When you know it’s time to change jobs

Do you feel stuck at work?
Do you find yourself watching the clock, waiting for the minutes to tick by?
Do you dread Mondays?
Do you often feel tired or anxious thinking about your job?

If you answered yes, you may want to think about changing your job.

Here are two key considerations before you commit to job-searching; remember, the process takes 1-6 months.

Is this a temporary rut or have you been feeling this way for months?

If its been a few days to less than a month, then you may be in a temporary rut.

Ask yourself if this feeling comes from a period of long-hours and high-stress. If it is, you may be feeling overwhelmed.

Ask yourself if this feeling comes because you have no new projects/work to do. If it is, you may be feeling bored.

In both cases, once the trigger has passed, your feelings may pass with it.

However, if it doesn’t.

Have you asked for new responsibilities/projects or internal mobility?

If the prospect of new responsibilities and projects does not excite you while being in this team, then you should consider internal mobility to transfer to another department or function. This is especially important if you enjoy being in your current company. It also helps to boost your profile as it highlights your hunger for knowledge as well as your loyalty.

If you are only staying for an upcoming promotion, ask yourself if you would still feel satisfied 6 months, 1 year down the line.

If the push factor to leave the company entirely is strong or the internal opportunities are just not right for you, then you really should take the time to revise your resume and start looking at opportunities elsewhere.

Middle Office, Operations and Change Management functions, Singapore

2019 IN REVIEW

The job market in this segment didn’t perform as expected in 2019. We saw a slower than usual Q2 due to hiring managers being more cautious and conservative in their human resource planning. This is partially a result of the ongoing trade war and slowing economy. However, banking hires ramped up in Q3, adding 35% more vacancies than the first half of the year.

Operations and middle office hires are making a comeback with a focus on fund services, portfolio valuations and client services. This trinity is due to the expanding business of service providers competing to provide higher quality service to investment banks, hedge funds and private equity firms.

2020 OUTLOOK AND TRENDS

In 2020, we expect an increased demand within the private equity and hedge fund space for fund accountants and client services positions. This is not surprising as service providers have been enjoying steady and consistent growth in 2019.

As companies ramp up their digital capabilities, we will see that effect resonate within operations and the middle office. Companies are making a push to make more data-driven decisions and at the end of 2019, we saw a growing demand for operations candidates with coding skills in Python, VBA and SQL. We expect this trend to continue in 2020 as more companies integrate these hybrid roles into their operations function.

What does this mean for hiring managers and candidates within the Middle Office, Operations and Change Management function?

In our 2020 trends and salary report for the Middle Office, Operations and Change Management function, we offer some guidance:

  • To hiring managers, on securing the best talent in today’s market and a salary guide to help you pay them right.
  • To candidates, on top skills to help you stay relevant and in-demand in today’s banking and financial services landscape.

Hong Kong – Operations Salaries 2019

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Data is collected from candidates and clients.

Interview Questions – Data I

  1. Given a list of integers, find all combinations that add up to a given integer.
  2. Pick a page in a random book. Segment a long string into a set of valid words on that page. Return false if the string cannot be segmented. What is the complexity of your solution?
  3. Write a SQL query to find repeated items in a column.
  4. If you were given 1000 eggs, how would you make the most profit?
  5. What are the criteria to say whether a developed data model is good or not?
  6. How do you describe a financial planning process?
  7. What would you prefer, feeding a giant chicken or 200 small ones?
  8. What problems did you encounter in one of your projects and what are the solutions you came up with?
  9. How would you go about finding the second maximum value of a column in a table.
  10. What do you think a data analyst role will look like in five years?
  11. What’s the most interesting thing you’ve discovered from data?

Interview Questions – Python

  1. What are the data types used in Python?
  2. Explain the difference between lists and tuples.
  3. What is a Python dictionary?
  4. What are lambda functions?
  5. Explain list comprehensions and how they’re used in Python.
  6. What is a negative index, and how is it used in Python?
  7. Name some well-known Python data analysis libraries.
  8. What is pandas?
  9. Write Python code to create an Inventory DataFrame from the “shoestore.csv” file.
  10. What is the default missing value marker in pandas, and how can you detect all missing values in a DataFrame?
  11. Write Python code to select the Brands and Size columns from the Inventory DataFrame.
  12. Add a new column named “In Stock” to the Inventory DataFrame with all 1s to indicate stock status.
  13. Write Python code to plot the distribution of Brands by Size.
  14. What libraries do data scientists use to plot data in Python?
  15. What Python IDEs are the most popular in data science?

Planning your Career

This is a helpful practice to help you plan out the next few steps of your career. This is as useful to senior jobseekers looking to make a career switch as much as a junior job seeker finding his/her way in the industry.

1. Figure out the job/job title you want 5-10 years from now

This is probably the most important step because it dictates your career moves in the next 5-10 years. Of course, don’t make it too rigid as you want the ability to pivot and change course in case you change your mind or the market changes it for you.

2. Find the relevant job descriptions and map out the requirements

Are there specific certifications you need to obtain?

What further experience do you need to qualify for the job?

Working with specialised recruiters and industry experts help as they would have more knowledge on what you need to build on in order to get to where you want to go. They can also give you a broader picture of how the market is doing, how it will change and if the role would even be available after 5-10 years.

3. On LinkedIn, find out who is currently working in the role you want and take a look at how they got there.

By going through 4-5 of these profiles, you can identify a pattern that would help you map out what you need to do in the next few years.

In most cases, it gives you an idea of how many role changes you need to make and a rough timeline on getting to where you want to be.

4. Find out what type of networking events are available so you can get in touch with industry experts and build your network

This helps with further understanding the industry, being on top of industry changes/trends and more importantly, building a network as relationships take time and effort to nurture.

5. Check your plan every year so you can always pivot and adjust your strategy.

What to do when your role is at risk

Operations has traditionally been a stepping stone for fresh analysts looking to gain product and hands-on experience within financial services.

However, operational roles are also cost centers at the end of the day. This means that these functions are at risk of being outsourced to lower cost countries or if possible, automated.

The best example is the traditional operations function – Settlements, Reconciliations and Confirmations.

A few years back, these were separate functions with teams of 5-10pax per function per product. But if you look at the actual work duties, you find that they are highly manual and they do not add any value to the business.

The first step is to move them to lower cost centers. Hong Kong and Singapore made great headwinds over a decade ago when America, UK and Australia outsourced the functions there as labor was cheaper and the quality was not compromised.

But as these cities become more expensive, companies will again pivot towards outsourcing or automation. In the last 4 years, we have seen a major shift towards moving these functions to shared service centers in Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Bangalore and Pune. And this will just continue.

So what can you do to ensure you remain competitive in the job market?

Move to a smaller set-up

Operations in small set-ups are usually run by a team of 1-3pax. Private Equity, Hedge Funds and Asset Management firms are a great option. The operations function is usually too small to outsource out and automation is not required yet. Keep in mind competition is fierce and you would need to have hands-on experience in all functions within the trade lifecycle. You may need to compromise on salary in order to have stability.

Learn a technical skill

For those who are more introverted and are more mathematical/logical, try to take online courses in coding. The most in-demand language being Python and VBA. We are seeing a growing trend towards data analytics within the operations function and a popular requirement is proficiency in Python and VBA.

*Note, this is strictly for Operations, not IT.

Beginner courses are generally free online – check out udemy and codecademy.

Improve a soft skill

Not everyone is meant to code and for those that have zero interest in it, there are other ways to remain competitive.

The human element is still preferred by clients and financial institutions are always looking to improve their customer service levels in order to remain competitive.

By using your existing product and process knowledge and build that with communication and stakeholder management skills, you can carve a niche for yourself either within client services or change management (again operations, not IT). I will expand on this at a later post.

To build on soft skills – try joining Toastmasters to improve your public speaking and communication skills. It also helps build confidence and being an international club, it’s a great place to network.

The key takeaway is, you have to invest in yourself because in today’s market, situations are always changing and the small amount of time you dedicate to improving yourself pays off in the long run.

Note that I have not mentioned anything about CFA, MBA and other designations. For many, these are not the best options that would benefit them unless they have a clear career path in mind and the designations are a must-have requirement to get there.

Singapore – Operations Salaries 2019

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Data is collected from candidates and clients.