eFinancialCareers

Six months ago, Scotland’s financial services industry was adamant it would be sheltered from the credit crunch and redundancies. Now, cracks are beginning to show. It almost seemed too good to be true – 65,000 new jobs in financial services over the last five years, accounting for 65% of Scotland’s new employment during that period. With horror stories emerging from Wall Street and the Square Mile, surveys on the Scottish... Read more

David Crum from investment consultancy Hewitt fields eFinancialCareers’ questions, and he’ll answer yours if they tickle his fancy… A brief history of your career? I started at Scottish Provident straight out of school in 1988 as an investment administrator. I then joined Lothian Pension Fund in 1996. There I was given the opportunity to train in investment analysis and moved into the asset management side. During my time there, I moved from... Read more

Ever wanted to work in finance and save the world? Here's how. Socially responsible investment (SRI) has entered the mainstream. In the new green investment environment, lip-service is no longer an option with Eurosif saying that €1 trillion – or 15% of all European AUM – is managed under SRI mandates. As more firms spearhead SRI initiatives, Julie McDowell, head of SRI at Edinburgh-based Standard Life Investments, gives her views on the... Read more

Banking's not for wimps, but neither should you tolerate being bullied, says Hugh Karseras, author and senior banker. Does bullying go on in the City? In my experience, yes, but don't expect to see trading floor managers hurling chairs at hapless underlings. Bullying in the City is often a lot more subtle, a lot harder to evidence and a lot more insidious. It's important to differentiate between someone who is normally... Read more

Abigail Stevens, founder and managing director of Think Global Recruitment, says telephone and video conference interviews need not be scary if you know how. We’re all familiar with the formalities of going for a job interview, but how does that change when the role you’re going for is based overseas? Imagine not being in the same room as the interviewer or not being able to shake their hand? Whether you want... Read more

John Bowman, CFA, Head, Educational Products tells us why having ‘Chartered Financial Analyst’ (CFA) after your name will make all the difference to your career. While supervising the examination in Los Angeles last Saturday, it struck me how much growth the CFA Program has experienced in the last decade. Over 126,000 candidates in more than 145 countries enrolled for the June and December 2006 examinations. That compares to about 70,000 only... Read more

Margaret Dyer, director of Joslin Rowe Scotland on why claims that Scotland’s finance industry is under threat from Eastern Europe are grossly exaggerated. Every day some new report seems to suggest that the latest and greatest natural home for financial services firms has been found and that Scotland had better prepare itself for a nasty shock. A couple of years ago the country of choice was India, then it was the... Read more