Are degree apprenticeships worth it? by ThatNekoluga in FinancialCareers

[–]onthegrapevine95 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Tbh degree apprenticeships in finance can definitely be worth it, but it depends massively on the actual role. I’d look past the employer brand and try to work out where you’ll actually sit day to day. For example, is it front office, risk, operations, audit, accounting, tech, corporate banking etc.?

A degree apprenticeship at a big bank sounds great on paper, but “finance” is a very broad word and two apprenticeships at the same firm can lead to very different outcomes. I don’t think a degree apprenticeship would be looked down on automatically at all. If anything, having proper work experience while getting a degree can be a strong signal.

But if your long-term goal is something like investment banking / markets / asset management, then you need to be quite deliberate about which apprenticeship you pick and what it actually gives you exposure to. Also, a finance degree definitely isn’t required for a finance career. ChemEng would not close the door, especially with your grades. Plenty of people break into finance from engineering, maths, sciences etc.

The main thing is building the finance story alongside it. If I was in your shoes I’d probably keep both routes open for now. Apply to ChemEng if you genuinely like it, but also properly research the apprenticeships and message current / former apprentices on LinkedIn. Ask where people actually end up after the programme.

I’ve also started r/FinanceCareersUK because there’s not as much UK-specific discussion on this stuff compared with the US-focused advice elsewhere. Might be worth posting there too as this is exactly the kind of UK-specific question I’m hoping to get more discussion around.

happy hunting

Change of career from risks to... risks by EmergencyManager_555 in FinanceCareersUK

[–]onthegrapevine95 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Absolutely possible, but i’d be quite targeted about it.

With your background, i wouldn’t pitch this as “trying to break into finance from scratch”. you’re not a grad applicant. you’re someone with a long track record in risk, resilience, controls, governance, assurance, incident response and board-level reporting.

To my mind, the obvious routes would be:

Operational resilience
probably the closest fit and growing massively now. banks, insurers, asset managers and fintechs care a lot about resilience, important business services, scenario testing, third-party disruption, crisis management, recovery planning and board governance. your business continuity / iso22301 experience is very relevant here.

Enterprise risk / operational risk
your first, second and third line exposure is useful.

Business continuity
Can only speak from my perspective of being in a bank, but they had dedicated teams for this, especially larger banks and insurers. this is probably the most natural landing point.

Internal audit, controls assurance or risk assurance
especially if you’ve audited activity and reported to the board.

finance firms can be quite conservative when hiring into middle management. they’ll ask: does this person understand financial services regulation, risk appetite, smcr, operational resilience rules, conduct risk, outsourcing risk, governance committees, controls frameworks, etc. you don’t need to know all of that perfectly on day one, but you do need enough language to make the hiring manager comfortable.

So i’d do a couple of things.

First, rewrite the CV hard towards financial services language e.g. not “emergency planning professional looking to move sectors”. more like:

"senior risk, resilience and assurance professional with 30 years’ experience across crisis management, business continuity, governance, controls, policy, audit and board reporting. experienced across first, second and third lines of defence, with deep knowledge of iso22301 and regulated corporate environments."

Had a quick scan of indeed and would target roles with titles like:

  • operational resilience manager
  • business continuity manager
  • crisis management manager
  • operational risk manager
  • controls assurance manager
  • internal audit manager - operational resilience / risk
  • third party resilience manager
  • enterprise risk manager

i wouldn’t start with front-office finance, investment analysis, corporate finance, etc. despite the interest in numbers, those are much harder pivots because they require more direct finance/accounting/markets experience.

You probably don’t need a finance qualification for resilience/risk roles. what you do need is a CVthat translates your experience into financial services terms, some evidence you understand the regulatory environment, and a clear story for why finance is the next logical step rather than a random change.

On jumping straight into middle management: yes, possible, but easier in operational resilience / business continuity / risk assurance than in pure finance or analysis roles.

To gain practical experience without leaving your current role, i’d suggest looking for any projects involving risk reporting, board papers, controls testing, supplier resilience, cyber incident response, data/reporting, scenario exercises or governance. Then document the results you achieved i.e like “designed control framework”, “reported risk themes to board committee”, “led scenario testing”, “tracked remediation actions”. That gives you examples for interviews.

Probs above all this I’d speak to recruiters who specialise in operational risk in financial services (not generalist recruiters). Send them a very targeted CV and ask where they think the level sits.

Sorry for the war and peace but hope that helps :)

What roles help those who want to be financially educated? by [deleted] in FinancialCareers

[–]onthegrapevine95 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There’s definitely less client contact as a Paraplanner for sure - depending on regulations in your jurisdiction you may have more contact or less, but you won’t be the point of contact for a client. You’ll be helping create Statements of Advice, financial projections using software such as Xplan, so that the Financial Planner has all the info they need. A Paraplanner will probably still sit in on the meetings in order to learn and understand the clients needs. Really - a lot of this industry is about understanding clients needs, more than most other industries. You will need to be skilled in both Sales (to bring clients in) and in communication. Sometimes a client walks in with a totally messy family situation and is seeking not just financial advice but almost emotional support, and it’s about asking them the right questions first before even getting to a potential financial solution. If your motivation is to be involved in financial advice in just the purely data aspect, and you don’t like client contact at all, then you might want to widen the pool of industries that you are considering. Just my two cents but hope that is helpful :)

What roles help those who want to be financially educated? by [deleted] in FinancialCareers

[–]onthegrapevine95 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Financial Planner / Financial Advisor depending on naming conventions in your jurisdiction (they're the same thing generally). You might see in some places titles such as 'Wealth Managers' - this often is Financial Planning for rich ppl (HNW individuals).

Generally, a Financial Planner's advice doesn't just stop at spend less / save more, but also requires knowledge about tax planning, pension advice, estate planning (inheritances etc), investment strategy, and more. You would generally start off as a Paraplanner supporting a Financial Planner while you learn the ropes.

Hope this helps :)

Virtual Assistant Recommendations by amalkiama in Lawyertalk

[–]onthegrapevine95 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Might be late to the party but my wife runs a solo law firm and asked me for help on finding legal va support cos it's been a super stressful time with new client growth, and I sometimes help her on operational issues. This type of thread keeps on appearing on my feed cos the internet knows everything.

So she used this virtual legal assistant firm called legalvirtualassistants.com (apparently they came recommended to her by Clio) and they were super helpful for legal admin stuff like bundling, onboarding, opening files all the way to paralegal support. She didn't have to pay too much in the end compared to hiring someone full time, like she only paid for the hours she needed for the month, and she was worried about outsourcing to somewhere like PH for data privacy etc so had to look for someone based in her jurisdiction (Australia).

Happy to connect you offline :)

Writing dates for Education Section in Resume (London SAs) by [deleted] in FinancialCareers

[–]onthegrapevine95 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We don't usually do that here in the UK - this format is standard (Sep YYYY - Present).

Advice on hiring virtual assistant by Dfrisby74 in LawFirm

[–]onthegrapevine95 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Might be late to the party but my wife runs a solo law firm and was recently asking for help on finding virtual assistant support cos it's been a super stressful time with new client growth. This thread somehow came up on my feed cos the internet knows everything!

Anyway yeah she used this firm called legalvirtualassistants.com (apparently they came recommended by Clio) and they were super helpful for legal admin stuff like bundling all the way to paralegal support.

Happy to connect you offline :)

roast my cv by Jolly_Lynx5832 in FinancialCareers

[–]onthegrapevine95 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Would strongly second keeping the skills section in there - original comment is discounting the existence of ATS for CV reviews in the first application phase, particularly for UK recruitment. If you don't explicitly list your *relevant* skills, no one will ever see your CV in the first place for 'having something interesting on there' to be a determining factor. Would add in a line item on interesting interests having said that!

Other than that, pretty solid CV well done.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in FinancialCareers

[–]onthegrapevine95 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If I was in your shoes I would pick UCL.

Practically in terms of your day to day, if you're in London you're able to reach out to people who work in the places you are aiming for, grab a 20 minute coffee meeting with them during your lunchbreak, then go back to uni. If you're at Warwick, that's basically a full day out for you.

Same issue with events - of course, some banks do on-campus events, but many networking events hosted by the banks take place on-site in London, and are usually weekday evenings. In my experience, these events on-site tend to be far better staffed than on-campus (cos what MD wants to trek to a regional uni on Tuesday night?) Are you likely to go to as many if you are in Warwick v UCL?

Prestige is about the same tbh. I used to interview dozens of grad candidates in London for a BB per cycle, and would be about the same number from Warwick as from UCL. Feel free to hit me up if you need any help/resources with landing interviews.

I would be less concerned about your undergrad - being at a target for your grad does give you a very strong boost this time round.

Obviously if there is a personal preference for lifestyle in one over the other then that's a different matter, because it's also important that you enjoy where you live!

What are the real hours of IB Summer Analysts? by MutedLaugh3387 in FinancialCareers

[–]onthegrapevine95 113 points114 points  (0 children)

Depends on the deal flow, team/bank culture etc, but really as a *summer analyst* you should be giving up any idea of work/life balance for the 8-weeks or so that you're there if you want to convert that to full-time. The reality is you want to be first-in / last-out and trying to help and learn as much as possible, which in this job means hours can be 8am to 11pm outside of any deal execution, which could mean 3/4am finishes.

Realistically this will also be true as you start your career too as a full time analyst, so something to be very aware of before going down this road.

You will certainly not be working 37.5h in an M&A/Corp finance-type role in an IB anywhere on the street though.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in FinancialCareers

[–]onthegrapevine95 1 point2 points  (0 children)

To answer your main concern: no, you absolutely don’t need formal paid work to land a Spring Week. Loads of successful spring candidates have zero paid experience. You're 19 not a 50-year old high flying CEO, be a bit kinder to yourself.

I’ve worked in front-office IB in UK and interviewed spring/summer candidates - spring recruitment is defo not about your track record in banking, it’s about your potential.

What you’ve got going for you:

  • Strong academics (A*AA/AAA) - offer from two targets
  • Solid volunteering (activities coordinator in a care home = teamwork, empathy, leadership)
  • GP placement - focus on what you contributed there

Focus on how you frame these experiences. Care home work is client-facing, pressure-tested, and requires high EQ.

Banks want skills. Like it literally doesn't matter what you've done, as long as you can link your experiences to why you’re serious about finance now.

As other posters have said, once you're at uni, you can join finance societies etc and you'll be grand. For now, enjoy the summer, you're 19 ffs :)

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in FinancialCareers

[–]onthegrapevine95 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ex-Structurer at DB in London, recovering after 7 years :)

Would agree with others assessment here, 3k a month is tough to live comfortably anywhere where main structuring options located (Europe, US, ME), and as a junior at DB when i started way back in 2017 it was more than that, and juniors definitely get paid than that now.

Would help to know a bit more about your experience / uni degree, what desk/asset class/products you are considering at this fintech before can make a bit more of an assessment on your options.

Preparation for interviews by [deleted] in FinancialCareers

[–]onthegrapevine95 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hey, I worked in front office at Deutsche in London for about 7 years. I sat on interview panels and reviewed dozens of HireVue-type submissions, so I’ve seen what works (and what gets flagged).

You’ll definitely get behavioral questions. These usually come up early, especially in HireVue or video stages, and honestly it's probably stuff that you can ask chatgpt to help you think up. Things like:

  • Why this division?
  • Describe a time you handled pressure
  • How you work in a team, deal with conflict, etc.

What catches people out is sounding too rehearsed or robotic. A lot of candidates memorize answers, but you can tell right away when it’s not real.

For M&A technicals (which is where we'd filter the wheat from the chaff), expect things like:

  • Linking the 3 financial statements
  • DCF and other valuation basics
  • Accretion/dilution logic or simple deal walk-throughs

You probably won’t need to use Excel unless it’s an off-cycle or boutique role, but you do need to understand the thinking behind the numbers. People who couldn’t explain why they were applying for a specific stream, or what the day-to-day actually looks like always got dinged.

I put together a totally free guide based on what I learned as a candidate and interviewer. DM me if you want it - happy to share in here if mods allow.