Originally Posted by Unregistered

I've been hiring analysts and bankers into bulge bracket investment banks in Singapore for quite some time. We often get Government scholars who were rotated around ministries for a few years hoping to get into the Admin service, but who failed and left the Goverment disappointed when their bonds expired. Most have stellar academic degress. The proportion of government scholars interviewed vs the total pool of Singaporeans is fairly high as they have better academic qualifications. However, the entire pool includes many foreigners with the same level of academic qualification.

Experience has been mixed. Maybe 20-30% of these ex-Scholars eventually make it in the bulge bracket from my observation. Many are a bit too rigid in their thinking and are unable to adapt. They are great for things like policy formulation, but they can't seem to pull off a complex deal or make great stock calls. Its almost like they have too much IQ and not enough EQ. You see these weaknesses our in our perm secs and ex-scholar politicians as well. The Government seems to understand this and at least on the political front, they now try to rope non-scholar outsiders into the mould. There are now Ministers from the private sector. From, my perspective its probably related to the fact that the outside world doesn't afford you complete control of the environment, while being in the Government does. In the outside world, you have to learn to roll with the punches and many ex-scholars just get smacked in the face.

So I would disagree with the previous poster who says that admin service officers would make good investment bankers. Granted my experience is largely with those who failed to make the admin service and left the Government, but I can see from their mentality and training that the general government scholar would generally be a poor investment banker. This is especially in light of the fact that they have to compete with foreigners from top institutions globally.