Wall Street banks are under pressure to cut more jobs as trading revenue falls, Reuters reports. At Deutsche Bank, for example, trading volumes have fallen 20-40 percent this quarter, with similar declines seen across the investment banking industry. “If the trading business hasn’t rebounded by September, Wall Street’s elevators will be full of former employees with cardboard boxes heading down and out for good,” the article says. However, Wall Street... Read more

Lower-level product support, sales lead, and implementation personnel are needed at a growing number of cloud-based platform and solutions providers to deal with banks and i-banks, as well as hedge funds. A number of tech companies, like InData, are actively recruiting for implementation and product support people to work with the buy-side. Software engineers are also in demand on the front-end and applications side at places like InvestLab, as they... Read more

The FINRA rule 1230(b)(6) requiring operations professionals at broker-dealers to register their activities, take qualifying exams and follow through on continuing education is surely a thorny subject. But the SEC has pushed forward and approved it. It’s not a surprise that the industry isn’t looking forward to dealing with additional regulations and certifications. Smaller firms are taking issue with the additional costs and time involved in the process. The effective... Read more

If you're a business school grad student, chances are you've just spent the last eight months in the classroom. And now that summer's here the last place you want to be is in some cubical or conference room crunching numbers as a summer associate for a financial services firm. Or is it? Sure, you're missing out on the beach party action, but look at all the on-the-job training you're receiving... Read more

Citi hired James Glerum the co-head of UBS’s Midwestern operations and its head of diversified industrials, and Cary Kochman, co-head of global mergers and acquisitions at UBS. [DealBook] JPMorgan Chase commercial-banking chief Todd Maclin and international operations head Heidi Miller are likely to step down from their posts within month. [Bloomberg] Glenn Tilton was named chairman of JPMorgan Chase's Midwest business, succeeding William M. Daley, who left the bank to... Read more

As the Federal Reserve Bank of New York pushes ahead with its Dodd-Frank mandates, the souped up supervision division, newly renamed the Financial Institution Supervision Group (FISG), is on the lookout for a few good men and women. Back in March, FISG head Sarah Dahlgren noted the need to increase resources. And now word is out that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s supervisory division is on the lookout... Read more

The UK’s five-largest banks—RBS, Llyods, Standard Chartered, HSBC and Barclays— have eliminated more than 103,000 jobs – or 11% of their headcount -- since 2008, with more to come, according to a Bloomberg story. At least 34,500 of the cuts were made in Britain, and the biggest layoffs were at the government assisted RBS and Llyods. One analyst summed up the reason: “The underlying trend is trying to make the... Read more

Sometimes using recruiters works better than applying directly to banks. And if you put in extra effort when choosing your consultants, your career could benefit. Here are some reasons why. 1) Screen and select There’s a limited number of large financial services firms and it’s difficult to look into the quality of their internal hiring teams. But recruitment firms are comparatively plentiful, so you should at least be able to find... Read more

Legg Mason’s head of U.S. broker-dealer sales Joe Lohrer is leaving the firm for Blackstone—the latest in a string of departures from the asset management company, Investment News reports. Lohrer, a 25 year veteran of the firm, will be replaced by Bryan Ward, head of internal sales, while Benji Baer, head of U.S. intermediary marketing, is leaving the firm after a seven-year stint for J.P. Morgan Asset Management as a... Read more

Singapore will create more jobs in financial services during the next 12 months than any other city, beating London and New York, according to Bloomberg. A survey of investment bankers from Astbury Marsden, which advises companies in Europe and Asia, showed 37 percent expect Singapore to add the most jobs, 22 precent expect London to create the most jobs, just ahead of Shanghai and Hong Kong, while a mere one... Read more

M&A activity between developed and emerging markets is nearing record highs, according to the Wall St. Journal. Acquisitions or mergers of emerging market companies led by those in developed economies stands at $76.3 billion year-to-date, while emerging market outbound M&A activity stands at $56.1 billion—the second highest on record, and representing 21 percent of all M&A volume by emerging markets. Oil is the strongest sector, followed by health care and... Read more

With the insider trading conviction of Galleon hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam behind us and the new insider trading trial of former Rajaratnam employee Zvi Goffer just getting underway this week, what does this all mean for those working in this space? Certainly, the industry’s never happy with stepped up enforcement, and it’s spooked the industry good. Even biggie Goldman Sachs hasn’t been immune, with its former director also under... Read more

In Universum’s annual ranking of undergraduate college students’ favorite employers, banks, Big Four accounting and oil firms fell in estimation to sexier companies like Apple, Walt Disney and Google – the later of which came out on top in the survey’s rankings. In fact, “Nearly one of five business students told Universum they wanted to work for Google, up from 16.6 percent in 2010,” BusinessWeek reported. The top 10... Read more

Goldman’s recent history of unsavory behavior has left a sour taste in investors’ mouths – but that doesn’t stop them from trusting the bank with their money, according to a recent Bloomberg poll . In a survey of traders, investors and analysts, 54% said they had a negative opinion of the venerable New York firm – double the unfavorable opinion rating for JPMorgan chase. However, just a month after a... Read more

HSBC plans to close offices and cut headcount in an effort to cut costs by as much as $3.5 billion over the next three years to improve profitability, which it said could be hurt by stricter financial regulation, according to BusinessWeek and DealBook. One of the biggest European banks, HSBC said it would focus on commercial banking activities and wealth management, while scaling back its retail banking operations to the... Read more

While the Bloomberg BusinessWeek annual undergraduate business school ranking turned out few surprises, a peek into the student-survey based rankings of 139 of the nation’s undergrad programs had a few unexpected results. The article today states: “In the recent ranking, you would assume that Rensselaer Polytechnic's Lally School of Management and Technology, ranked No.43, is a middle-of-the-pack business program. You wouldn't know that the school ranks No.1 in both... Read more

This could be a good year for job seekers in the financial sector. The latest eFinancialCareers survey released today found that nearly two out of three (62.1%) financial professionals plan on moving to a new employer in 2011. Moreover, four out of five (80.5%) say their current employer has not offered them any positive incentives to stop them from jumping ship. Perhaps an even more important statistic in terms of... Read more

An attorney was vacationing in Mexico with his long-time partner when he had a devastating seizure and died 24 hours later. His partner was facing a lot more than the grief of losing his loved one. The lawyers’ family took the house the two had lived in for years and the bereaved partner had to scramble to find clothing receipts just to identify his personal belongings. Financial advisor Michael Nutt, a... Read more

Other than not getting selected as a possible candidate, nothing’s more painful than the feeling that you’ve left money on the table. If you’ve been lucky enough to get a job offer, or if you’re one of the ones in the final running, it’s probably time for your prospective employer to turn the tables on you. It’s the question you know they’re going to ask. What salary and take are... Read more

Some financial advisors are irate over BrightScope’s new controversial website which allows investors to search for legal information about advisors, according to Investment News. Advisor Pages, a free search site allowing investors to search for professionals using various criteria, includes info on legal disputes and formal complaints, which BrightScope claims comes from FINRA and SEC data. A number of advisors complain this information is out-dated, and their assets are... Read more