investment banking IT prospects

[BillyB]

My $0.02

Given the current economic climate personally I would not bet on stability of any organization. One can be forced to look for a job sooner then one thinks.

Personally I would look at learning opportunities, location and pay to evaluate any job.
I would look at pay on an absolute basis, and then pay on a risk adjusted basis i.e higher pay because you join a smaller org is not really higher pay. I would also look at pay on the basis of number of hours actually spent in the office, for eg if you get a 30% hike but expected to work 50% harder, I wouldn't call that a hike. Everything else is secondary

IT is a field where one has to always update knowledge or risk being obsolete. In the financial IT world, learning the latest technologies is important but more important is to understand the business. So the more a job provides such opportunities, better for me

Good 1st post!

Yep, I agree, money is the most important thing in anywhere, no company can offer a permanent full time bullet proof job and no one will tell you they want you to work 18 hours a day! Make sure you take the job with the best cash

That's bollocks! It's horses for courses.

There are plenty of people in Singapore driven to take prospects and career potential over pay - Rev and yourself simply aren't two of them.

[orbita]

My $0.02

Given the current economic climate personally I would not bet on stability of any organization. One can be forced to look for a job sooner then one thinks.

Personally I would look at learning opportunities, location and pay to evaluate any job.
I would look at pay on an absolute basis, and then pay on a risk adjusted basis i.e higher pay because you join a smaller org is not really higher pay. I would also look at pay on the basis of number of hours actually spent in the office, for eg if you get a 30% hike but expected to work 50% harder, I wouldn't call that a hike. Everything else is secondary

IT is a field where one has to always update knowledge or risk being obsolete. In the financial IT world, learning the latest technologies is important but more important is to understand the business. So the more a job provides such opportunities, better for me

Good 1st post!

All of these considerations are useful in an ideal world.
How can you know until you are in the organization? Sites like Glassdoor may help or may completely mislead people.
Uncertainy is high these day but one can gauge an organization's stability by looking at it's market's performance, history of laying off staff, and perhaps more importantly, whether you are in a role which has some degree of "irreplaceability"

[nutnut]

Good 1st post!

Yep, I agree, money is the most important thing in anywhere, no company can offer a permanent full time bullet proof job and no one will tell you they want you to work 18 hours a day! Make sure you take the job with the best cash

That's bollocks! It's horses for courses.

There are plenty of people in Singapore driven to take prospects and career potential over pay - Rev and yourself simply aren't two of them.

Ok, maybe that be the case, but to rephrase it.... If you CAN make sure you get paid a load and then worry about the rest later Cash in the bank are worth more than prospects sometimes, although, sometimes its the other way around.....

[sundaymorningstaple]

A lot also depend on your age as well.......

[revhappy]

My $0.02

Given the current economic climate personally I would not bet on stability of any organization. One can be forced to look for a job sooner then one thinks.

Personally I would look at learning opportunities, location and pay to evaluate any job.
I would look at pay on an absolute basis, and then pay on a risk adjusted basis i.e higher pay because you join a smaller org is not really higher pay. I would also look at pay on the basis of number of hours actually spent in the office, for eg if you get a 30% hike but expected to work 50% harder, I wouldn't call that a hike. Everything else is secondary

IT is a field where one has to always update knowledge or risk being obsolete. In the financial IT world, learning the latest technologies is important but more important is to understand the business. So the more a job provides such opportunities, better for me

Good 1st post!

All of these considerations are useful in an ideal world.
How can you know until you are in the organization?

Most things you can know if you are smart enough. Before joining your company have a chat with your prospective TL/Manager and more often than not they will tell you the truth. They wouldn't want to set wrong expectations.

[revhappy]

Yep, I agree, money is the most important thing in anywhere, no company can offer a permanent full time bullet proof job and no one will tell you they want you to work 18 hours a day! Make sure you take the job with the best cash

That's bollocks! It's horses for courses.

There are plenty of people in Singapore driven to take prospects and career potential over pay - Rev and yourself simply aren't two of them.

Ok, maybe that be the case, but to rephrase it.... If you CAN make sure you get paid a load and then worry about the rest later Cash in the bank are worth more than prospects sometimes, although, sometimes its the other way around.....

Absolutely! There was a time in my career when I wanted to switch my technology and I was in large company but not really working of technical stuff. I wanted to get into technical stuff. So I joined a smaller company, with terrible work culture, for about small hike(but a hike none the less). I slogged my ass off there, learned what I wanted to learn and quit in 6 months flat and joined a good niche company for a huge hike.

Its like driving a car. You cruise along a specific speed, you get bored, want to change lanes, you need to make adjustments, then you change lanes and then you keep cruising again. You wouldn't want your entire journey to be just changing lanes all the time, got it ?

[Trip Down Memory Lane]

How can you know until you are in the organization? Sites like Glassdoor may help or may completely mislead people.

In any major decision that we take in life, there is an element of uncertainty. You dont know for 100% how things will turn out. We have to weigh the risk according to our risk appetite and decide. As Revhappy pointed out talking to people that you will work with or the person you will report to can help you gauge better. But you won't know for sure until you try. I remember reading the quote by Wayne Gretzky.

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

As all previous posters have pointed out there are multiple factors to consider and different people have different priorities at different points in their lives.

Just what I feel

[sweetgazebo]

I was for the last coupla months on an assignment with a European bank on their IT projects. Needless to say the person I was reporting to (an Indian btw) was a lousy manager. Took more off days to attend to his wife/son/himself for all sorts of excuses - wife sick/son sick/him sick/wife in india son alone at home, etc. Made more mistakes on the job that I really wondered how he'd ever became a manager. At one point had the nerve to blatantly deny his mistake without as much as blinking an eye! Could not manage a team without the usual (Indian) politics involved - if you know what Indian politics is about. 'Gossiped' more during team meetings than actually plan for team work. Hardly works - 90% of the time, he's on the phone, for meetings apparently. In short, I wonder how the hell he got into Singapore to work in the first place.

He's not the only one. The guy who was given the development manager role was equally mediocre. Read on his linkedin profile, he never lasted more than a year in his previous roles. Not surprisingly being a development manager he never really bothered about the quality of the software. Heard he got into this role by way of nepotism.

Banking IT at present in Singapore is looking grim. Sentiment is negative in the global banks and they are shedding staff, canning projects and reducing contractor day rates. IT are usually the first to feel the pinch - consultants, contractors and then permies.

Singapore is on slow-down mode for the next 6-12 months in the banking sector. They'll be a shed load of contractors from Singapore who won't be getting their contracts renewed as Asia will suffer as part of global cost cutting, and we'll see inflows of contractors / IT staff from the US all looking to come to Asia with the recent / pending Dodd-Frank regulatory changes that has effectively changed the investment banking world forever.

Why do you want to work for a bank? Let me guess, the money? It's not glamorous and with exception to some of the global banks, IT are usually run by socially and financially inept muppets who manage to botch everything they get their hands on. They couldn't manage a hot dinner, and take 4 times as long as a project should do to guarantee themselves a job, and they suck on everyone elses budget to do it.

You rarely work on bleeding edge projects, and will most likely be some sort of donkey boy automating spreadsheets or running reconcilliation batches to bring the banking systems into the 20th Century. The lack of technology at institutions that manage billions or trade trillions of dollars is mindblowingly jurrasic by nature.

If you can get a decent role at a reputable software vendor - go for that. shorter hours, more interesting work, likely to be managed by people who know what they are doing or are passionate about what they do, and a sharper learning curve - r&d work on developing the next version of the product as opposed to making something work in a bank.

[ecureilx]

I was for the last coupla months on an assignment with a European bank on their IT projects. Needless to say the person I was reporting to (an Indian btw) was a lousy manager. Took more off days to attend to his wife/son/himself for all sorts of excuses - wife sick/son sick/him sick/wife in india son alone at home, etc. Made more mistakes on the job that I really wondered how he'd ever became a manager. At one point had the nerve to blatantly deny his mistake without as much as blinking an eye! Could not manage a team without the usual (Indian) politics involved - if you know what Indian politics is about. 'Gossiped' more during team meetings than actually plan for team work. Hardly works - 90% of the time, he's on the phone, for meetings apparently. In short, I wonder how the hell he got into Singapore to work in the first place.

He's not the only one. The guy who was given the development manager role was equally mediocre. Read on his linkedin profile, he never lasted more than a year in his previous roles. Not surprisingly being a development manager he never really bothered about the quality of the software. Heard he got into this role by way of nepotism.

Is that all ?? Please go on

Ah, merry christmas, by the way ..





Somebody said that bullshit can take you to the top, but cannot sustain you there .. so if somebody is still pulling strings in the top, there is more to it that "INDIAN POLITICS" Oh, well, that wise man could be wrong ..

[sweetgazebo]

I could go on coz the last coupla months I thought these Indians who came here are fantastic but they are nothing more than inept smooth talkers who tell a lot of lies and play loadsa politics.

Sometime ago a friend of mine said something interesting ...'the Indians who do land a job in the US / europe are the best. the indians who end up in asia are the worst coz they can't get a job back home in india or if they do, they are paid peanuts'. Any Indian who end up in asia cannot get a job at where they are originally from, be it europe or india.

[sundaymorningstaple]

sweetgazebo, you sound anything BUT sweet. But I'll bet you are a local aren't you.

[sweetgazebo]

Hi sundaymorningstaple, i know. ppl tell that to me lots of times

on another note, i am disillusioned with what has happened the last coupla months. I am surprised that the indians dont congregate in dubai. i was there sometime ago and was told the indians there take donkeys'work coz they wont be nailing the top jobs and i guess we all know why.

and nope i aint a local.

sweetgazebo, you sound anything BUT sweet. But I'll bet you are a local aren't you.

[sundaymorningstaple]

and nope i aint a local.

sweetgazebo, you sound anything BUT sweet. But I'll bet you are a local aren't you.

You should be.

[sweetgazebo]

ironically the statement below was communicated by a brit cockney

Sometime ago a friend of mine said something interesting ...'the Indians who do land a job in the US / europe are the best. the indians who end up in asia are the worst coz they can't get a job back home in india or if they do, they are paid peanuts'. Any Indian who end up in asia cannot get a job at where they are originally from, be it europe or india.

[ecureilx]

.... I am surprised that the indians dont congregate in dubai. i was there sometime ago and was told the indians there take donkeys'work coz they wont be nailing the top jobs and i guess we all know why.

Actually, about Dubai, and in ME, and the 'top jobs' .. do some read up on the following ..

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... 64368.html

Or you just happened to see the "Disney Land" side of Dubai