Business vs Engineering Degree

Originally Posted by Unregistered

OMG! hahahaha


I'm also engineer aspiring to shift to Banking, but I'm scared of the layoffs which are more frequent in banking

Indeed alot of volatility in banking career, but overall offers better career advancement and exit paths. E.g. A few of my peers who quit ib are now in private equity, one turned into cfo in a listed company, one joined family office managing investments. A few moved to commodities trading firms with bigger cut of pnl. A few risk management guys moved to trading role, one in credit risk moved to client facing role. middle-office peers joined financial tech firms as business dev managers jetsetting around the region, those who managed to hang on in their firms for past tumultous 5-6 years have made MD at relative young age of late 30s.

Almost all have done well irregardless where they start in front, middle or back as long as one stays humble, hard working and striving for excellence in their role.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

OMG! hahahaha


I'm also engineer aspiring to shift to Banking, but I'm scared of the layoffs which are more frequent in banking

it's not true that there are "frequent" layoffs in banking. the last major one happened more than 13 years ago during the asian financial crisis. it was reported in the papers that some UOB employees reported for work but were unable to login into their workstations.

but that was 13 years ago. in recent years, even during the US subprime crisis that affected the whole world, there weren't major layoffs.

even after you got layoff, if the economy picks up again quickly (which is likely to be the case), you will find ample employment opportunities.

don't listen to naysayers.

Is UOB a pure investment bank? Most of their staff are in other functions and IB portion is minimal part of their workforce. UOB, DBS, OCBC, HSBC, Stanchart have large non-IB workforce. This banking model is generally more resilient. Especially since the last crisis started in the US and was pretty much a v shaped recovery. Hence perhaps why you don't get the impression that alot of finance jobs were lost.

The impression that IB is cyclical and "hire/fire" is a more accurate depiction. There is an articile this morning in the papers talking about 200,000 jobs being lost globally. Whilst this maybe small compared to the total % of financial services workforce, this is just the start. The physical economy has not been really hit yet. The brunt of cuts are yet to come.

I was in a US I.bank during the sub-prime, 2/3 of staff lost their jobs. The floor was 2/3 empty.

Now, I'm in another bank. Yesterday, all the HR meeting rooms were fully booked for staff cuts.

People are getting laid off as we speak.

Now I am

Originally Posted by Unregistered

it's not true that there are "frequent" layoffs in banking. the last major one happened more than 13 years ago during the asian financial crisis. it was reported in the papers that some UOB employees reported for work but were unable to login into their workstations.

but that was 13 years ago. in recent years, even during the US subprime crisis that affected the whole world, there weren't major layoffs.

even after you got layoff, if the economy picks up again quickly (which is likely to be the case), you will find ample employment opportunities.

don't listen to naysayers.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Is UOB a pure investment bank? Most of their staff are in other functions and IB portion is minimal part of their workforce. UOB, DBS, OCBC, HSBC, Stanchart have large non-IB workforce. This banking model is generally more resilient. Especially since the last crisis started in the US and was pretty much a v shaped recovery. Hence perhaps why you don't get the impression that alot of finance jobs were lost.

The impression that IB is cyclical and "hire/fire" is a more accurate depiction. There is an articile this morning in the papers talking about 200,000 jobs being lost globally. Whilst this maybe small compared to the total % of financial services workforce, this is just the start. The physical economy has not been really hit yet. The brunt of cuts are yet to come.

I was in a US I.bank during the sub-prime, 2/3 of staff lost their jobs. The floor was 2/3 empty.

Now, I'm in another bank. Yesterday, all the HR meeting rooms were fully booked for staff cuts.

People are getting laid off as we speak.

Now I am

Sounds scary.... but the fact that you found a job soon after the 2/3 horror shows there's nothing to worry about. In a year or 2, you'll be here again posting about how you survive 2 crises in a row.

The fact that an innocent thread that starts off discussing business vs engineering education can degenerate into yet another banking thread shows how desperate the have-nots are to get a banking job.

Originally Posted by Fabian

The fact that an innocent thread that starts off discussing business vs engineering education can degenerate into yet another banking thread shows how desperate the have-nots are to get a banking job.

So the haves better yaya while they can.

[poorman]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Wow. So the SMU marketing team hangs out here in salary.sg forum too?

nah. they're too busy doing real marketing and establishing strong relations with the big banks and corporations to even waste their time on this forum.

SIM-UOL grad here btw.

Originally Posted by poorman

nah. they're too busy doing real marketing and establishing strong relations with the big banks and corporations to even waste their time on this forum.

SIM-UOL grad here btw.

Be careful, your statement may awaken an Ivy League guy who is an SMU-basher.

[poorman]

Well, if we're bringing Ivy League into the fray, then there's no question that they're obviously ranked higher.

It would be incredibly arrogant if a SMU grad were to rate himself higher than an Ivy-Leaguer.

But they are incredibly arrogant

Originally Posted by poorman

Well, if we're bringing Ivy League into the fray, then there's no question that they're obviously ranked higher.

It would be incredibly arrogant if a SMU grad were to rate himself higher than an Ivy-Leaguer.