Paranoid, overworked, unhappy - meet the finance professionals. Back door into top hedge fund

3 November 2015

3 minute read

Paranoid, overworked, unhappy - meet the finance professionals. Back door into top hedge fund

We write a lot about the travails of the junior IBD banker, such that if anyone's going to be familiar with discontentment in the finance industry, you'd have thought it would be us. Nonetheless, the results to the latest Financial News survey on morale in the City of London make pretty surprising reading.

Firstly, it seems that hardly anyone working in finance is hugely enthused about their job. Only 12.1% of those surveyed by Financial News said they 'loved' what they're doing. This was down from 14% in 2014 and 24% in 2013 – a halving of vocational adoration in two years.

Secondly, next to no one feels impervious to redundancy. Just 8.8% of respondents said they considered their jobs 'very secure,' down from 17% last year and 16% in 2013. Thirdly, 59.5% said they had to work beyond their contracted hours 'to justify themselves to their employer.' This was up from 49% in 2013 and 35.5% in 2013.

It looks bad, and maybe it is. Financial News argues that banking employees are taking the brunt of the pain as the sector restructures. However, it's worth considering that these are bankers rather than creatives and therefore they might not gush about 'loving their' jobs even if they were quite happy with them. Equally, 40% clearly consider their hours eminently bearable, and are any careers really secure nowadays? Feeling better already? The reality is that most people simply feel stuck: “I would love to leave banking, but the money and a lack of transferable skills make me reluctant,” one banker told Financial News.

Separately, Man Group has devised a coding game to help identify potential recruits. The Telegraph reports that the hedge fund has initiated a coding competition for students to create an algorithm that will compete in a game of 'Hexplode', a 1980s strategy game in which players take turns to place pieces on an hexagonal board. The eight best coders will be invited to apply for a new eight week programming internship at AHL and asked along to a 'day of live coding' next February, at the end of which the winner will be given $7.7k.

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