Who is the Most Ideal Employer for Finance Professionals

Who is the Most Ideal Employer for Finance Professionals The battle for talent in the finance space is fierce, from Goldman Sachs to  Amazon, top finance professionals  have a wealth of brilliant and diverse employers to choose from. But who is the most ideal employer among them all? The 2018 eFinancialCareers Ideal Employer Report surveyed over 6,000 financial professionals globally,  who were asked to name their top three companies to work for. More than 2,800 companies were named at least once. Respondents ranked 20 attributes for companies on a scale, with those scoring a six or seven deemed“important. Financial professionals then rated their three ideal employers based on how strong they believed companies were in the important attributes. Gold for Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs returns to the top the of the eFinancialCareers Ideal Employers Report, due to extremely high scoring on sections such as competitive salaries, competitive bonuses, and industry leadership. One of their fiercest competitors, JP Morgan, came in a close second with high scoring in competitive bonuses and competitive  salaries as well. What is evident from this piece of research is that a mixture of reward and leadership is hugely attractive for  finance talent, with over 200,0000 applicants gunning for analyst  positions at Goldman Sachs in 2016, and only 2% landing a position showing the lure of working at what can be widely considered the top-rated finance company in the world. Tech is slowly taking over For a third time running, the tech behemoth  Google, finished third in the report due to high scoring primarily on innovation, working hours and office environment. Beating the like of HSBC and Morgan Stanley, it shows that even in the financial space, a companys culture and employer brand is just as important as bonuses and salaries! This focus on culture is exemplified in the scoring of other tech giants such as Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft, whom all placed in top the 30 of the rankings respectively. The importance of a dynamic environment and the ability to create your own path as individual  reigned supreme throughout them all. Working in finance is not all about your finances Sure three of the top five companies were rated highest by competitive salary, but what we are starting to see is the true  benefit of having a strong employer brand. The report shows the rise in popularity of elements such as environment, culture and more creeping into the mix of employer attractiveness. More and more finance professionals are eying moves to tech sectors. Speaking to John Benson, Founder of eFinancialCareers, he said: This report shows that the sector needs to change their approach when promoting their employer brand and culture whilst advertising open positions. In order to attract and retain the best talent, the game plan can’t just be around money. There needs to be an added focus on organizational culture and the work itself. The tech industry has been ahead on this for a while now and seeing the likes of Google and Amazon challenging the financial giants to attract smart financial professionals shows that financial institutions need to adapt to attract or retain the best talent. Lets not get it twisted. Money is and will always be an important factor when it comes to choosing your  career path. But it doesnt  always have the only deciding factor What we are seeing is that people, no matter what sector they are in, want to come into a place of work that cultivates a culture they are proud to be a part of and a place where they can build their careers and  work on challenging projects. On top of being paid a salary that is fair and motivates them to come to work ready to be as productive as they can be.

Breaking Down The Break - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Breaking Down The Break - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Life happens. While we try to control even the tiniest aspects of it, there are always events that can simply never be predicted. Needing to care for an elderly loved one or even realizing you want to be a full-time mom or dad results in wonderful family time but can leave you stranded once you’re finally ready to get back to a full-time job. Even gaps as small as one year can make your resume seem unappealing to potential employers that could very well read into the gap as a bad omen. Take a deep breath, and calm yourself down. Gaps where you spent your time working more than 40 hours a week to care for your family are nothing if not badges of pride that should be respected rather than reviled. All the same, it is a part of your life that you will need to address directly with your potential employer should you hope to secure a position. In such cases, the best way to prepare starts long before you ever send out a resume. Analyze Yourself You want to go back to work, this much is clear to you. Have you figured out why? Is it because you need time away from your baby or older loved one? Is it because you want to contribute more financially? If you did get a job, how many hours are you honestly hoping to work? If you do get the job, how will your loved one be cared for? It’s these questions you need to answer now because these will ultimately decide where you apply and what kind of terms you need to negotiate regarding your position. Collect Your Confidence Even if this doesn’t really apply to you, all too often staying at home results in a loss in one’s belief in their ability to successfully perform to the standards they once upheld. For this, figure out which areas you’re feeling shaky. If it’s speaking, hold mock interviews with friends and loved ones. If its appearance, start working out or redefining your work wardrobe. Reassess Your Career Breaks of any period of time lead to a lot of changes in who you are and what you want to do with your life. Just because you began your career as an HR administrator does not mean you’ll still feel the same joy even three years down the road. By determining what you like now and what your new goals are, you can save yourself the hassle of applying to jobs you no longer have any interest in. No matter if these skills have changed or not, take on a few refresher courses to make sure you’re still current with your knowledge of the job requirements. Make Connections Tell your friends you’re on the lookout for a new job. Tell the internet. Excitedly take on some networking lunches. Though there are thousands of jobs online just waiting for resumes, some of the best opportunities come from the people you know. The more excited you are to jump back in, the more eager a hiring manager will be willing to see your break as a positive. Share Your Ambitions Be it your children, spouse or older loved one, do not keep it a secret from them that you’re on the hunt. Letting them know early will allow them, and you, to deal with any confused emotions. For instance, children could see your return to work as you wanting to escape. It’s up to you to assure them that the job hunt is solely because you want to, not because of anything anyone did at home. Try Again Now that all of the background noise is quieted, it’s time to take on the interviews. During these, always be honest and straightforward about your break. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. After briefly covering the reasons, immediately jump into emphasizing what you did during that time, what you learned and why that makes you ready to rejoin the workforce. Then, once hired, it should take no time at all falling back into the comfortable rhythm of a 9 to 5. As a final note, never be afraid to quit your first one or two jobs after the break. Maybe you got hired only to find that what you thought was a good fit turned out to be terrible for your plans. Whatever the reason, never lock yourself into an unhappy situation. If you do, you’ll never find your true passion.

How to Spot the Pusher Recruiters

How to Spot the Pusher Recruiters Bob the top sales pro. He has recruiters calling, emailing, and visiting him. Goose bumps are on his liver. He is hungry for something more, but nobody will deliver. He is tired of the pushy recruiter sending him down a path that wont deliver. The Pusher I call that type of recruiter a Pusher. A Pusher only pushes his needs and wants to talent without deliberately giving them a job that is a winner. Pushers only play defense for you. They push everything (i.e., any job at any level) back to you. Pushers do not know your needs and dreams. Find recruiters who will play offense for you. I call them Hunters. We can talk about them another day.  Watch out for Pushers. Here are signs you are dealing with one They ignore your dreams. You tell them your ideal job. They come back with a lame job. They do not network with you. They know they cant help you achieve your dreams and only ask you for more names to increase their network. They do not want to help you. They want to help them. Damn them Pushers. They know you are good for your trade. Thats why they keep talking to you. They keep pushing jobs to you. They will push for years. They let their other recruiter buddies call you. They have the same agenda as the pusher. To push lame jobs onto you. They want you to be frustrated. They love it when you are desperate. They want to you to need a job or hate your current job. This is when they push the best. Any of their social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) consists of jobs pushed out to a sea of people. No interaction. Just pushes. Pushers help unhappy people The Pusher. Pushers are extremely quick and consistent at pushing jobs to candidates. This tires and frustrates talent. Pushers know when good talent is frustrated. Pushers have great success on people with little experience. They know the less experienced will make a mistake (i.e., jump for more money only). Pushers love to hold out on a candidate. They love to make a candidate think they only have one or two options. Pushers help create unhappy people. Unhappy people work in jobs they hate. Develop a counter strategy How do you deal with Pushers? I recommend you develop a counter strategy. Get them out of their comfort zone. Demand they bring you a job within your dreams. Never let them see you frustrated. Pushers love a frustrated candidate. If they see Bob as tired and angry at his employer. They have him where they want him. The Pusher will pose as a friend, but act as a spy. They want to see Bob crack. Stay calm, focused and carry-on Bob. Find a Pushers weakness. They usually talk at you, to distract you. Kill that approach with silence. Once you find a Pusher, do not talk to them. They do not care if you live or die. As for you Pushers. Just be aware of your behaviors. I realize you need to push to do parts of your job but not all of your job. Whats your Pusher story? Are you a Pusher? Related: Beware of Recruitment Cowboys!

How to Start Your Own Recruitment Business Part 3!

How to Start Your Own Recruitment Business Part 3! Well, ZOMG. I’ve been running my own business for 18 months! In case you didnt know, I started my own agency and then last updated it after 7 months. I’ve now been working for myself for 18 months and what an awesome time I have had. There have been more ‘highs’ than ‘lows’ and I certainly relish the freedom (and challenges) that it gives me! Boring stuff: So, let’s talk a bit about the boring stuff before moving onto the enjoyable things I have been doing. End of year accounting sucks. You have to give your accountant all of your bills (mine are good by the way  www.rickardkeen.co.uk). They then crunch some numbers like wizards and send you your final year accounts. When you receive these they also send you a lovely invoice and in due course you get a letter from HMRC telling you to pay a handsome sum of money. Horrible as it is, by having a tax bill to pay it means that your company is generating a revenue, so I suppose I shouldn’t really be complaining! AWESOME stuff: Ok, boring stuff done, let’s talk about what has been AWESOME: I started a MeetUp group  last year, and things have literally flown from there. I now run 6 MeetUp groups alongside the Italian and they are so amazing: Polish Portuguese Spanish South African French From an initial start of meeting in a pub where people had a good chat about development we now have meetup events where people from within each group give presentations on diverse topics ranging from Arduino coding to Scrum / Agile and Front End Development, to the rest of the group; presenting in English to help them to improve their English presentational skills in front of a sympathetic audience of their peers. As a result of this work I was invited as 1 of only 4 group organisers to www.ndclondon.com in December and spent 3 days meeting developers in the community zone at an ACTUAL DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE (yes it really is that big; recruiters simply do not get invited to these sort of things). I also subsequently went to Oslo to their www.ndc-oslo.com event. Announcing the amazing @ABrecruitLTD / @IDinLondon t-shirts. Available ONLY to our presenters, money cannot buy!! pic.twitter.com/K0u3rOXHpT Adam Bolton (@Adam__Bolton) June 30, 2014 What have I learnt? I really appreciate that 99% of recruiters don’t have these sort of opportunities, and make sure that when I am there I don’t take the usual recruiter stance of ‘Hi, have a business card’. Rather I have come to understand that if a developer trusts you as a recruiter (which is very rare!) then they’ll soon let you know when they are hiring or looking for a new role themselves. Most of my clients and candidates now come from the groups either directly or indirectly which is great warm leads FTW! I also went to Prime Conf (www.primeconf.com) which was the 1st of its kind and brilliant fun. I’m 100% certain that had I not started up on my own business, there is no chance that my old manager would have allowed this sort of freedom, looking at things in a black white ‘will it make you money’ way â€" the old phone call recruiter is dead and buried. People buy from people. What else has changed? I no longer work from home!  I managed to secure a great little office (which fits 2 desks and a Husky fridge with a Tassimo machine on top!) close to my home, so I can walk there in 10 mins. It’s amazing how much more productive you can be in recruitment when you have a white board to work from! It’s nice to have a dedicated working space; even if it is an extra expense. I’ve also been giving out presentations to the developers whereby I talk about the differences between finding a tech job here in the UK compared to their home markets â€" there are many ways that our employment market for developers is different; CV design and content differs massively.  On top of this there are a couple of potential group meetups that I will be attending in Poland and Italy to talk about moving to the UK.  It’s great to branch out, but also I am keen to get the ABrecruit name out there so that people know to come to me if they are relocating to the UK, and with the amount of talent coming here to the tech hub of Europe it’s great to have a revenue stream coming from the events. Not only have I made some great connections in the tech world, but I’ve also made a few friends along the way â€" 2 days ago I competed in a half marathon for charity with Mattia who attends my Italian group (and I also helped him to find a job too!).  Technically all we did was to turn up to the event at about the same time as he beat me by over 30 mins in the race itself. Every one of my groups has a native who helps me and I couldn’t do the job without them (big shouts out to Lorenzo, Rodrigo, Magdalena, Brendon, Julien and Alain!), as they help with translations and are really good at engaging the groups.  I also couldn’t do half as many meetups without the help of Sebastian at Telerik who kindly let us use their office as a space for events. We’re branching out from just keeping each group separate; this summer we are shortly to announce the final plans for the inaugural ‘IDinLondon Quiz night’ where nations will battle it out to be the winner complete with trophy and bragging rights, and there is an ‘IDinLondon 5’s’ football tournament being discussed in Winter 2014 / Spring 2015.  I really want to create a community around development and show that not all recruiters can be tarred with the same brush. On that note, there are 2 people that I really want to thank for their frank honesty over the last 18 months â€" back when I worked at my previous company we were told ‘never speak to other recruiters, they’ll steal your jobs’.  What a load of rubbish!  Thayer Prime and Barry Cranford, both of these people are running groups (and conferences, see Prime Conf above!) in order to try and fix the industry, which includes a draft ‘Recruiter code of ethics’ that we are working on â€" if you need a quality recruiter that doesn’t do .Net (because obviously you’d call me then, right?) then get in touch with either of them. Conclusion: Not everything has been plain sailing, however.  I’ve had my share of knock-backs, offer rejects, people dropping out in rebate. I even hired someone to work with me as the workload swelled, but that didn’t work out as the person was junior and needed a lot more guidance than I was able to offer; we parted company on good terms and I wish him the best for his future career. I get a lot of calls and emails from people who have read these blogs, and I hope that they have inspired the people to go out on their own. It’s a great experience to be your own boss! Until next time….! Also by Adam: How Much Does a No-Recruiters Policy Cost You?

How to Maximize Life With Roger Whitney [Podcast] - Career Pivot

How to Maximize Life With Roger Whitney [Podcast] - Career Pivot Episode 10 â€"How to Maximize Life and Transition Into Your Post-Corporate Job. With Roger Whitney. Baby Boomers will live longer and work longer than previous generations. In this episode, Marc interviews Roger Whitney, the Retirement Answer Man. He believes you can create a great life that balances living well today and living well tomorrow, by having the right little conversations about money. Over the last 25 years, he has worked directly with clients on his journey, and shares the wisdom he’s learned, on his weekly podcast, The Retirement Answer Man, and his blog, at RogerWhitney.com. Marc just reviewed Roger’s upcoming book, Thrive Outside the Lines: How to Create Your Retirement Masterpiece. Marc and Kerry discuss several topics, including Roger’s financial planning practice, how Roger started his weekly podcast, and recommendations for Baby Boomers to realize they will be working longer and cutting back a little. Download Link | iTunes|Stitcher Radio|Google Podcast|Podbean|TuneIn|Overcast Key Takeaways: [2:09] Roger is a practicing financial planner. Roger loves what works, over theory. His podcast reflects issues he helps clients handle every day. He started the podcast as a teaching show, to help him organize his own thoughts, and to help listeners. He loves it. [4:56] Baby Boomers are living older than any past generation, and are a lot more active. Their retirement needs are different than the needs of their parents. The old advice was about saving and investing, and it is insufficient for 20 years of retirement. [6:52] Roger teaches that instead of a retirement date, ease into a relationship with retirement, where you work a job with fewer hours, allowing you the time to do things you want to do, with a modest income. [8:01] If a person has a lump sum pension, they are suddenly responsible for managing their money without a weekly check, and it makes them uncomfortable. [9:37] At the end of your earnings career, you become susceptible to marketing methods of fear and short-term promises. [12:23] When making retirement decisions, we have to balance between quality of life today, and having enough money for quality of life tomorrow. You’re never perfectly balanced. The best balance maximizes the life we have today, and hope for tomorrow. [15:08] Fidelity says a married couple of 65 needs to budget $260K to spend on healthcare. You need to invest in your health. [15:51] Roger’s goal with the book is to help people understand what they’re facing, as they’re approaching living more independently. If you’re willing to move outside the lines, you can really thrive, by working part time, investing in your health, and rethinking how you manage risk in your investments. It follows how Roger counsels his clients. [17:40] Baby Boomers do not have enough savings. Start being intentional about what you’re trying to accomplish. Accept that you’re going to work longer, not in the office, but doing something you actually enjoy. Create a life where you don’t retire. [21:41] Old dogs can learn new tricks. We have a lot of options, we just have to be willing to explore them. [23:55] When we’re dealing with tough stuff, there’s comfort to know that we’re normal, and there’s power in getting around people who are figuring it out along with you. You can get out of it. You’re not alone. There are solutions. Our problems are not unique. [25:31] Marc really wants you to think about the concept of life maximization. What are you giving up today for a future that may not exist? Marc also reminds you to listen to the expert series of interviews, including Episode 2 with Chris Farrell and Episode 6 with Kerry Hannon. Mentioned in This Episode: Careerpivot.com Contact Marc, and ask questions at: Careerpivot.com/contact-me Website: RogerWhitney.com Upcoming Book: Thrive Outside the Lines: How to Create Your Retirement Masterpiece, by Roger Whitney Take a moment â€" go to iTunes, Stitcher, or GooglePlay. Give this podcast a review and subscribe! Marc Miller Like what you just read? Share it with your friends using the buttons above. Like What You Read? Get Career Pivot Insights! Check out the Repurpose Your Career Podcast Do You Need Help With ...