operations is the least glorious job in banking, but it does get a much too negative reputation. The reason for this is that a lot of posters (about half I would say) think the only thing in operations is trading ops, and fail to differentiate between operations workers and operations analysts.
The bank I'm at has about TWENTY THOUSAND people in investment banking operations, but the analyst class is barely 30. A vast vast majority of workers aren't/werent in an analyst program. This is the really boring, repetitious work you here about in operations a lot of times (the scanning, the faxing, the data entry type of stuff).
When people do talk about operations analysts, they seem to think the only thing in operations is trade processing type of work. Whereas this is a major area, if you are a top recruit their are other divisions.
I got assigned to a group that is project based and helps make decisions on investments, outsourcing, divisional changes, etc....basically almost internal consulting.
I don't really blame a lot of people for not knowing this - I didn't know much until I went through orientation - but its not necessary as dead end as people make it out to be if you get a good placement and are in an analyst program.
I will back this topic up as well. I have just finished my second year in the ops analyst program at a BB (think MS/GS/DB). Working one year in a PWM role dealing with hedge funds and other alternative investments. And about two months ago switched to a role supporting one of the quant trading desks in the AM division.
Granted it is true that part of my day involves doing the basic ops work such as following up on failed trades, yelling at custodians for sending old share values after rights issues, etc... But the daily grind takes up less then half of my day.
As ops analysts we are expected to improve processes, design systems that make the work-flow more efficient through collaboration with the FO and technology, overall there is quite a bit of out of the box thinking, attention to detail project work, etc. that is required of our roles.
I am not saying that ops analysts are doing the things FO people do, I am not trading, not doing allocating assets, not sourcing new clients. But we are expected to be experts in the products that we work with and be able to collaborate with our FO counterparts with the full knowledge that it takes to help them achieve their goals in making money and solve their problems quickly and without them worrying about whether we will have problems doing what they need.
I have tremendous respect for the leadership in our department, they have great knowledge and experience, and have been in many different roles with different business units all over the world with the firm.
The hiring in ops at our firm is very competitive. We have our own target schools that we recruit from (obviously its not the top 10 business schools). For example I am on a recruiting team for one of the state universities that we target and every semester we get 200+ resumes, conduct about 40 or so first round interviews and end up hiring 4-8 of the best candidates.
As far as people that post on WSO with regards to ops positions go, I agree with subprimevictim with the fact that most opinions are not coming from people that actually work as ops analysts but people that have worked in either ops positions at banks where you are only required to do the basic "fax a trade, reconcile an account" roles and not much else or base their opinions off of hearsay or their experience of looking at ops from a FO perspective at a bank where they dealt with only the ops folks that are in the basic roles I described above.
This post is not meant to put ops on the same level as IBD analysts, that is not the point. Anyone who is talented enough to get a job as IBD, S&T, ER, etc. at a BB can get an ops job at a BB with no problems at all. But WSO monkeys need to understand that not everyone goes to the top 10 schools and works in IBD. It is incredibly hard to get into those schools (as you know they all have less than 10% acceptance rates), but it also is not a walk in the park to get a BB ops role either for a finance or engineering major from a top 50 school. I commend the people that are smart and driven enough to get the FO roles that they strive for from their early years as an undergrad, it is an extremely difficult road on which most people do not get to the finish line. To conclude BB ops is not something people should look to avoid if they are not on a path to the FO, (I know people that did not get hired for FO and their ego would rather have them be unemployed than do something which they only have knowledge about based on negative hearsay). I had to work my ass off to get to where I am today and have no regrets and am extremely proud of what I have achieved and the experiences that I have had at my age. I hope to keep steaming ahead with full force for the bigger and better.