probably no better time than now to be a traditional, roll-up-the-sleeves credit analyst.
Investment banks
are planning to hire professionals to analyze bonds for proprietary
traders and portfolio managers, while traditional lenders seek the same
to inform loan decisions.
"It is very much is back in vogue," said Diane Vazza, head of global fixed-income research at Standard & Poor's Corp. "After the period that we've just come to in the economy, folks now realize that fundamentals speak volumes."
Global
Sage, a New York-based recruiting firm, expects to place 60% to 70%
more credit analysts in 2011 than it did last year. Chief Executive
Richard Stein said banks and investment houses are offering hefty
sign-on bonuses and buying senior credit analysts out of opulent
deferred compensation deals.
"There used to be a time when being a
credit analyst was being the Cinderella of Wall Street," Stein said.
"But now they've got their space at the ball, so to speak."
The municipal research team at Deutsche Bank,
for example, has expanded from four to six members to meet new demand
from institutional investors that have traditionally analyzed bonds
in-house. Carol L. Flynn, head of the group, said investors, rattled by
the recent crisis, are putting a premium on deep research.
"When
everything is going swimmingly, it's sometimes hard to distinguish one
kind of research from another," Flynn said. "I've been in the business
since 1993; and clearly I have never seen an environment like this. It's
a very fun time."
Meanwhile, Moody's Corp.,
one of three major credit-rating agencies, has bolstered ranks by 716,
or 20%, since the end of 2007. Lisa Westlake, the company's human
resources chief, said her team is still shopping for credit analysts and
has been more vigilant in keeping its talent pipeline full in recent
months.
Demand for savvy credit critics has been driven, in part, by the disappearance of debt safety nets.
Bond
insurance, once a $2.3 billion business that made issuers with shaky
financials more attractive, has all but disappeared in recent years. Big
positions covering mortgage-backed securities and toxic collateralized
debt obligations drove many companies that guaranteed credit out of the
business. Macquarie Group Ltd. and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. made forays into bond insurance in 2008 and quickly retreated.
Ambac Financial Group Inc., one of the last holdouts, filed for
bankruptcy in November and analysts now wonder if credit guarantees are
gone for good.
Meanwhile, professional investors have lost some
faith in traditional bond-rating agencies. Stein said such firms still
have "a lot of egg on their faces" from giving top ratings to financial
instruments that blew up in 2008 and 2009. Those assessments were the
focus of an April Senate inquiry.
Meredith Whitney, the analyst who predicted troubles at Citigroup in 2007, has pledged to build a new, independent credit-ratings agency.
Whitney, who did not return phone calls and e-mails for this piece, has
argued that companies like Moody's and Standard & Poor's have been
complacent, particularly with respect to municipal debt.
However,
as banks and brokerages look to build and bolster their own desks of
credit-quality experts, the pipeline for such talent is relatively thin.
Credit analysts, and programs to train them, were some of the first
things cut when the economy darkened in recent years.
Between May
2008 and May 2009, the ranks of credit analysts thinned by 6,450, almost
9% of all such positions, according to the federal Bureau of Labor
Statistics. There are now roughly 68,000 credit analysts in the country,
earning $67,230 a year, on average.
Mark Angott, president of
Detroit-area recruiting firm Angott Search Group, is getting more
requests for credit analysts from his client base, local and regional
banks around the Midwest. But he thinks the market for such
professionals will get tighter before the ranks of qualified candidates
grow.
"You can't just say: 'We're going to groom up a credit
analyst program tomorrow,'" he said. "The basic economics of supply and
demand will start to kick in and I really believe that we're going to
end up with a shortage."
In recent years, Standard & Poor's,
in cooperation with New York University's Stern School of Business,
developed a new set of proprietary certification programs to hone the
skills of its own analysts.
The offerings are a rigorous step, but
still don't compare to the two-year training program that Vazza, the
firm's fixed-income research head, says she went through at Chase in the
early 1980s. Pupils were grilled in "the five C's" of credit --
character, capacity, capital, collateral and conditions -- and if they
failed to top 70% on a test, they were fired, according to Vazza.
"It
was the Mercedes of training," she explained. "You don't see those
types of programs anymore and I'm really not sure the banks would
underwrite that cost again."
Finance Jobs Vanish, But Not as Fast as Job Seekers
By Kyle Stock
01/10/2011
The
ranks of finance and insurance workers, both employed and unemployed,
thinned substantially in the past year, as the industry continued to
shrink in the wake of the crisis.
The number of workers at banks
and underwriters declined by 262,000 in the past 12 months, or 3.9% of
all positions, according to recent data requested from the Bureau of
Labor Statistics.
The only reason that the industry unemployment
rate did not spike in step was because an even greater number of workers
quit the business altogether, jumping to other industries or retiring.
The finance and insurance experienced labor force, which counts both
employed workers and unemployed job seekers, fell by 344,000 or 4.8% in
the last 12 months.
"It's all about the implosion of the financial
sector in 2008 and 2009," said Lawrence J. White, an economics
professor at New York University. "Goldman is really the only place
where the good times have returned...the rest of these guys are in sort
of stabilization mode."
By many measures, 2010 was a dismal year for finance. In the year through November, trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange
plunged by 19.6%, according to the Securities Industry and Financial
Markets Association. At the same time, almost $255 billion flowed out of
U.S. mutual funds on a net basis.
Many of the vanished jobs were
likely at the 157 banks that the federal government shut down in 2010. A
number of massive layoffs also shrunk finance payroll. Hedge fund D.E.
Shaw fired 150 people in September, as the company weathered a wave of redemption requests. Weeks later, Credit Suisse laid off 250 New York workers. And New York City passed out pink slips to 129 employees in its Finance Department, as it struggled to plug a hole in its budget.
Many
of the industry's castoffs, however, aren't going on unemployment
rolls. They are either retiring or taking jobs in other fields. As
companies keep compensation in check and hand out "donuts," or zero
bonuses, the finance and insurance industry has lost much of its appeal
said Theo Vermaelen, a professor at INSEAD, the international business
school based in France.
"It's a bit like the black sheep of the business family right now," he said.
White,
at NYU, said that many of his students, though still interested in
finance careers, are looking further afield for job prospects.
Meredith
Haberfeld, who runs an eponymous career coaching company, has seen a
wave of clients from the finance industry in recent years. She said that
the crisis, and the ensuing rash of buyouts and consolidation, left a
lot of workers disenchanted.
"The only real pattern I've seen is
when the pathway for continued growth is no longer clear," she said.
"Take somebody who worked for one bank that was acquired by another;
they're no longer building the thing they thought they were building."
Most of Haberfeld's clients are looking for alternative careers that require more creativity and entrepreneurial effort.
Economists
are trying to figure out whether the jobs will return or if finance has
settled at a new, lower equilibrium. Vermaelen, at INSEAD, expects
levels to rise again when M&A activity and trading activity return
to pre-crisis levels.
"We've been in bad situations before," he said. "We just have to sit and wait it out."
10 Things Your Boss Won't Tell You
1. "Yes, we are reading your emails… and your IMs."
Like many financial services firms, Wedbush Securities
monitors the daily emails, instant messages and social networking
activity of its 1,000-plus employees, says Mattias Tornyi, the company's
Director of IT. They use an email monitoring software to flag certain
types of messages and keywords within messages, he says. Every day, they
end up reading 5% to 10% of the messages employees send.
That's
fairly extensive, but many firms are, at the very least, monitoring some
of employees' Internet, phone and email use, especially larger
companies and those in sensitive or heavily regulated industries. The
market for email monitoring software has grown more than 25% each year
since 2008 and is projected to reach $1.23 billion in 2013, according to
IT market research firm Gartner; more than one in three large U.S.
companies employ actual people to read or analyze employee email,
according to a 2010 study by email monitoring firm Proofpoint. Plus, a
survey by the American Management Association and The ePolicy Institute
found that almost half of the small, medium and large companies surveyed
monitored phone use, and two out of three monitored web use.
Instant-message and text-message monitoring are also increasing, says
Stephen Marsh, chief executive of email archiving firm Smarsh.
Not
only do employers watch what you're doing, but many act on what they
find. One in five large U.S. companies fired an employee for violating
email policies in the past year, the Proofpoint survey found. What was a
fireable offense? Most email investigations pertain to issues of
employees leaking sensitive, confidential or embarrassing information,
or theft – not racy messages sent to a girlfriend from an office email
account or the occasional online shopping binge from the corporate
desktop.
2. "You're too old for this."
When
Joyce Kalivas-Griffin, 57, saw a job opening at a private school
nearby, she immediately sent in her resume. She was hopeful – the
description matched her skills almost perfectly – but heard nothing.
Then, she noticed that the job had been posted again, so she tweaked her
resume to obscure her age and resubmitted it. This time, the school
called her in for an interview. Kalivas-Griffin says she nailed it, but
she didn't get the job: She believes that when the interviewer met her
and realized she's no 30-something, her age tipped the scales against
her.
Kalivas-Griffin will never know for sure, but as the
workforce gets grayer, age bias is likely to increase, experts say.
Roughly 25% of employers said they were reluctant to hire older workers,
according to a 2006 survey by the Center on Aging and Work at Boston
College, and after looking at only a resume, employers discriminated
against women they perceived to be 50 or older, according to a 2007
study by the National Bureau of Economic Research. It's a trend, experts
say, that's gotten worse in the recession, as evidenced by the latest
data from the Labor Department: laid-off workers 55 and older spent an
average of 35 weeks looking for work, compared with 30 weeks for 25 to
54 year-olds. "We know it's very prevalent," says Laurie McCann, a
senior attorney with AARP Foundation Litigation. "The problem is that
people often don't know it's happening, because of the nature of
applying for jobs." In a world of online applications, you never see the
other candidates, nor do you meet the hiring manager. That's why career
consultants often recommend anyone older than 45 or 50 alter their
resume to shift focus away from their age and toward their experience,
achievements and skills. You don't need to list every job you've ever
had; instead highlight achievements in a measurable way - like say, how
much you increased revenue for your department - and be sure to list
tech, social media and other skills.
3. "I know when you're faking the flu."
As
a production manager at a high-end commercial photo lab, Stuart
Horvath, 32, supervised both permanent and freelance production
assistants. Their job was to process the film, but when someone "didn't
feel like dealing with all the slides that day, the machine would
'suddenly' jam," Horvath says – and he knew it didn't jam nearly as
frequently as a few of his staff members claimed. Then there were the
myriad sick days taken by one of his freelancers. Horvath suspected he
was faking – and confirmed it when he ran into the employee at a bar on a
night when he'd claimed to be sick. Look, he says: "I've been a boss,
but I've been an employee too."
It's true: The boss often knows if
you're slacking off, job-hunting, sneaking out, faking sick or padding
your expense report. In fact, a growing number of companies are hiring
private investigators
to track employees who call in sick with a suspicious illness,
according to an article published last month in Bloomberg Businessweek.
Perhaps it's a sign of tough times. More than one in four employers say
they think more employees have been faking illness and taking the day
off since the economic downturn began, a 2009 CareerBuilder.com survey
revealed. They're not merely paranoid: About one-third of workers admit
to calling in sick to work when they weren't. And that's not all your
boss knows. "Sometimes the people on my team spend their days putting up
a smokescreen to make it look like they are working hard, but I know
they can't be," one employer at a financial services firm in Phoenix
says. Another knew her employee was looking for another job. The lesson:
Your antics are, for the moment, tolerated, but they probably haven't
gone unnoticed.
4. "Your kid? Your problem."
By
now it's common knowledge that women earn less than men – about 81
cents for every dollar. Having a kid hurts women's earning potential
even further. The so-called "mommy penalty" may manifest in many ways: A
mother may get passed over for a promotion because the boss thinks she
takes off too much time to care for her kids or that she's more
concerned about the family than her career. A mom may get overlooked for
high-profile projects because the boss fears she won't devote enough
time and energy.
Those are hard slights to quantify. Not so for
the penalty faced by women who take time off to raise a child – even for
a period as short as 18 months. Women with M.B.A.s who left the
workforce for a year and a half to raise children make 41% less than men
with the same degree; female Ph.D.'s make a third less; lawyers, 29%
less, and doctors, 16%, according to a 2010 study by Harvard economics
professors Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz. "Business occupations
place heavy penalties on employees who deviate from the norm," Goldin
and Katz write in the study.
5. "I'm your best friend…"
For
the six out of 10 workers who say they've considered a boss a friend,
this won't come as a surprise: Being the boss's pal, or pet, comes with
perks. Some bosses play favorites in obvious ways, like giving a
particular subordinate the plum assignments or pushing upper management
for his raise. Others are more subtle, seeming to treat all employees
equally. But then they'll offer more guidance to a favored worker, or
make sure she is introduced to the "right" people, says career and
executive coach Roy Cohen. And as long as the relationship works,
everyone can benefit: Good relationships tend to lead to higher worker
engagement; compatibility can help a worker get a raise or a promotion;
everyone likes to work with people they like and trust.
But the
footing is never strictly equal when one friend can fire the other. "You
have to be very careful," says Cohen. The boss is still evaluating your
compensation and performance, and the minute there's a problem or a
disagreement over either, feelings get hurt. To keep a relationship
friendly, without crossing the line into friends territory, avoid
talking about sensitive personal issues, he suggests: No matter how
close you might feel, ultimately there is always the chance that your
boss will use that information in a way that serves his purposes, not
yours.
6. "…And your worst enemy."
But
sometimes, the boss is your worst enemy. Just as a good relationship
with your boss can bolster your career, a lousy one can tank it. Or
worse. One study found that, in incidences of "workplace bullying" --
"repeated and persistent attempts by one person to torment, wear down,
frustrate or get a reaction from another," according to the Society for
Human Resource Management – the boss is the bully 72% of the time.
Nearly half of people who were bullied at work suffered stress-related
health problems, according to the Workplace Bullying Institute. Even if
your relationship doesn't deteriorate to that level, your communication
can be strained if your boss doesn't keep his word, gives you the silent
treatment, invades your privacy or deflects blame from himself -- all
of which lead workers to experience "more exhaustion, job tension,
nervousness, depressed mood and mistrust," a Florida State University
study found. Worst case, this kind of behavior from the boss can even
kill you: A 2008 study published in the Journal of Occupational and
Environmental Medicine found that employees who had worked for four
years under a boss who was uncommunicative, inconsiderate or opaque were
60% more likely to have a heart attack.
7. "I don't promote based on performance."
Usually,
workers have to do a good job to get promoted. But in many cases,
that's not enough. Who rises (and who doesn't) is a mix of factors, most
of which workers have no real control over, including supervisors'
preferences, organizational rules and company culture. In some
organizations, particularly larger, more traditional companies,
seniority may be the main factor in promotion decisions, says Tony
Deblauwe, founder of HR consulting firm HR4Change. Seniority-based
promotions are more common in the U.S. than in other countries,
according to a 2004 study in the Socio-Economic Review, and "more
popular than economic explanations would allow." Compatibility with the
boss is critical, too, Deblauwe says: "Who you know makes a big
difference, particularly the higher up you go."
The reverse is
also true: Being smart and capable doesn't even guarantee your job. One
manager in a small Arizona investment planning firm, who declined to
give his name to preserve company morale, fired a subordinate whom he
says was "very smart," with good credentials and a degree from a
prestigious university. But the manager also found him difficult and
hard to supervise, and ultimately fired him: "His strained relationship
with me was a big factor in this decision."
8. "I'm Shallow."
As
if being thin and attractive. weren't its own reward, being both helps
workers get ahead at work, too. The opposite is also true: People who
are unattractive or overweight in their bosses' eyes are punished for it
at the office. In spite of the fact that in most professions,
attractiveness has no bearing on performance, many bosses subscribe to
the notion that "what is beautiful is good" (
PDF
), according to a psychology researcher from Hofstra. As a result,
good-looking people earn 3% to 8% more than average-looking people, who,
in turn, earn 5% to 10% more than those rated "plain," according to a
2005 study by Daniel Hamermesh of the University of Texas and Jeff
Biddle of Michigan State University.
Extra body weight comes with
its own employment challenges: 43% of overweight people say they were
teased, harassed, fired, not hired, passed over for a promotion or
otherwise treated unfairly because of their weight by an employer or
supervisor. And overweight people are paid as much as 6% less than their
slimmer co-workers in comparable positions, according to Yale's Rudd
Center for Food Policy and Obesity (
PDF
). The standards are tougher for women than men: Women with a body mass
index of 27 or higher are at "serious risk" of weight discrimination,
while men must have a BMI of at least 35 to be at comparable risk, a
2008 Yale University study found. And moderately obese women are three
times more likely than moderately obese men to be the victims of weight
discrimination, the study also found.
9. "I don't have time for you."
Forty-year-old
Erika Worth owns a background-check business in Vancouver, Wash., and a
detective agency in Los Angeles, putting her in a dual role that
requires monthly trips up and down the West Coast. So every time one of
her 15 employees has a question about a project or a scheduling
conflict, Worth asks them to try to come up with a solution on their
own. It's not that she doesn't care: She just doesn't have time to
handle every problem as it arises.
Bosses have always been busy,
but since the cutbacks of the recession, many managers now have even
less time to supervise, talk to, or nurture their staffs, Cohen says.
Two-thirds of employees say they have too little interaction with their
boss, up from just over half in 2008, according to a study by Leadership
IQ. "When times get tough, managers become avoidant," writes Mark
Murphy, who worked on the study. And with unemployment so high, some
bosses feel they don't need to spend as much time with their employees:
If the employee doesn't like it, well, there are plenty of other people
who would like their job. "A lot of bosses have this
'but-I-give-them-a-paycheck' mentality," says career coach Sherri
Thomas. "They think that the paycheck is enough of a thank you."
10. "It's all about me."
You've
slaved away on a project for weeks, only to hear the boss give the
presentation with no mention of your name. You've spent months doing
research for that marketing proposal, but when it goes to boss's boss,
there's no mention of your contribution. Bosses who take credit for your
work or blame you for problems that you didn't fully cause can "be
equally – and sometimes more – damaging to employees" than the obvious
bully, says Deblauwe.
Nearly half of workers say their boss has
taken credit for their work, and more than a third say their boss has
"thrown them under the bus" to save himself, according to a study by
Spherion Staffing. That kind of credit-grabbing and blame-deflecting
behavior is growing more common, says Thomas. In a tight labor market,
"there's so much pressure to achieve and people feel like they have to
be overachievers."
To be fair, this behavior isn't always as bad
as it seems. Sometimes it's not appropriate to credit each employee,
such as when the higher-ups don't care which member of the boss's team
did what and simply want to know the results, says career coach Hallie
Crawford. And "some bosses think of the employee as there to help them
and that's just part of the deal," Crawford says. They may not be
maliciously avoiding giving you credit, rather they may see the
employer/employee relationship as not requiring it, she says. And for
bosses with large teams, "it might be human error" -- they just can't
remember who did what part of the project.
Published January 3, 2011
2011: A hiring boom, even at 9% unemployment
Chris Isidore, senior writer, On Monday January 3, 2011, 8:11 am EST
After three years of economic pain, a growing
number of economists think 2011 will finally bring what everyone's been
hoping for: More jobs and a self-sustaining recovery.
"We're
looking at some leading indicators on employment, and they're all
flashing green lights," said Bernard Baumohl of the Economic Outlook
Group, a Princeton, N.J. research firm.
Though most economists
still expect a painfully high unemployment rate of about 9% at the end
of this year, some think that stat masks more important signs of
strength.
Baumohl and some other economists forecast between 2.5
million and 3 million jobs being added to U.S. payrolls in 2011, about
triple the gains likely to be recorded in 2010 and what would be the
best one-year jump since the white hot labor market of 1999.
That
wouldn't be enough to climb out of the 8-million job crater created by
the Great Recession and won't bring down the unemployment rate by a
significant amount. An improved job market could even bring a short-term
rise in the jobless rate, as those discouraged from job hunting resume
looking for work and are once again counted as unemployed.
But the forecasted hiring boom could get the economy back into gear and provide real relief for many Americans.
Those
projecting better hiring in 2011 point to a number of factors. Among
them, job openings by employers rose 17% from June to October of this
year, the most recent reading available from the Labor Department, and
are up by about a third compared to a year earlier.
And there has been a downward trend in newly laid-off workers filing for initial jobless claims, which fell below 400,000
in the most recent reading for the first time since the summer of 2008.
That might have been distorted by the holiday season and bad weather,
but the four-week average is also at a two-plus year low.
On the business front, capital expenditures -- typically followed by expansion and hiring -- have been on the rise.
"Forecasters
generally underestimate the strength of a recovery once it is
underway," said Bill Cheney, chief economist for Manulife Asset
Management. He's forecasting 2.5 million to 3 million new jobs this
year.
"Once things get moving, they feed on themselves," he said.
"There is so much pent-up demand. People have been frugal for three
years. There will be a lot of new cars, a lot of new furniture, a lot of
people moving out of their parents' basement."
A rebound in the
creation of new jobs has the potential to help both the still struggling
housing market and the economy as a whole. Many recent college grads or
those who lost their homes or jobs have been stuck living with friends
or family members. As they find work and move back out on their own,
they'll have to spend.
About 3 million fewer jobs were added over
the course of the past three years compared to the annual average of
first eight years of the last decade.
"Jobs feed income and income
feeds more consumer spending. Consumer spending hasn't come back in a
meaningful way compared to other recoveries," said Brett Ryan, economist
with Deutsche Bank. His firm forecasts consumer spending will finish
2010 up between 1.4% to 1.7% when the final numbers are in, but that
will jump to more than 3% growth next year.
Baumohl says another
non-traditional employment indicator, the number of day-care workers,
has been edging up for four months and is now about 2% higher than a
year ago. "People need more day care when they've got jobs to go to," he
said.
The more bullish outlook is widespread. Of the 19
economists who responded to CNNMoney's surveys at the end of both the
third quarter and fourth quarters, 16 had raised their growth forecast
for 2011 from three months earlier.
Five Best Business Books to Read for Your Career in 2011
By Kyle Stock
Will
2011 bring a huge market boom or another economic catastrophe? Depends
on who you ask. Still, there is no bear market for career advice and it
almost always pays dividends. Here are some new offerings that will
serve you well in the New Year.
Diamond
is a chronic overachiever. Harvard law degree. Wharton MBA. Pulitzer
Prize via the New York Times. CEO of a bunch of companies. And currently
a professor at Wharton. In other words, he knows a lot about "getting
more."
Diamond's tome advises to forget about power and
probabilities in a negotiation and focus on who is sitting across the
table -- their emotions and "the pictures" in their heads. He also makes
the case for occasionally losing, which, honestly, doesn't seem like
his strong suit.
Chopra,
the author of "How to Know God" and "The Path to Love" probably doesn't
carry as much clout in the business world as the Sage of Omaha, but
he's has been teaching CEOs for some time. The core of his counseling
here is of the know thyself variety, which is never bad advice.
Chopra writes: "At the deepest level, a leader is the symbolic soul of a group." Meditate on that.
Seriously
though, the savvy folks at Harvard Business School (whose press unit
published this offering) probably know more than most about teaching
people how to lead. Hill, an HBS professor, and Lineback, a writer and
near-constant HBS collaborator, break leadership down into three fronts:
managing yourself, managing a network and managing a team.
Kaufman,
a former middle manager at Proctor & Gamble, has built a following
teaching people how to do an end-run around the ivory tower. His
website, personalmba.com, has condensed business books and broken
b-school topics into digestible pieces since 2005.
The book
version of Kaufman's schtick also includes a long list of sources to
plumb for more information. At $28, it might be worth a shot.
Lambert,
who writes about finance and trading at Forbes magazine, provides a
historic vista of the Chicago trading pits, from its feedlot roots to
its feverish, tech-juiced present. She also makes the case for
speculators.
As Uncle Sam goes about rewriting the rules on how
derivatives are bought and sold, those attached to the business would do
well to look back.
As the economy
gradually recovers, some big U.S. companies are cranking up their
recruiting and advertising thousands of job openings, ranging from
retail clerks and nurses to bank tellers and experts in cloud computing.
Many of the new jobs are in retailing,
accounting, consulting, health care, telecommunications and
defense-related industries, according to data collected for The Wall
Street Journal by Indeed Inc., which runs one the largest employment
websites. It said the number of U.S. job postings on the Internet rose
to 4.7 million on Dec. 1, up from 2.7 million a year earlier. The
company daily collects listings from corporate and job-posting websites,
removing duplicates.
Its
figures may undercount available jobs because some companies don't post
all listings online, an Indeed spokesman said. Farming, manufacturing
and construction jobs tend to be under-represented in online postings,
while skilled computer and mathematical jobs are overrepresented, said
June Shelp, an economist and vice president for the Conference Board, a
private research group.
To be sure, the postings data offer
only a partial and unofficial look at the labor market. Job losses in
the recent recession have been much worse relative to output declines
than in previous slumps, and official payroll data so far haven't shown
signs of a big rebound in hiring. While some big companies are
expanding, others are merely replacing workers who are retiring or
otherwise moving on. And many of the available jobs require experience
and technical expertise that few job seekers can muster. Jobs that don't
are still seeing a flood of applicants for each opening.
New claims for unemployment benefits
fell just 3,000 last week to 420,000, indicating a slight slowing of job
losses. A Wall Street Journal survey of 55 economists in early December
showed they expect only moderate job growth in 2011, enough to reduce
the unemployment rate to a still-high 9% at the end of 2011 from 9.8%
last month.
But companies are racking up profits
and now have built strong cash positions, and may be ready to hire
again. As consumer confidence revives, the economy should continue a
gradual recovery that encourages more companies to hire, says Robert A.
Dye, a senior economist at PNC Financial Services Group Inc. in
Pittsburgh. There is still a lot of spare capacity in the economy, so
"some companies, particularly auto makers, can continue to see
increasing sales without hiring many more workers," he says.
Government data show a rising trend in
openings. There were 3.2 million private-sector job openings at the end
of October, up from 2.3 million a year earlier but well below the 3.7
million in October 2007, before the recession, according to the Bureau
of Labor Statistics.
Among firms expanding their payrolls
are accounting and consulting giants Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers
LLP. As the economy revives, more companies are seeking their services.
Since June 30, PwC has hired 2,500
people, excluding college students, nearly four times more than it hired
in the year-earlier period, says Holly Paul, U.S. recruiting leader for
the firm. Ms. Paul first noticed the pickup in March, and by May hiring
was in full swing. The most-needed professionals will have six to eight
years' experience, she says.
"It's really hard to convince those people to leave [their existing jobs]," Ms. Paul says.
Deloitte's U.S. work force numbers
about 50,100, up from 45,730 a year ago, says Jim Wall, global managing
director of talent. He says the firm has a growing need for seasoned
people who can provide advice to clients in such areas as mergers and
acquisitions, health care and information technology.
AT&T's work force at the end of
the third quarter was 272,450, down 3.6% from the end of 2009, partly
because of the shrinkage of the land-line phone business. But AT&T
is scouring for highly technical workers and retail sales people.
"We're looking for very skilled folks"
in such areas as network engineering and cloud computing, which allows
smartphones and computers to tap applications via the Internet, says
Scott Smith, vice president for staffing at AT&T Inc. in Dallas. "There are not many of them out there."
It also is hiring briskly to maintain
staff levels at its 2,300 U.S. stores selling cell phones and other
gadgets. The retail sales openings pay between $30,000 and $45,000 a
year, including commissions. AT&T also regularly hires heavily for
call centers that deal with customer inquiries and people who sell
products and services to companies.
For simpler jobs, such as in retail
sales and call-center work, applicants still far outnumber positions.
AT&T is getting about 50,000 applications a month, or around 30 for
each person it hires on average, Mr. Smith says.
WellPoint
Inc., an Indianapolis-based health insurer, mostly is seeking
information-technology specialists, registered nurses to advise policy
holders over the phone, actuaries, insurance-policy underwriters,
salespeople and call-center employees, says Randy Brown, who heads human
resources for WellPoint.
The call-center jobs generally don't
require a college degree, but WellPoint does put candidates through
simulations to see whether they are patient and good at solving
problems. "There are a lot of people who want those jobs," Mr. Brown
says.
Science Applications International
Corp. of McLean, Va., has openings for intelligence analysts, including
translators and people who analyze data; engineers; cyber-security
experts, and project managers. The jobs are nearly all full-time and the
vast majority require at least a four-year college degree. More than
half the jobs require U.S. government security clearance because of the
sensitive nature of work the company does for the military and other
agencies.
Health-care companies have major needs in information technology as
they upgrade electronic-record systems. Tracie Grant, director of
recruitment at Catholic Health Initiatives, a Denver-based operator of
hospitals and long-term care facilities, believes competition for
application analysts and software developers specializing in medical
records will be acute in 2011. CHI may need to raise salaries by as much
as 10% for such people, who typically earn $70,000 to $90,000 a year,
she says.
Wells Fargo
& Co. has a wide variety of openings. In Medford, Ore., the bank
holding company needs a part-time teller with computer skills and at
least a year of experience "interacting with people or customers." In
downtown Los Angeles, Wells is seeking a 24-hour-a-week assistant for a
Wells Fargo museum, with at least six months of customer-service
experience, computer skills, an ability to "think on your feet" and a
"basic understanding of U.S. history."
Big defense contractors are also scrambling for people with information technology skills. At Lockheed Martin
Corp., "more than 80 percent of our skill needs are for technical
talent in IT and engineering, specifically computer science and cyber
security, systems engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical
engineering, and aerospace engineering," says spokesman Christopher
Williams.
Globalization, Regulation and Offshoring Push KPMG to Hire 250,000 over Five Years
By Julie Steinberg
Last Thursday, KPMG announced plans to hire 250,000
people over the next five years. Globalization, regulation and
offshoring were among the reasons cited for the hiring push by Rachel
Campbell, the firm's global head of people.
KPMG currently employs
138,000 people around the world, according to Kent Miller, a company
spokesperson. Is growing that number over the next five years a response
to KPMG-rival Deloitte's similar announcement in September? Where will
the hiring be focused? And what does the big four firm seek in job
candidates who want to join up?
FINS spoke with Campbell to discuss the initiative.
FINS: What accounts for the new hiring push?
Rachel
Campbell: I think in part it is because we've got good organic growth
and we expect that to continue. We need to make sure we're resourced.
It's also in response to looking at our overall strategy over the next
four or fiv
maintaining connections that provide a tangible benefit, from LinkedIn than from Facebook or Twitter combined.
Friday was a dark day for the U.S. jobs picture, but the finance industry stayed relatively bright. 
Q: 
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