UBS appoints Hermann Prelle as chairman of M&A for Europe, Middle East and Africa. [Reuters] Barclays Corporate hires Shona Tatchell from HSBC to run financial institutions trade sales. [Dow Jones Newswires] Brazil’s BTG Pactual nabs Barclays star Roger Jenkins to work on global management, investment. [Financial Times] Raymond James taps financial advisor Cheryl Peschke from Morgan Stanley in Texas. [On Wall Street] Cantor Fitzgerald promotes Jeffrey Lumby to manage equity capital... Read more

There have been plenty of warnings about keeping your social media profile clean, honest and up to date, including several on this site, and now there's a real good reason why. A new survey finds nearly three out of every four companies (72 percent) use social media as part of their recruiting process. The survey was conducted by SelectMinds, a company that develops social recruiting and community management solutions for corporations. According... Read more

The Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank and the Bank of Nova Scotia might face stronger regulation going forward now that the Bank of Canada has stated formally in a report that Canada's three largest banks are "systemically important" on a national basis. On the other hand, job seekers will most likely feel more secure working for these banks today than ever before, a career coach confided to eFinancialCareers. The central... Read more

Morgan Stanley is struggling to reassure investors after rumors about its supposed exposure to faltering European banks sent its shares crashing, DealBook reports. To fight the rumors, top Morgan Stanley bankers have been rallying workers and speaking with the firm’s largest shareholders. “It is a war that is being fought in large part in the shadows: against anonymous blogs and market whispers, but also against undefined fears about... Read more

If you are a finance student without a summer internship offer in your pocket, you’re most definitely “behind the eight ball” today, says a career coach and former campus recruiter. Banks are increasingly hiring most, if not all, of their full-time analysts from their pool of summer interns, rather than going back on campus to hire additional recruits in the fall, Connie Thanasoulis-Cerrachio of New York-based Six Figure Start told eFinancialCareers.... Read more

There’s a growing possibility that a lot of very talented, very highly qualified financial services professionals might be looking for jobs in the next six months. What can you do if you find yourself among them and competing for positions that require fewer years of experience than you have? 1) Make it absolutely clear that you really want the job If you are applying for a job you could have done five... Read more

With the comeback in private equity, interim Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) are gaining in prominence. Their expertise is particularly handy when it comes to the transactions that drive the industry. According to Jim Dimitriou, national managing partner in the private equity practice of Tatum, highly seasoned and skilled CFOs are usually required whether it’s due diligence on acquisitions, integration of acquired firms or prep for a liquidity event, like an... Read more

Deutsche Bank plans to cut 500 investment banking jobs as business slows sharply amid the European debt crisis, news media are reporting. The bank also said it would miss its $13.2 billion pre-tax profit goal for 2011. “The intensifying European sovereign debt crisis led to sustained uncertainties among market participants in the third quarter and thus to significantly reduced volumes and revenues,” Deutsche Bank said, according to The New... Read more

Same-sex marriage has been an acceptable practice in a number of states and in Canada since 2005. The area north of the U.S. border is generally viewed as more progressive toward the gay community. Still, similar problems tend to arise within the corporate bank environment—even where inclusion is a key management priority. BMO Financial Group's Justine Fedak, who has worked with many members of the bank’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender... Read more

The question of whether or not to pursue a contract finance job doesn’t usually come up for most professionals until they’ve been laid off or need to return to the workforce after an absence. For anyone who has experienced the dreaded layoff, a contract position can certainly be a great way to keep the resume from looking a bit moldy, as you continue the search for a full-time gig. According... Read more

Anti-Wall Street protests spread to cities around the U.S. this weekend, with police arresting more than 700 in New York as protesters marched on the Brooklyn Bridge, Bloomberg reports. The “Occupy Wall Street” protests began 16 days ago and initially started dwindling before gaining steam in recent days and spreading to Los Angeles, Philadelphia and other cities. On Friday, police arrested 25 people in Bank of America’s Boston building. "On... Read more

Danish banks facing a grim autumn It’s probably going too far to get all Shakespearean and suggest there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark, but for ambitious bankers – or even just those keen for a bit of job security – the picture is unarguably grim at the moment. [Denmark] It's official: Qatar is the new place to be in the Gulf One of the side effects of the Arab Spring has been... Read more

J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s aggressiveness may have undermined the banking sector’s push against regulators, as fallout from a recent altercation with Canadian central bank head Mark Carney shows, Reuters reports. Last week, at a meeting between Carney and the world’s top bank chiefs, Dimon lashed out about the onslaught of new regulations. He called new liquidity rules “cockamamie nonsense,” arguing they were detached from reality and made up by... Read more

How bad is it out there? Very, according to various analyst reports on the state of the banking industry. Nor will it get better soon. Analysts at Bernstein Research issued a note on Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley suggesting that the revenue recovery they’d predicted for 2012 won’t happen until 2013. Analysts at BarCap in the U.S. issued a similarly gloomy prognostication for the quarter just gone: they think revenues at... Read more

What would happen if traders at investment banks weren’t paid on the profit generated by their book and paid only according to a) the fees paid by clients and b) the spread they earn from market making? This is what’s currently on the table in a new draft of the Volcker Rule. Bloomberg reported this week that a draft of the rule currently being circulated among regulators contains the provision that market-making... Read more

Bank of America and its subsidiary Merrill Lynch have agreed to support Lehman Brothers’ $65 billion bankruptcy exit plan, reducing their claims by a combined $7.5 billion, Reuters reports. Bank of America will cut its derivatives claims by $4.5 billion while Merrill Lynch will cut claims by $3 billion. In addition, Bank of America will return $356 million in funds to Lehman Brothers that had been paid as part of... Read more

Barclays’ head of UK, European retail and business Deanna Oppenheimer resigns, to be succeeded by Ashok Vaswani, Anthony Jenkins. [Dow Jones] Barclays names Trevor Kelham as director of Wealth Advisory division. [Reuters] Northern Trust appoints Marie Dzanis from BlackRock to run ETF sales and servicing. [On Wall Street] Nomura hires Steve Kilcullen from UBS to run flow derivatives sales. [Hedge Fund Net] Cambridge Strategy Asset Management nabs Adam Reynolds from Societe... Read more

All you investment professionals gearing up for your CFA or CIFM designations can now keep up to date with the latest trends and research in finance and investing no matter where you are. The CFA Institute has partnered with app development company WillowTree Apps to launch the CFA Institute Mobile App available through iTunes and the Android marketplace. The global, not-for-profit association of investment professionals that awards the CFA and CIPM... Read more

More and more, financial advisors seeking greener pastures in private banking and wealth management are having to contend with a variety of evaluation tools beyond the traditional interview drill, including some that measure your personality. Private banking and wealth management firms are increasingly employing job-specific testing, aptitude tests and “psychometric” or personality profiling—the latter of which is particularly popular among the most profitable independent wealth management organizations. That’s the conclusion of... Read more