Moving to financial services IT: Ask the Expert
A: The market for IT jobs in finance is pretty buoyant right now so you should be in with a reasonable chance. Your best bet is to target investment banks that are associated with retail banks as they tend to be more open about recruiting people from outside the financial sector, says Laurie Boyall, chief executive of headhunter McGregor Boyall, which specialises in IT in finance.
"They see systems development and IT as an infrastructural thing, whereas trading houses tend to be smaller and more focused on the business and tend to want people who have worked on trading systems before," explains Boyall.
It's also helpful that you are prepared to go back to development work: This may well be where you have to start to get a foot in the door. Development teams can be smaller and more hands on so the person leading a team can probably read code.
Finally, as far as your CV is concerned, keep it short, simple and truthful. Don't be tempted to use fancy fonts and coloured backgrounds. You have just a few seconds to grab the reader's attention so a clear, readable format in which the most important points stand out, is vital.
For further advice on CVs try the following two sites: The first is a very sensible summary article from the BBC (and therefore written for the UK market), the second is the webpage of a Canadian jobhunting expert and includes a very comprehensive discussion of principles. https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2950896.stm
https://www.garywill.com/worksearch/reswri.htm
Next week's question:
One of my colleagues is drinking too much. He manages to hide it most of the time, but if you know the signs, it's obvious he's got a problem. When I tried to raise it with him in a casual way, he became quite aggressive and told me to mind my own business. I think his drinking is bound to lead to mistakes sooner or later. I don't want to rat on him, but feel the situation cannot go unchecked. How should I handle this?
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