The eFC Interview: Margaret Johnson, executive director, HR at Morgan Stanley in Glasgow

Morgan Stanley's operations centre has been in Glasgow for over ten years now, but with Scotland's largest city now attracting new players in the investment operations sector recently, it faces more competition attracting and retaining staff.

We spoke to Margaret Johnson, executive director, human resources at the bank to discuss the firm's hiring plans and the challenges it faces in Scotland.

How many people does Morgan Stanley currently employ in Scotland?

Since we hit the magic 1,000 mark in Glasgow last year, the employee number has kept growing steadily and is now around 1,100.

And are you planning on expanding in Glasgow again this year?

Yes. We have six divisions in Glasgow, and some of the smaller areas have quite aggressive growth plans this year. Finance, fund services, technology and a more recent division, information security, are all likely to provide growth opportunities this year.

What are the drivers for this?

On the information security front, we're looking to build quite a large centre here, which will complement the team in London. Due to our time zone we are able to support the firm globally. The team's growth in Glasgow has been due to the synergies with the IT Security Team already based here, where the market has a unique pool of IT forensic talent.

The technology division here in Glasgow is becoming increasingly involved in the integration effort for the Morgan Stanley Smith Barney joint venture, helping to deliver a single technology platform for the combined business. We're also looking to build our finance and fund accounting functions because the talent available locally, especially chartered accountants, is second to none.

Within the bigger divisions, the institutional and private wealth operations, one of the key drivers is that our staff are taking up internal mobility opportunities - mainly moving within the Glasgow office but also moving to our businesses in Asia, the US or London.

So, how many people to you anticipate recruiting this year?

In 2010 we hired 200-250 and we would expect to the level to be similar in 2011.

With more companies in the investment operations space in Scotland, has it become more challenging to attract candidates?

It's challenging in different ways - if you asked this question eight years ago, the answer would be that there simply weren't enough people because the industry in Scotland was so small.

If you look at attracting international candidates it's actually a lot easier now. Because Scotland is a much bigger financial centre now, moving here is no longer considered a risky move. People can see at least two or three career steps available to them now.

Having more players creates more competition in terms of attracting candidates, but there's also a greater depth of experience available to us now.

Is it harder retaining people?

Every financial services company in Scotland works hard on retention, but you certainly don't see the huge spikes in turnover that you saw during the boom years in 2006-07. A few years ago, one of the biggest issues was people moving to London or elsewhere after gaining experience in Scotland. You don't really see that anymore unless they're moving within Morgan Stanley.

So, what skills and attributes do you look for in a potential employee?

In terms of personal attributes, they have to show evidence that they have good team skills - we work with teams in Glasgow and across the globe, so this is critical. Communication, good customer service and an ability to hit tight deadlines are also important.

Technical skills depend on the division, whether that's programming languages in IT or accounting qualifications in finance and fund accounting.

We don't always expect a candidate to have all of the product knowledge so we offer comprehensive internal training. In finance and fund accounting, for instance, people often arrive with general accounting experience and we train them in the financial products themselves.

Are there any common reasons you would reject someone?

At a graduate level, we often get people failing to answer the online application questions in a way that talks about their relevant achievements, so they fail to stand out. It's also surprisingly common for them to name the wrong company on the application form!

We also do a lot of telephone interviews in the first instance. Very often, people fail to prepare for these in the same way they would for a face-to-face interview and their answers reflect that.

Are there any interview questions where people usually slip up?

One of the most common questions is about why they want to work here. Firstly, there are big cultural differences between different organisations in Scotland, even if they perform broadly similar functions, so you need to know whether our firm is for you. Secondly, it's a two-way process and candidates should check that we can meet their career aspirations.

What are your plans for graduate recruitment?

We're currently preparing for our 2012 intake, which will be the third year we have had a formal graduate recruitment scheme in place. Previously, we recruited throughout the year, according to our business needs, but now there's a formal campus recruitment programme.

This year we hired 59 graduates, 44 summer interns and 18 people on a year-long industrial placement. We also hired four apprentices - students who had just completed their Highers - for our finance programme. They complete their Association of Accounting Technicians qualification over the 3 year programme.

We're anticipating a similar number of graduates and interns for 2012, but may increase the numbers for the industrial placement.

Will you be primarily looking to recruit from the Scottish market or do you recruit internationally?

We work closely with all of the Scottish universities, such as Glasgow, Glasgow Caledonian and Strathclyde, and we do recruit on campus there. However, we remain open to applications from around the world, and do get a lot of international candidates coming forward.

What's the competition like?

On average we receive 30 applications per vacancy, but more for our finance programme where this figure is closer to 50 for every opening.