While investment banks wax lyrical about their new employer brands and “values and beliefs”, many leaving the industry say it’s just not ‘fun’ any more.

Nikolay Storonsky joined Lehman Brothers’ emerging markets trading desk in 2006, just two years before the financial crisis hit, and after another five years as an equity derivatives trader at Credit Suisse, he quit last year to launch fintech firm Revolut.

“The industry changed, it just wasn’t as fun as it used to be,” he says. “It was very entrepreneurial, exciting and a meritocracy – if you made money as a trader, you were paid a percentage of the profits. These days, it’s a much more normal corporate culture and not as interesting.”

Storonsky launched Revolut – a ‘money cloud’ that allows users to exchange currencies at interbank rates and send cash through social networks with minimal fees – out of technology accelerator Level 39 in Canary Wharf.

“There are a lot of ex-investment bankers here,” he says. “It’s a very political environment in investment banking and some of the best guys have moved out.”

Revolut officially launched in March after all the necessary regulatory boxes were ticked to allow the product to roll out. So far, says Storonsky, 1.5m transactions have been carried out and this is currently growing at 20-30% a week.

For all the talk of the ‘fun’ side of investment banking diminishing, Storonsky believes that the most dynamic people in finance still exist in the sector.

“In investment banking you get used to dealing with very sharp people who are used to getting things done and willing to put in the work it requires,” he says. “One of the biggest challenges we faced getting the product off the ground was all the regulatory box-ticking. You deal with people in other parts of the financial sector who are less motivated to work and are much slower moving. We hit a lot of walls with these types of people.”

He also admits that working in investment banking gave him the funding to launch Revolut. He left Credit Suisse in June 2013, but had to develop and fund the product – with the help of co-founder and CTO Vladyslav Yatsenko – until launch earlier this year.

“Securing funding in fintech is increasingly competitive and it’s very difficult unless you have a solid product to present – this takes time, particularly in finance with all the regulatory hurdles,” he says.

Something is wrong with your CV. You are dispatching it for hundreds of job applications and you are getting nowhere fast.

Before reworking it with in Comic Sans with a fancy border (inadvisable), you might want to tweak your approach as per the points below. Based upon academic studies of job applicants’ success, they might make all the difference.

1. Game the new ‘semantic matching’ technologies 

The ‘recruiters’ who look at your CV may not be human. They may be machines acting upon human recruiters’ behalf.

The use of these so-called ‘applicant tracking systems’ is nothing new, but it’s worth bearing in mind that they’re becoming increasingly sophisticated.

In the past, it used to be enough to load your resumé with key words used to describe the roles you were applying to. These days, the most sophisticated ATS systems operate on a ‘semantic basis’. It’s not just about searching for those particular words, but searching for related words and skills. For example, if a job requires Java programming skills and you mention SQL, you could still get picked by the machine on the grounds that people with SQL often have an aptitude for Java.

In other words, don’t just restrict the language in your CV to ‘keywords’. Mention as many skills as possible within your particular cluster.

2. Project the right personality

If your application is successful, a human being will review your CV at some point. And humans are prone to bias in their screening procedures.

Research published last year by academics at Central Michigan University and Wright State University in the U.S. found that recruiters make inferences about your personality from your CV and that these inferences influence their hiring decisions.

For example, academic achievements are seen as indicative not just of mental ability, but of conscientiousness (a benefit). Long work experience and time spent supervising others are seen as indicative of mental ability, but also of low agreeableness (a negative). Extracurricular activities are suggestive of extroversion and high levels of emotional stability.

Although actual personality was found to be unrelated to hireability, the researchers found that perceived personality – as inferred from your CV, does influence your likelihood of getting hired.

Therefore, if you have mediocre academic grades, you will need to project conscientiousness through consistent work experience and supervisory roles. If you describe a lot of managerial roles, you need to make yourself seem more agreeable with some interesting team-based extra-curricular activities. Be aware how recruiters might make personality judgments based upon your résumé. Seek to balance these out.

3. Use negating prejudices 

Human beings can be prejudiced. Sometimes you can use these prejudices to cancel each other out.

For example, research by a sociologist at Princeton University found that people who might discriminate against black men or gay men didn’t discriminate against men who were both black and gay because stereotypes of gay men as ‘femine, weak and sensitive’ counteracted ‘negative stereotypes often held by whites that black men are threatening.’

There is an, ‘‘intersectionality’’ of social prejudices argued that sociologist. By being aware that these prejudices exist, you can sometimes play one off against the other on your CV.

4. Add your photo, but only in these circumstances

Adding an inappropriate photograph to your resume will not enhance your employablity but in the right circumstances, the right sort of photo will warm recruiters to your cause.

Research suggests that photographs of applicants who are above averagely attractive enhance employability when combined with high quality qualifications and work experience. If the rest of the CV is mediocre, an attractive photograph will make no difference.

5. Mention big-name schools, even if you only attended a summer course

Some applicant tracking systems are designed to give a stronger weighting to target schools. For this reason, it makes sense to add target schools to your résumé even if you only spent two weeks there in the summer.

6. Engage in U.S. and U.K. friendly ‘politeness strategies’

Finally, research has shown that job applications in the U.S. and the U.K. are frequently mediated by formulaic ‘politeness strategies’. This applies more to a covering letter or introductory email than to your actual CV, but is still important – especially if you’re a foreign candidate trying to penetrate the City of London or Wall Street.

Acceptable phrases in English-speaking job applications should demonstrate your ‘willingness to take responsibility for actively pursuing further contact’, say the researchers. They include statements such as, “‘I am looking forward to discussing the opportunity to join your organization’, ‘I am very interested in becoming a part of this project…’ 

Writing an English-speaking cover-letter is about showing interest while not imposing on the reader, say the researchers. Anglo-Saxon recruiters are not looking for deference to social rank. Letters or introductory emails are completed with short utilitarian phrases such as, ‘Your consideration of my qualifications is appreciated’, ‘Thank you for your consideration’, ‘I look forward to hearing from you soon’.

This is in contrast to Asia, where deference to rank is culturally important, or to France where job-related communication typically includes phrases to flatter the recipient and indicate the applicant’s submission ( ‘je reste à votre [entière] disposition’).

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Are you looking for a new job in investment banking? You’re in luck, as long as you’re not trying for a job in asset backed securitization (ABS) or high yield – both areas which were seeming snazzy not too long ago.

In a note released today, Deutsche’s banking analysts point out that high yield issuance was down 32% year-on-year in June 2015 and that ABS issuance was down 32%. After a long period of, ‘hunt-for-yield’, revenues are fading.

Equity Capital Markets revenues aren’t looking very vigorous either. Deutsche’s analysts point out that IPOs are on track to fall by 22% year-on-year in the second quarter and that the pipeline has declined as Q2 has progressed.

They also think that the wind might have gone out of macro traders’ sails. In the first quarter, FX and G10 rates businesses benefited from volatility. In the second quarter, they say that this ‘tailwind from higher volatility’ will have ‘abated somewhat.’

So, where would you want to be working in the second half of 2015? Try M&A, which is benefiting from ‘improving corporate confidence’ – especially in the US, and saw a 49% increase in deals completed year-on-year in June. Failing that, try cash equities. Deutsche’s analysts are silent on the outlook for equities revenues, but J.P. Morgan’s analysts think they rose 9% year-on-year in the second quarter….

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When it comes to fixed income currencies and commodities (FICC) sales and trading, Morgan Stanley is more vacillatory than a Greek faced with an impossible referendum decision.

In the past seven years, it first slashed its fixed income business in the wake of the financial crisis. Then built it up again between 2009 and 2010. Then it had second thoughts and made plenty of people redundant in 2013. And now it’s interested in exploring the possibilities again. Or at least, so said the Wall Street Journal in an article yesterday

The WSJ said Morgan Stanley is already hiring ‘selectively’ in fixed income, but London headhunters said there isn’t much sign of any activity yet. “They’re looking to hire a hedge fund sales guy, but that doesn’t exactly constitute a rebuild,” says one London fixed income recruiter, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Morgan Stanley seem quite active in emerging markets, but that’s not a rebuild given that they let go of 50% of some of these teams a few years ago,” says another headhunter, speaking on the same basis.

Morgan Stanley isn’t commenting on the WSJ’s article, but it said yesterday that its fixed income strategy remains, “unchanged.”

The London Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) register suggests Morgan Stanley has recently focused new hires more heavily on its equities than its fixed income business. In June alone it’s registered Matteo Mazzetto, an executive director in structured product sales from Barclays, Kingsley Onah, a convertibles professional from Citi, Benajmin Szakal, an ETF trader from Bluefin Trading, and Victoria Greer, an autos research analyst from J.P. Morgan. Over the same period in fixed income, it’s added Lutz Goergen, a credit index trader from Saba Capital Management.

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Every year large banks hire hundreds of graduates globally into their operations departments – both in major financial centres and in ‘cost effective’ locations from Bournemouth to Bangalore.

A large proportion of those who clinch these back-office jobs have impressed during an internship the previous year. If you’re toiling away as an operations intern this summer, here’s how to make sure your bank ends up offering you a full-time role.

1. Understand the essence of operations

“Banking operations nowadays is all about cost cutting without control cutting,” say a former operations intern at a major European bank who now works as a project manager at another firm. “Show that you get this.”

2. Be interested in your bank’s business

Don’t limit yourself to discussing the running of the back-office – show an eagerness for the entire organisation. “What pressure is the front office under? And how does that influence the back office?” says Henry Chamberlain, a former head of selection at Standard Chartered who now runs a career consultancy. “I once took an intern to a meeting with some really senior people. But when I asked her afterwards what she’d learnt from it she said ‘the air conditioning was very cold’. No enthusiasm.”

3. Get a grip on the jargon

You may be studying finance, but that doesn’t mean you’ll know all the operations acronyms and other terminology that your more senior colleagues will be using ad nauseam. “Your boss won’t expect you to understand all the jargon right away, so ask questions and use Google,” says the ex-intern.

4. Meet deadlines

Success in the relentless back-office, where global transactions are being settled 24/7, often depends on your ability to hit deadlines. “Demonstrate that you can be relied upon to deliver on time. That’s where you’ll be useful if you come back as a grad next year. ‘I didn’t know what to do’ is never an acceptable response,” explains the former intern.

5. Tell your team mates your timetable

“You will attend a lot of training and networking sessions – inform your colleagues about them so they can make corresponding arrangements,” says Alex Wong, a former HSBC operations professionals who now coaches students to secure jobs at global banks. “Advanced planning is vital in operations because your work often has daily cut-offs.”

6. Get the tedious tasks on track

As an operations intern you will be given plenty of boring assignments – take them seriously. “If you develop a reputation as someone who gets repetitive tasks done well, you will earn credibility and your boss may invest more time in you and give you more interesting work,” says Wong.

7. Mind the details

Managers in operations want to employ people who don’t make errors when dealing with constant, complicated transactions and settlements – so they are sensitive to mistakes, even non-critical ones like spelling typos. “Discipline and detail orientation are highly regarded traits in ops – so always be on time and always double check your work,” says Chamberlain.

8. If unsure, clarify very quickly

If you have doubts about a task, ask for clarification straight away, says a 2014 operations intern at a global bank. “People will appreciate the task being done faster and more accurately rather than you spending extra time trying to figure it out.”

9. Read the regulations in advance

“If your internship involves frequently dealing with regulatory compliance issues such as terror financing and anti-money laundering, be sure to research and read the regulations before you start,” says the 2014 intern. “This can be a very important part of your role and prior research will also allow you to complete any company-specific training courses with ease.”

10. Show strong techie skills

“Having skills in Excel, VBA, Bloomberg and in-house trading systems like Sophis is a pre-requisite in operations, while product knowledge in a specific area (like derivatives) and industry knowledge (in prime brokerage, for example) are pluses,” says Chris Aukland, a managing director at recruitment agency Ambition. “So during an ops internship, take every possible opportunity to learn more and upskill.”

11. Demonstrate you can communicate

Your communication skills will be tested during your internship because banks want to hire operations staff who are at ease when dealing with other departments. “You need strong interpersonal skills to interact with finance, risk, IT and the front office,” says Aukland. “Use clear and precise communication to resolve issues with other teams.”

12. Network across the firm

You can also prove your cross-department communication skills when networking at the various internal events you’ll be invited too – so don’t just mingle with your ops colleagues. “Networking outside the department allows you to make important contacts that could serve you well in the future,” says Stella Tang, a managing director at recruiters Robert Half.

13. Get put on projects

The back-office is the scene of constant cost-cutting and “restructuring” initiatives, which open up opportunities for project-based work. “I was able to take on a project that no one else had completed before in my team and was able to set best practices. I believe this was key in ensuring my return to the bank this year,” says the 2014 intern.

14. Observe your boss

Don’t just follow orders, try to figure out what’s motivating your manager. “For example, during an operations internship, if you see your supervisor take a particular trader very seriously, find out what the reason is,” say student careers coach Wong.

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The next time that someone informs you that investment banking has fallen out of favour with young people, and that young people want to become financial technology (‘fintech’) professionals instead, then be assured that they are talking rubbish. Especially if they are making these claims about elite MBA students.

In fact, elite MBA students are still heavily into banking, Roxanne Hori, associate dean for corporate relations and career services at NYU Stern, tells the Financial Times. Around 30% of NYU Stern’s MBAs will go into banking this year. “Banks have come back,” declares Hori.

Needless to say, it helps that banks have come back laden with cash.

The FT confirms that the fresh MBAs who join banks as first year associates, sometimes with no banking experience at all, have had a pay rise. They can now get a base salary of $125k and a sign-on bonus of $50k. Last year, banks were dangling salaries of $110k and the sign-on status was unclear.

A Scientific Approach (eFinancialCareers)

This is what the academic research says you have to do to your resume to get noticed by recruiters.

Investment Banking Just Isn’t Fun (eFinancialCareers)

Want to know why so many traders are quitting for Fintech? One former Credit Suisse trader says it just isn’t fun anymore.

Computer Glitch (Bloomberg)

In proof that Goldman Sachs is fallible, the bank has been fined $7m for making a stupid mistake. In 2013, a software configuration error meant that the bank’s computers accidentally sent 16,000 options orders, mispriced at $1, to exchanges.

A Suspicious Delay (Financial Times) 

Why did it take nearly four weeks between Deutsche receiving the report from BaFin and Mr Jain announcing his departure? As the head of a big European fund manager says: “It looks very bad for Anshu — until now it looked as if he had gone of his own accord.”

Electronic Trading Push (Financial News)

Deutsche Bank has been hiring for its electronic trading system.

Bye-Bye Goldman (Business Insider) 

61-year-old Jack Levy is leaving Goldman Sachs after spending 15 years as an investment banker there.

J.P. Morgan Poaches from BAML (Bloomberg)

J.P. Morgan just hired a US energy banker from Bank of America.

Hot New Hedge Fund Hires (FinAlternatives)

Former Brevan Howard trader Chris Rokos has hired economist Jacques Cailloux from Nomura Holdings to help launch his new hedge fund.

You Get the Check (Reuters)

LIBOR trader Tom Hayes asked a broker to pay for his £1k meal. (Reuters)  

Warfare Expert Takes on New Battle (Bloomberg)

Greg Rattray, a former U.S. Air Force commander for information warfare and a cyber-expert at the National Security Council under President George W. Bush, no longer works as JPMorgan’s chief information security officer. He’s been reassigned after one year.

Would you toil away for 14 years in investment banking for a 20% chance of making it to managing director – a level at which your compensation will, on average, be double that of the previous director rank? We ask because new data from salary benchmarking website Emolument.com suggests this is your chance of making it to the upper ranks.

As the charts below show, you have a 70% chance of making it to VP if you start out as an analyst in investment banking and the likelihood of hitting director level is 60%. However, making the next step up to MD is decidedly trickier – just 20% make the cut. While this is still a one in five chance, there’s little wonder why so many VPs and directors are in career stasis.

Our own data suggests that it takes an average of 17.5 years from graduation to make it to MD level. The figures below, therefore, offer a little more hope. Getting beyond this rank, however, is more tricky. Just 1% of analysts make it to the hallowed partner level, suggests Emolument.

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There’s a game of cat and mouse being played in the compliance recruitment market. On the one side, you have expansionary banks and recruiters offering perks and big pay rises to top compliance staff to move jobs. On the other, banks’ HR teams are busy counteroffering to avoid having to replace top people in a tight job market.

Compliance staff trying to move jobs can, on average, expect their employer to counteroffer up to 20%. Those doing the recruiting are factoring this into their offers, but it doesn’t always work out.

“We had one recent case of a head of compliance in the UK, where the client couldn’t go over £150k,” says one compliance recruiter who declines to be named. “They knew the candidate was going to be counter-offered more than this, so they rushed through an alternative.”

The result was an intensive interview process – eight interviews in five days – followed by an offer of £130k, plus a guaranteed bonus of £30k. The candidate’s previous salary was £103k.

“In the last few months, we have seen a number of examples of in-demand Compliance candidates moving for as much as a 20-30% increase,” says Luke Davis, vice president of Robert Half UK. “There is the shortage of compliance professionals in the market right now, supply can’t keep up with demand.”

Particularly desirable currently are sanctions specialists, anti-money laundering experts and, as banks shell out hundreds of millions in fines related to bad behaviour, conduct risk specialists.

“I know one individual who went from earning £60k, to a new job for £100k and then finally £130k in another position – in less than a year,” says the recruiter.

More often than not counter-offers are coupled with promises of increases in responsibilities and promotions. “Not all of these promises are kept though and this can often lead to someone leaving when they realise the progression is not likely to happen,” says Davis.

Compliance has become increasing pressurised, with senior compliance professionals signing up for counselling or burning out entirely, as both the demands and complexity of the job have increased. But with pressure comes power and prominence within the business. One compliance ‘guru’ told Bloomberg this week: “You’re usually involved with all the big dogs in the company. Your visibility is huge,” he says.

Deutsche Bank’s new CEO John Cryan has delayed implementing its new strategy until late October, but this is unlikely to provide a lifeline to its employees. Deutsche doesn’t have the “luxury” of remaining in all areas of fixed income and costs remain too high, he said.

Despite the postponement, Cryan said the German bank “remained committed” to the previously announced overall strategy.

“We have allowed ourselves to become too inefficient,” Cryan explained in a new letter to employees. “Our cost base is swollen by poor and ineffective processes, antiquated and inadequate technology, too many tasks being completed using manual labour, and, too frequently, unsuccessful investments in our infrastructure.”

“Where we encounter marginal business opportunities or businesses with poor prospects or business lines that are not controlled to the standards we demand, we will exit them, even if this means closing them down,” he added.

Overall, Cryan is concerned that some bank operations are too diverse and complex, and the bank does not have “to be all things to all people.”

Among the steps in the strategy that were reported earlier this year are cutting assets at the investment bank and lowering costs. The Postbank consumer banking unit is likely to be sold by the bank, as well.

It is still not completely clear what the new strategy will mean for jobs at Deutsche’s corporate and investment bank. But one estimate suggested bank-wide if Deutsche Bank cuts €3.5 billion ($3.9 billion) in costs that could mean cutting 12,000 jobs.

Under the previous schedule, layoffs were supposed to start in August 2015.

On the brighter side, the plan meant compliance staff would keep their jobs, as will equities staff. More equity capital market staff were expected to be hired in North America, too. But for those who work for Deutsche Bank’s corporate and investment bank, it may be bad news, as we reported earlier this year.

On the other hand, Deutsche is expected to see growth in: corporate finance; cash equities; equity derivatives; and emerging markets debt, the report adds. Also, in Q1, Deutsche’s total headcount in the corporate banking and securities business rose by 1,035 people. However, headcount in the front office dropped by 177 employees.

Meanwhile: 

Brevan Howard Hires Greek Poker Player (WSJ)

Brevan Howard, a U.K.-based hedge fund, has hired Alexios Zervos, a former professional poker player, to join its London office.

Bouveng Claims Ex-Boss Is ‘Psychopath’ (NY Post)

The day after Hanna Bouveng was awarded an $18 million award against her ex-boss at a Wall Street firm, she called him a “psychopath.’’

Women Replacing Men in Workforce (Business Insider)

Women are replacing men economically, according to a Barclay’s analyst. More women and old people are entering the workforce in locations such as Japan where men are less frequently seen in the workplace.

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Deutsche Bank’s new CEO says the German bank is “swollen.” Its technology is “inadequate,” its structure is “complex”, it’s “inward looking and bureaucratic,” it no longer has the “luxury” of relying on “long term balance sheet usage” to support its sales and trading business.

Superficially, it sounds bad for Deutsche’s fixed income business. Upon closer reading, however, Cryan offers Deutsche’s traders some scraps of hope. As the bank withdraws its balance sheet from fixed income sales and trading, Cryan says the bank will need to manage “existing positions more actively.” And this active management will require traders, especially in areas like XVA. 

In fact, Deutsche has already made plenty of cuts to headcount in the front office. As the chart below shows, Anshu Jain cut front office headcount in the investment bank by 23% between 2010 and the first quarter of this year.

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Victoria Macpherson knows about finance and she knows about finance professionals. She was a fixed income salesperson at SocGen and BNP Paribas for nearly 10 years, and she was a fixed income headhunter for 17 years. Now she’s a coach, and she specializes in helping people for whom finance is no longer “fun”.

“For my generation, the City was a fun place to be,” says Macpherson. “We made money and we were able to take risks. Not in a bad way, it was an unrestricted place to be.”

Eight years after the crisis, Macpherson says the City has become boring and that the juxtaposition isn’t playing well with those who remember when it wasn’t. “There’s more red tape and people are paid less. Because of this it’s become a lot more difficult to motivate people. If you’re a senior manager you’re having to spend a lot more time on people issues. Some have just had enough.”

It’s not easy to shed a financial services career like a shriveled skin, however. People in finance work so hard that when the time comes to quit, they’ve usually had no time to reflect on what they would do instead, says Macpherson. And when they put their heads above the parapet, the landscape can look strange and unfamiliar.

“People in the City have a huge work ethic,” she says. “You’re surrounded by very high calibre, energetic, organized people. That becomes part of your DNA and it’s a shock when you leave and people outside don’t respond when they said they would, or don’t deliver something on time.”

Finance refugees need to re-orientate slowly, says Macpherson: “You don’t spend 10 or 20 years working in the City and find a whole new career in 18 months. It takes time.”

Macpherson says a common mistake is for people who leave finance to look around for alternatives, fail to find anything, and silently slip back into banking. “They usually go back for a two or three year stint and then get out again.”

This can be avoided if you’re willing to be patient and are realistic about the world beyond the mirrored towers. “When you leave, you will need to explore,” says Macpherson. “There’s a whole world out there and you probably haven’t had the space or emotional energy to even think about it while you were in banking. It’s going to take a year or two to adapt.”

Money isn’t a priority for most senior people who leave finance, but it can still be a sticking point. Macpherson says ex-bankers are dissuaded from starting new careers by their expectations of high compensation from the outset. “If you’re saying you’re need to make £100k+ immediately, that’s going to be pretty difficult unless you go straight back into the City. But if you give it time, you can easily make £100k in a portfolio career.”

Macpherson says ex-bankers need to be given “permission to fail.” They also need to disregard their need for money.

“It’s about having the permission to explore, to try some things that might not work,” she says. “If you want to move away from finance, the search for income needs to be taken out of the equation.”

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Kweku Adoboli has not taken our advice. Instead of earning tens of thousands a week on the public speaking circuit, he’s settled for less than ten pounds a day on a crowdfunding website.

Adoboli reportedly placed an appeal titled, ‘Help me get on my feet again,’ on Gofundme, a website more commonly used to help sick children and charitable causes. As of yesterday, he was said to have raised £6.53. As of today, his appeal seems to have disappeared.

Before he was convicted of defrauding UBS, Adoboli was a notable big spender. Aged 30, he earned £360k in 2010, but had no money in the bank and overdrafts totaling £4.2k at the time of his arrest. Unless his spending habits have changed (and his gambling habit has been addressed), Kweku’s crowdfunder will need to be quite considerable.

Banned from the UK securities industry for life, Adoboli needs a career change. If he doesn’t want to go into public speaking, he could always try something completely different. John Hughes, Adoboli’s ex- UBS colleague who was also banned over the affair, set himself up as a ‘product evangelist’ and founded a betting website, ‘Betsofmates’ in 2012.

Hughes himself sought crowdfunding for this site last year.  It doesn’t seem to have been successful though – Betsofmates no longer exists and Hughes’ current job is unclear.

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The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is putting its annual report about. Therein lies some interesting information, especially on the way that the UK finance regulator pays its own staff.

Firstly, there are some employees at the FCA who are on less than a living wage. The lowest paid FCA staff member earned £17,287 ($27k) last year. The London living wage is £9.15 an hour, which equates to an annual salary of around £18k. The regulator looks parsimonious, although it was at least more generous than the previous year when its lowest paid member of staff only earned £16k.

Secondly, the FCA awarded it’s senior staff some impressive pay rises last year. Although the regulator stresses that there were ‘no automatic salary increases or incentive awards,’ there were plenty of discretionary ones. As the chart below shows, the FCA’s executive committee members received increases in their total compensation of between 7% and 44%, with the biggest rise going to Tracey McDermott, the FCA’s head of enforcement.  McDermott is now earning £475k, up from £329k last year. The increase is partly down to the deferral of last year’s bonus to this year.

Meanwhile, Martin Wheatly, chief executive of the FCA received a salary of £460k, a bonus of £92k, and other benefits (car and driver) of £108k. Another, unnamed director, earned £660k.

Source: FCA

So far, so generous, but if you don’t work for the FCA, the most interesting thing about the regulator’s report is its measure of equitability.

Last year, the FCA says median pay at the regulator was £63.4k and that the highest paid director earned 10 times this amount.  Banks in the UK may want to take note European lawmakers have in the past suggested capping internal pay differentials at banks as a way of restricting pay.

Last year, Goldman Sachs International paid its staff in London a mean average of £363k while Lloyd Blankfein earned at least $24m (£15m), suggesting that Goldman’s London staff would need a pay rise of more than £1.1m to match the FCA’s internal pay differential (and likely even more given that the median is usually lower than the mean). Then again, Lloyd Blankfein could always take a pay cut.

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In case you needed any further confirmation that bright young graduates lured into investment banking earn vastly more than their peers – or that money doesn’t equal happiness – here’s a new report on 27 entry level roles and their pay.

A 22-year-old investment banker called ‘Lynn’, interviewed anonymously, says that total compensation comes in (at the upper end) at $150k. Yes, this is good, but when you compare it to what other fresh graduates are earning, it appears obscene. Fashion journalists are earning $22k, chemists earn $35k and even doctors are bringing in a relatively paltry $54k.

Does this mean that trainee investment bankers are basking in their new-found wealth. Not exactly. “No one I know in investment banking is really happy. It’s something that smart but directionless kids looking for prestige or the stereotypical money-chasing kids do,” says Lynn

Compare this to the fashion reporter scraping by on just $22k: “I want to make my passion a reality and work in a career field that I truly love and want to work in for the rest of my life.”

Some Help Adjusting (eFinancialCareers)

35-year-olds moving out of banking struggled to adapt to the new reality. This ex-trader can help.

Cut Too Much? (eFinancialCareers)

Deutsche Bank’s delayed strategy announcement could see severe job cuts at the bank, but it’s already shown 20% of front office employees the door in recent years.

The Two Bosses Being Paid (Financial Times)

Jamie Dimon and James Gorman are both by far the best paid banking bosses, and both hold the dual chairman and CEO role at J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley respectively. Dimon received a hefty 134% pay rise, while Gorman got a 66% uplift. Most CEOs in banking received around 17% more.

Give Your Bonus Back (SEC)

The U.S. is implementing clawbacks! But only for executives

No MBA for the Buy-side Needed (Business Because)

More MBAs want to move into private equity, but fewer buy-side firms are requesting an MBA.

The Perfect Mix (WSJ)

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority appears to be an example of diversity. It has a 50/50 gender split among its staff and just 36% are 25-34 years old. 34% are 35-44 and the ‘majority’ of heads of department are over 45.

No Defense (Bloomberg)

Evercore has poached Goldman Sachs ‘defense’ banker.

American Beauty (Universum)

Business students want to work for US investment banks, but not European ones.

‘Hidden’ Talent (Business Insider)

James Gorman’s daughter has just released an album on Spotify. Her dad pushed it out to banker colleagues.

Investment banking recruiters want to seriously test their junior recruits during the interview process. More often than not, this involves the infamous ‘brain-teasers’, but these are gradually being phased out in favour of a combination of competency-based and a new style of ‘situational’ interviewing.

This doesn’t mean that some silly questions are not being asked. This, according to a variety of sources, are the strange interview questions being asked to juniors across various investment banking divisions this year.

1. What is your opinion about Adolf Hitler?
2. What should Lloyd Blankfein be worried about?
3. If I offered you a job at Goldman Sachs or £1m, which would it be and why?
4. Tell me an interesting story.
5. You studied chemistry at university. So, are you just going into banking for the money?
6. You are the Minister for Transport in the UK and need to change the traffic from the lefthand side of the road to the right. How do you go about this?
7. You have to work long hours, but you we also expect you to study for the CFA exams. The work consumes your life. You will have no social life. How does this make you feel?
8. How did you prepare for this interview?
9. Why do Volvo cars account for fewer fatalities than other brands?
10. A car is driving quickly down the road. In the middle of this road is a man, standing stationary. The streetlights are not working and a battery problem means that the lights in the car aren’t working either. The car manages to avoid the man. How?
11. How many windows are there in this building?
12. It’s 3.20pm. What’s the angle of the second hand and the hour hand on the clock?

If you’ve passed your 35th birthday and you’re looking for a new job in finance, you might be finding it tough. Like it or not, banks prefer the young and inexperienced to the old and expensive.

Unfortunately this applies to every single sector of the industry. An analysis of the roles advertised on eFinancialCareers globally reveals that each and every corner of the financial services universe has many more jobs available for junior candidates than for senior ones. Maybe this is inevitable – banking is famously hierarchical and a pyramidal structure will always be bigger at the bottom than at the top. Nonetheless, the drop-off in available jobs – shown in the chart below – is pretty stark.

Overall, only 2.2% of jobs in finance are specifically advertised to candidates with more than 15 years’ experience. Using years of experience as a proxy for age (and assuming that most people start their finance careers in their early 20s), this suggests that advertised opportunities in finance when you’re 35+ are pretty hard to come by.

Some sectors are slightly more friendly to the mature finance professional than others, however. As the chart below shows, opportunities for 35 year-olds in operations are fairly numerous as a percentage of the total compared to the industry average.

The worst sector for ‘older’ workers is hedge funds. Fewer than 1% of the jobs currently advertised in hedge funds require 15 years’ experience. Maybe that’s because hedge funds only really took off in the past 15 years. Maybe it’s because senior hedge fund jobs are filled by word of mouth. Either way, good luck finding a new role if you’re a 40-something hedge fund professional searching for an opportunity this summer.

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Remember SAC Capital? Remember Steve Cohen? (Remember Steve Cohen’s pig?) Financial News reports that Steve Cohen’s new(ish) family office Point72 is considering having an “on the ground presence in London”.That might come as good news to SAC’s ex-traders, some of whom are at other hedge funds, some of whom aren’t.

At least two of SAC’s former finest are now to be found at London-based Carrae Capital, set up by Ali Akay, who previously ran SAC’s biggest book in Europe. Akay is CIO at SAC. He’s also employed Plamen Dokov, a former SAC equities trader.

A handful of other SAC traders followed Lia Forcina to BlueCrest. Forcina is still at BlueCrest according to the FCA Register. So too are Jonas Schwinn and Thibault Nardin, the two ex-SAC traders who followed her there in early 2014. 

Another two ex-SAC traders are at French fund manager Carmignac Capital, which lured across Muhammed Yesilhark as head of European equities and Malte Heininger (a former SAC fund manager and male model).

There’s a large cluster of ex-SAC traders at Moore Capital Management, which has rehoused ex-SAC portfolio managers Louis Villa, Atallah Estephan and Alexi Papaconstantinou along with ex-SAC trading administrator Jackie Knific and ex-SAC personal assistant Bianca Pereira.

Some have gone back into banking. Massimo Amati, a former global macro portfolio manager at SAC is now an executive director on Credit Suisse’ global macro team. 

And some have tried things that are entirely different. Siro Perez, a former pharmaceutical analyst at SAC, has reinvented himself as a life sciences entrepreneur  Ken Ginsberg, SAC’s former COO in London spent three years working for his own cookie company, ‘Ken & Jesse’s cookies,’ but is now chief operating officer of Kola Capital.

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When is a big bonus not big enough? When you’re a prodigious 28-year-old quantitative hedge fund analyst who thought you were deserving of $1.7m.

This is the sorry story of Ke Xu, a Chinese national who spent six years working for Goldman Sachs in London after achieving a first class degree at Cambridge. In 2012, Xu quit Goldman for Trenchant, a hedge fund at which he thought he was in line for a seven-figure bonus.

Upon receiving a mere £622k for his efforts, Xu lined up a new job at Cubist Systematic in Hong Kong. Before leaving, he also accessed restricted files at Trenchant and copied a few of them. For this, he has now been sentenced to four years in prison.

A LinkedIn profile belonging to one Ke Xu who was educated at Cambridge and worked for Goldman describes him as a, “dude,” with skills in investment banking and ‘bread and butter making’. This looks unfortunate, in retrospect.

Summer is Cancelled (FT)

Investment banks including HSBC, Bank of America and Deutsche Bank each had staff in over the weekend to cover the Greek referendum and its consequences. Vacations in Europe during July 2015 should be written off now.

The Axeman Does Not Cometh (FT)

Tidjane Thiam, the incoming CEO at Credit Suisse, has underplayed expectations that he’s about to slash its investment bank.

Barclays’ New IT Director got $2.5m in Shares (Guardian)

In another sign that tech bosses are increasingly important, Barclays has just shelled out seven figures in share for its new IT director.

There Are No 50-year-old Traders (FT)

“The City has an age bias. You simply cannot have been a very good trader if you have not made enough money to leave by 50.” It follows therefore that “you can’t be a 50-year-old trader”

Another Equities Exit At Citi (Financial News)

Salvador Rodriguez, head of sales trading for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, has left Citi.

Nightmare Trader (Bloomberg)

“I used to dream about libors,” Hayes told the SFO.

An Excess of Manliness (Bloomberg)

“Trading is very dominated by young men, which is an unusual subset of people. It’s a higher testosterone group, a very competitive group.”

Finance Not on Top (Business Insider)

Finance and computer science degrees are not the key to the highest paying graduate jobs in the UK.

Life Sucks (Discover Mag)

People with reward deficiency syndrome’ struggle to experience pleasure from everyday things. This, in turn, drives sufferers to seek out additional sources of pleasure to satisfy their lack of reward.

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So far, markets are ‘stunningly quiet.’ It is, however, early days. Whether or not the European Central Bank decides to continue emergency liquidity assistance to Greece, whether or not Greece defaults on the coming €3.5bn bond repayment to the ECB, the landscape in which banks are operating has shifted. Especially in Europe.

Nothing is certain, but this is what looks likely if you’re a financial services professional this summer.

1. Hard work, long hours 

The financial crisis of 2008 was characterized by sleepless nights, 7 day weeks and cancelled holidays. The Greek crisis threatens a repeat: “I am back at my desk. Sunday nights are a thing again,” complained one trader yesterday.

2. Disappointment for Europe’s M&A bankers

It hasn’t been a bad year for M&A in Europe, but not has it been a great one. In the first six months, European deals were up around 20%, while US deals were up 47% and Asian deals were up 60%. The uncertainty engendered by the European situation was blamed. An end to this uncertainty was expected to unleash a wave of dealmaking on the continent. Instead, uncertainty has been compounded and perpetuated. This may be bad news for Europe’s equity capital markets bankers too.

3. Macro volatility is back 

As the European Central Bank implements quantitative easing more aggressively to prevent contagion from Greece to other peripheral countries like Spain and Portugal, Deutsche Bank analysts are predicting increased volatility across the rates market. This could create opportunities for rates professionals, who had been struggling in the second quarter.  It should also create opportunities for FX professionals, with Barclays predicting that emerging market Asian currencies will benefit from the uncertainty in the eurozone.

4. Credit assets will be repriced 

Credit trading professionals haven’t been having a good year either. Barclays is predicting that risk aversion will increase following the Greek vote. This will be a bad thing if you work in high yield, but could create short term volume in credit trading as riskier assets are repriced and investors favour cash.

5. US markets professionals will benefit 

So, far the big decline in European equities predicted by Mohamed El Arian and others hasn’t happened. Whether or not equities decline in Europe, it seems likely that US markets will benefit from the Greek situation. – Chaos in Europe makes it less likely that Janet Yellen will raise rates later this year as predicted.

6. Equities professionals will benefit

Over a six month period, UBS is predicting that European equities will benefit from the Greek crisis as the European Central Bank unleashes all its firepower (Open Market Transactions, i.e. sovereign bond buying, and Open Market Operations, i.e. LTRO and MRO) to keep the Eurozone intact.

7. The way the IMF operates may need to be rethought  

Ok, so this might not impact non-emerging market bankers, but it’s worth bearing in mind. Barclays points out that Greece makes up the largest part of the IMF’s credit portfolio. If Greece defaults, even poorer countries – like Pakistan – will end up shouldering the burden of the Greek crisis and paying higher rates. This could create pressure for Greece’s debts to be covered by other members of the Eurozone, says Barclays, adding that, “in the case of Greece, it’s not the short-term contagion effects but the longer-term consequences of a Greek exit that may matter. Greece’s default on the IMF is one of them.”

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8. BNP Paribas may seek to conserve its capital more carefully 

Most banks have dramatically reduced their exposure to Greece in the past few years. However, banks like HSBC and BNP Paribas are comparatively more exposed than others. BNP Paribas is already pulling out of capital intensive trading areas. A Greek hit – however small – may encourage it on the way.

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With Deutsche Bank in the midst of a strategy review, which could see thousands of jobs eliminated, the assumption would be that more people are trying to get out than accepting jobs. Senior bankers are indeed heading for the door, but it’s still making some key hires for its markets business.

In the last few weeks, Russell Chin, who was previously a managing director and head of cash equities sales at Standard Chartered, has joined the German bank. He will be head of Japan equity sales and also focus on the broader APAC region based out of Deutsche Bank’s London office, according to sources close to the situation.

Chin had been working at Standard Chartered for just two years, having joined from Nomura where he was a managing director and head of pan-Asia hedge fund sales. He joined Lehman Brothers seven months before its collapse and the subsequent takeover of its European operations by Nomura as head of Asia Pacific sales.

Chin is the latest in a series of recent senior hires at Deutsche Bank. Quentin Thom joined this month as European head of hedge fund consulting after just over a year running his own hedge fund consulting business, QT Advisors, according to his LinkedIn profile. This was a role that had been open for over a year following the departure of Chris Farkas to Deloitte.

It has also named three new directors for its Autobahn equity trading platform, due to start in September.

Deutsche didn’t immediately respond for requests for comment.