For Banking IT Jobs at Least, Supply-Demand Balance Favors New Grads

In financial IT, experienced candidates are plentiful but there is a shortage of new college graduates for junior or entry-level positions, says BNY Mellon's new chief information officer.

John Fiore told Wall Street & Technology:

If we're looking for talent that has some amount of time in the workforce, a particular expertise over an extended amount of time with certain technology or subject matter, the available talent pool is good. Unfortunately, to some degree that's an offshoot of the downturn in the economy.

Where it is more challenging is [in] looking for candidates coming right out of colleges and universities. At the junior or entry level, it's more competitive because there are fewer candidates coming out of colleges and universities today. We're all competing for a smaller population.

To address that, he says BNY Mellon (like other large financial institutions) seeks to build "established pipelines with selected institutions of higher education" through sponsoring intern programs, residencies and similar initiatives. The bank also has worked with a number of colleges to redesign course offerings to be "more directly applicable to learning for a job they might get at BNY Mellon or a similar organization. I think this is the sort of thing we in the industry ought to do more of over time," Fiore says.