Global Roundup: Brokerages leaving Dubai

More and more brokerage firms are saying bye-bye to Dubai

Working for a brokerage firm in the Gulf has been something of a perilous affair for a couple of years now, but depressed trading volumes in the first quarter of 2011 have seen more firms shut up shop. There are now just 65 brokerages operating in the UAE, compared with 103 at the beginning of 2010.[Middle East]

Deconstructing the sudden equity research hiring at Nomura and Evolution

What's going on? Last thing we heard, Nomura was said to have paid its equity research staff badly and Evolution was making a lot of equity research redundancies and had raised salaries twice to stop people leaving. Now, both places seem to be hiring. [UK]

GUEST COMMENT: Please don't come complaining to me that you can't find a job in this market

When Lehman went, I really thought it was the end. A friend of mine was in the now-infamous town hall where the bad news was relayed to Lehman's Canary Wharf-based employees. Redundancy contracts were handed out to everyone by HR as soon as they walked into the room. He called me soon afterwards and told me, "that's it, the party's over. The City as we know it will be dead in two years." It turns out he's wrong (he works at a hedge fund now). [Netherlands]

Gen Y of Asia unite! Forget what your family thinks, you don't have to become a boring banker or a cold consultant

It appears that everyone in business school is taking courses in portfolio management and derivatives, reading career guides for Goldman Sachs, circulating anecdotes of "who gets into McKinsey" and rehearsing their own stories to impress the recruiters. Investment banks and consulting firms are of course the Mecca for those driven by prestige and money. [Hong Kong]

What sort of Hong Kong bankers are looking for mainland jobs?

Hong Kong banking professionals bring several advantages to mainland-based jobs. These include senior-level expertise in a specific sector or product, management skills, and overall professionalism. They also have a "big picture" of financial services outside of traditional banking (for example, credit card services and bank branch transformation). [China]