BANKING AND INVESTMENT: SECTOR ESSENTIALS
UNIQUE SKILLS THE BANKING AND INVESTMENT INDUSTRY NEEDS You’ll need to show more than boring old “teamwork” and “communication” skills if you want to nab a graduate scheme in this sector.
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veryone thinks they have “good communication skills”, are “team players”, or are “effective problem solvers”. A peek at another’s resume will tell you just that. So don’t expect to stand out in the eyes of recruiters if you just focus on those old clichés! Companies in the banking and investment industry have demanding checklists of skills they look for in candidates applying for their graduate or internship schemes. On top of that, each firm also seeks unique traits in applicants that match their corporate culture. If you have a specific employer in mind and want to catch their attention, you’ll need to know what they’re keeping an eye out for, and how to prove you have what they want.
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Intellect It goes without saying that employers place a lot of emphasis on hiring bright, motivated candidates. But what specific intellectual skills are recruiters actually looking for? Jane Clark, former Group Head of Graduate Resourcing and Development at Barclays, says that banks seek applicants who can grasp new concepts quickly. “People strong in learning agility are sharp and thrive in new and difficult situations. Grasping and learning new concepts quickly – whether it’s a task, assimilating new information or data, managing a project, or meeting a new client – is important when working in an industry such as investment banking,” she said. “New markets, products, deals and opportunities continually emerge and agile learners are needed to deliver results quickly – even in new situations. A commitment to learning and a hunger for dealing with challenging situations is key.” On the other hand, Deutsche Bank places a greater emphasis on agilemindedness – particularly the ability to deduce the right questions to ask when in doubt, and to quickly identify the most appropriate leads to pursue while conducting research. It’s something like a Sherlock Holmes-esque approach to problems, where you need to arrive at the right conclusion based on a combination of elimination, deduction and extrapolation on the finer details.
How to prove it “Tell us about a time when you demonstrated your intellectual ability.” Recruiters typically judge intellectual ability by your capacity to apply your knowledge to practical situations. They also want to see whether you’re quick enough to catch the bigger picture in such situations. For example, perhaps you worked on a project during a previous internship together with a team of other interns. An agile-minded person wouldn’t just complete their assigned tasks – rather, they’ll also be able to grasp how the project they’re working on affects their employer as a whole, and discern how the other interns’ tasks might influence that outcome. Make sure you demonstrate your ability to act on your deductions too! In the above example, you would ideally take a broader interest in your teammates’ work, and do your best to help them see a better outcome for themselves and reach it. You would also clarify doubts with your supervisor, and make the necessary tweaks as the project moved along.
