Breaking into Banking.. Any tips?

[badger7579]

After 4 years of technical infrastructure PM'ing for a range of clients I've been in my current contract for 6 months (with another 3 month extension signed) with a finance company specialising in the pension market.

I was hoping it would allow me to break into the banking market but so far not sniffs of any contract work this way.

Anybody got any tips for increasing my chances.

P.s purely going for banking to try to increase rate.

[Scrag Meister]

After 4 years of technical infrastructure PM'ing for a range of clients I've been in my current contract for 6 months (with another 3 month extension signed) with a finance company specialising in the pension market.

I was hoping it would allow me to break into the banking market but so far not sniffs of any contract work this way.

Anybody got any tips for increasing my chances.

P.s purely going for banking to try to increase rate.

Keep trying. Don't despair.

It took me three months on the bench after leaving my last perm role before I finally landed what I wanted.

Read up on Equities (Shares), Fixed Income (Bonds), Foreign Exchange, Interest Rates, Risk, Pricing, Derivatives, Futures, Options. Depending on the department you are rying to get into. A broad understanding of most of these will definitely help.

Most roles don't expect you to be God's gift to banking, but then again if you see an ad that reads, "Wanted God's gift to banking" don't apply.

It is quiet at the mo and should pick up mid Jan.

Just re-read your post, "infrastructure", not sure you'd need all the stuff I mentioned.

[AtW]

P.s purely going for banking to try to increase rate.

Is that you Willie Sutton?

[badger7579]

Cheers SM, I'll look into the areas you list.. Some light reading but being able to talk the talk should help. Most projects I've managed have been company mergers or divestitures covering the infrastructure transition (desktops estate, server migrations, telephony systems, WAN/LAN provision, application migration etc)

ATW - Nope..

[Svalbaard]

Infrastructure is infrastructure is infrastructure.

Being able to talk the talk in terms of financial products such as those listed above is a start, but in terms of tin and string, you could do worse that starting to understand some of the trading desk/financial applications and the like to see how they are deployed in financial environments. This would link into understanding high availability/performance configurations and some of the SLAs that banks work to in terms of regulatory requirements and transaction reconciliation timelines.

Most of the banks I have PMd at however tend to have internally developed apps, or standard apps that have been highly customised and developed to fill in the functionality gaps.

Best of luck.

[badger7579]

Can you give me any pointers towards apps that are used widely in banks?

[Bumfluff]

After 4 years of technical infrastructure PM'ing for a range of clients I've been in my current contract for 6 months (with another 3 month extension signed) with a finance company specialising in the pension market.

I was hoping it would allow me to break into the banking market but so far not sniffs of any contract work this way.

Anybody got any tips for increasing my chances.

P.s purely going for banking to try to increase rate.

I would try and a find a contract with RBS and there is alot out there at the moment and RBS are not particually fussy when it comes to previous banking experience compared to other clients. The new starter next to me came from the Rail sector no banking experience.

[minestrone]

I just went in on a pathetically low rate for my first financial contract. Actually my first contract and the rate was about 50% more than what I was getting as a permie in a small software house so I was not complaining. I think the agent put me across as the only candidate as they knew they could make a fortune off me for the 6 months. When the contract was over I renegotiated pretty much a doubling of my day rate.

In my first IB job I pretty much spent a week reading the web on derivatives, swaps, risk etc. I pretty much knew as much as anyone in the department after that. When you have a degree in Enginering it's not a tough thing to learn. I know someone who went down for a job in London and read "derivatives for dummies" or something like that on the train and having never worked in the Industry learned enough for the interviewer to say "you have a good knowledge of how IBs work"

Nobody really has a clue how it works I found "can you look in the code tell me how you priced this deal?" "well this is how the code does it, is that correct?" "ehh, I do not know what the correct value should be so if that is what the code does then it must be correct" Someone on the trading floor will be screaming the value is wrong but they very often could not tell you what the value should be or how to calculate it.

[KentPhilip]

P.s purely going for banking to try to increase rate.

I've never worked in investment banking, but other people who have say that it is tough work with long hours. So yes you might make more, but it'll sap the lifeblood from you. Is that what you want?

Also most bank jobs are in the city/docklands so there are much higher travel/subsistence costs to offset. Is the light worth the candle?

[swamp]

Is the light worth the candle?

I like that saying. Can I pinch it?