Six facts about working for J.P. Morgan now
Want to work for J.P. Morgan? A lot of people do – after all, it tops the majority of investment banking league tables and appears to be a relative bastion of safety compared to many of its peers. Some are even prepared to take a step down to join.
J.P. Morgan just released its 320-page annual report. If you want to work there, this is what you need to know.
1. There is now a formal code of conduct in its investment bank
Last year, J.P. Morgan rolled out a ‘pilot program’ in its investment bank to “address any concerns around conduct and behaviour”, much like the crackdown on potential bad behaviour at Deutsche Bank last year. For 2015, this has been formalised through a firmwide culture and conduct program where it will “develop a suite of metrics to enable management to keep a pulse on how we are doing in regard to our company culture”. It already has an algorithm that monitors emails to identify potential bad behaviour and J .P. Morgan will be hitting employees where it hurts – any scandals will impact employees’ bonuses.
2. J.P. Morgan will be hiring a lot more cybersecurity professionals
In 2014, J.P. Morgan spent $250m on cybersecurity and doubled headcount within the division over the last two years. It has over 1,000 people working on cybersecurity, many of them ex-military. In the next two years it expects to increase spending on this area by 80% - expect more hires to follow.
3. J.P. Morgan is hiring a lot of ex-military personnel
Like most U.S. investment banks, J.P. Morgan has a ‘veterans’ recruitment programme where it takes on ex-military personal from the US forces. 1,800 such people were recruited in 2014 – a 40% uptick on 2013.
4. Overall, headcount has been shrinking in CIB
It may have the top spot in most investment banking business areas but this doesn’t mean that J.P. Morgan has been expanding – unlike Goldman Sachs. The CIB ended 2014 with 51,129 employees – more than 1,000 fewer than 2013 and the first reduction in two years.
5. Compliance hiring is still happening
J.P. Morgan has increased the surveillance of its employees, it has hired over 2,500 new compliance staff over the past couple of years and has been spending more appeasing regulators. In case, you’re wondering this isn’t letting up – now it’s focused on “de-risking the business” or automating processes to ensure that human error is reduced to a minimum.
6. J.P. Morgan has clawed back pay and fired people for ‘ethical lapses’
An admittedly small number of J.P. Morgan employees – around 200 – had previously awarded bonus payments clawed back last year for what it calls ‘risk and control-related events'. It also fired “many more than that” for performance concerns or “ethical lapses” throughout the course of 2014.
