Case study - from a financial services career to the UK Foreign Office
Neil Wigan is a former sovereign credit analyst for Fitch, the ratings agency. When he left Fitch in June 2000, he was offered jobs by three leading investment banks and the Foreign Office. He joined the Foreign Office as an economist and will soon move to Tel Aviv in a diplomatic capacity. Wigan has no regrets about moving to the public sector.
"I really enjoyed the four years that I spent working at Fitch. As a sovereign analyst, I had access to senior people and I made some important decisions. However, working for the Foreign Office is even more enjoyable still. I am working with people of equally high calibre and am dealing with equally interesting issues, but I am one step closer to those issues.
With Fitch, for example, I went to Israel and met a selection of Israeli politicians. With the Foreign Office I am now going back to Israel, this time to work at the heart of the peace process.
Careers in the public sector afford a degree of flexibility that is absent from the private sector. With the Foreign Office I can work anywhere in the world and I can keep moving around and doing things that interest me. Had I stayed in the City of London, I think I would have become increasingly specialized in a particular area of economics. This was something that I wanted to avoid.
If you're thinking of moving from the financial services industry to the public sector, then bear in mind that life is not always quite as leisurely as you'd think. Working days at the Foreign Office can be long I think that I worked harder, or at least as hard, as at when I was in the City.
This was partly because I was working on euro, which meant that I was balancing a lot of things at the same time. Life was fast paced and I had to deal quickly with what was in the press every day it was much more like working in the private sector than people think.
If you're working for the Foreign Office in London there's much less opportunity for travel than with Fitch, which I miss. However, it's a case of feast or famine. - I haven't traveled much for the past year and I'm now going to live abroad for three years.
During that time I'll get to really understand and find out about the local culture, instead of only seeing the airport, the hotel and the office. The Foreign Office has also given me three months of language training before I leave.
The potential downside is obviously remuneration. I am paid about 25% less that when I was at Fitch. If I were working in an investment bank, I would probably receive more than three times my current pay packet. But the quality of work and the quality of life is better, particularly overseas.
In the diplomatic service you regularly have contact with a wide range of interesting people you can literally call up opinion formers, from politicians to presidential aides, and invite them out to lunch."
