FSA doubles graduate intake

The UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA) expects to double last year's graduate intake to between 30-40 places in October this year, at a time when most investment banks are reducing graduate recruitment sharply.

The increase follows the establishment in November of a new FSA regulatory regime, which broadens its role of monitoring financial services firms. It now has more than 2,000 staff.

So far 31 candidates for its graduate programme have accepted places.

The FSA provides a career path for graduates who are interested in financial services but do not want to join one of the banks, or are unable to do so because they have cut staff in the economic downturn.

In its first graduate intake two-and-a-half years ago, the FSA hired just eleven people, nine of whom are still with the organisation.

The regulator operates a buddy system for new recruits and says its culture focuses on mentoring.

Its rotational system gives new recruits varied experience. For example, a first placement may be working for a firm that is applying for authorisation or needs supervision. There are also further placements and a stint in team-based project management.

Graduates also experience the world the FSA regulates by being seconded to a financial institution for six months or more.

&quotThey get a huge overview of the whole spectrum of financial services,&quot said Umesh Damania, head of graduate recruitment at the FSA.

At 23,500 a year, graduate salaries are considerably lower than those paid by large banks. Pay increases after 6 and 12 amount to a 3,000 rise in the first year. Pay is performance-based.

An associate's salary could be anywhere between 18,000 and 60,000 while managers can make anywhere between 45,000 and 80,000-90,000, said Damania.

With the arrival of the new regulatory regime, the compliance sector is being taken more seriously as a profession in the UK, say headhunters. The FSA has, as a result, increasingly become a hunting ground for the commercial sector .

Howard Foster, a headhunter in compliance at Hoggett Bowers, said: &quotThe FSA offers tremendous exposure to senior levels of expertise. Many use it as an opportunity to get three years experience and background before looking elsewhere.&quot

Employee's view

Not everyone joins the FSA to use it as a launching pad for a brilliant and lucrative career in the City. Cynthia Wong, 25, joined the FSA in 1999 with a 2:1 from the London School of Economics.

She says she was interested in banking but did not want to restrict herself at the start of her career, and thought it would be useful to get a broad view of how the financial services industry worked.

Having taken her CFA Level One exams last year, she says she is happy with her choice. &quotThe FSA offers flexible hours, an attractive job and a wide variety of people. As an amalgamation of the SFA, IMRO and the Bank of England, it has a great learning atmosphere.&quot

She added: &quot(The FSA) is a very supportive organisation and they don't even mind you leaving (for the commercial sector) because it is a way of spreading the word.&quot

As Damania puts it: &quotThe danger is that we become a training ground and they (the graduates) jump ship. But in the end that could reduce the cost of the FSA regulating the industry.&quot

Kerry Stanton, 21, is at Nottingham University studying economics and is due to join the FSA in October.

She says: &quotI went to loads of different milk rounds and when I met the FSA I really liked the fact that it was not all profit-driven. When you are too focused on one thing, like profit, you can lose your perspective.&quot

Stanton says she would not leave before five to six years at the earliest. She also points out that the FSA has an open-door policy that means anyone who leaves for the City might well return.

&quotThe freedom to extend my career in any direction and to take exams and have my employer pay for them&quot are good reasons, says Stanton, for sticking with the FSA. Also, in a financial services culture currently obsessed with considering work/life balance issues, the FSA rates well by most standards.

Damania said FSA recruits &quothave a great work/life balance that many financial services companies talk about but can't deliver. Our competitors ask for a 60-70 hour working week.&quot

At the FSA the job is secure, the hours predictable - and the bonuses virtually non-existent.

FSA employees who are tempted to move to the private sector might do well to ponder the words of a headhunter in the field.

As Howard Foster puts it: &quotIt's very easy to be the theatre critic (the FSA), but much harder being the playwright (the commercial industry). Individuals from within the regulatory industry sometimes find it hard to cut the mustard in a commercial environment.&quot