Sparks Fly Over Job Classifications, Skill Sets

Wall Street's evolving job categories and employers' quest for the perfect job candidate attracted pointed comments from readers in this week's eFC debates.

Debate: Wall Street and Its Sectors

Many readers answered our request for feedback about job categories on Wall Street and as segmented on eFC's own job board.

A couple of them wondered why Real Estate is not listed as a primary category on eFC (we've been limiting it to a sub-category within Corporate Banking).

Others seized on our remark, "For example, is Quant a part of trading?" No, declared derivatives trader Chris Grondwaklski. "Quants, like economists, have no right in the business," he wrote. "Unless you take risk you have no right to an opinion. People always ask me, 'Why are you a good trader?' Because I pull the trigger!!!!"

Hogwash, responded Lacidar, who works in fixed income. "If you are reading this and you are at a firm that does not have quants as part of trading, well, you're at a firm that is behind the pack. GS for example has quants on every desk. On most of the desks they are actually the traders (or their programmers are traders) or what we used to know as a trader."

What's your view? Tell us here.

Are Employers Too Picky?

That headline's premise is faulty, asserts recruiter Alan Geller, managing director at financial technology recruitment and placement firm AG Barrington Inc.

Geller said some clients have told him their own personal mortgage payment rests on the success of their next hire. He went on to equate certain job openings with a patient choosing a heart surgeon. "Should a heart surgery patient allow a veterinarian with great soft skills who claims to have transferable skills pick up the scalpel and operate on them? I don't think so."

You can make your voice heard here.

Or, see all of our debates by clicking here.