front office - career advice
 

Hi all,

I am entering front-office sales role as my first job.
hope to seek some advice from you guys.

Here's my profile.

SIM - UOL (first class honours)
Economics and Finance

I am eloquent and outspoken.
Decided to take up front office sales role as a part of my career

I have 3 options now.

Life Planner - associate with 1 of the agencies which carry GE / LionGlobal policies.

Relationship manager - DBS

Relationship Manager - SCB

I am not that monetary driven.
I see myself going for growth / management positions.

I have a few questions.

1. being in front office, local banks better or international banks?

2. what should i consider before making an informed decision? mentorship? culture?

3. what would you advise me to choose?

your inputs are much appreciated.

lmao working in a banking branch in Bishan street 35 doesnt make you a front office sales 'banker'. Wake up your bladdy idea SIM kid. You are and always will be, a insurance salesman.

Any Tom Dick and Harry can get into such a role. Heck, your poly dropout can be one of those 'bankers' that ll replace you when you cant hit your sales target and your branch manager starts shouting down your throat.


FO sales role = institutional sales/ traders.

just to answer you.
What Is The Front Office (FO)? | Wall Street Oasis...

i extracted the lines for you.

The front office is the client-facing part of the firm and includes the roles which focus on working with and for clients, rather than in support, risk, compliance and operations roles.

Usually, front office roles are income generating

Front office roles can be thought of as the intermediary roles, both between clients and between outside and inside roles


Buddy, I don't give a **** whether I call myself a banker or not. I never once said that,
if it pleases you.
you can just filter the words "front office" to "client facing position"
and yes, i already knew i am selling insurance.


lmao, who gives a **** about titles?
I dont care what you call me


you failed to answer the questions that i posted anyway

I would go with SCB. They have good internal mobility options, if you manage to do well / network a bit. Not very informed about DBS on this.

thanks

have you heard this from personal experience?
or word of mouth?

A bit of advice for you:

First of all please don't go around calling yourself a banking FO, this will invite nothing but derision on a personal level and worst still during interview get yourself labeled as an ignorant candidate who doesn't even know what he's on about.

Googling around for esoteric definitions to argue that branch sales and insurance agent is "technically" banking front office isn't going to get you anywhere in your career.

Basically these retail sales level positions you have mentioned are really baseline entry sales jobs. I don't think whether its Standard Chartered or UOB is going to make much of a difference. As for management positions, there are a minority cases of sales who made it to branch managerial level after many years, but you should only join if you truly are interested in sales & "money". You don't join a retail sales job wanting to "grow" with the company.

If you are thinking of fast tracking to be some manager a.k.a. VP/SVP then MAP is the way to go, but unfortunately for you AFAIK all banks have no interest in SIM students. Be realistic and humble and for god's sake at least be familiar of what some banking jargon mean in the market before embarrassing yourself out there.

word of mouth. friend works there, pretty happy. but he's doing risk mgmt.

A youngster with weak academics, yaya papaya attitude, joining consumer sales and not interested in money but dreaming of getting promoted to manager... Haha good luck, ya gonna need it.

Noted.
I am aware that SIM has no hope for MAP.
I see where you are coming from.

I would like to reiterate that i never addressed myself as a banker.
If you feel that calling myself as part of FO is incorrectly.

Den i will address myself a client-facing position.

To me, how you wanna classify me as, it doesnt matter. i dont care about the title. and like what you said.
not front office, just client facing retail sales. Ok noted.

I just wanted some insights between the 3 options i have.
you did provide them.
so thank you

thanks.
i'll take what i have.