To those who are in London,
How many languages do you speak? Do you feel it's what has got you to where you are today, or that your inability to speak them has held you back (particularly if you've been cursed with being born in the UK where very few of us learn a 2nd, let alone a 3rd, language)?
I've seen and heard of many analysts who are hired purely based on linguistics only to fail miserably when writing business documents in English. And it's something that almost always comes up when speaking with people, many senior guys I know fervently admit that they wouldn’t hire themselves due to their lack of a 2nd language.
number of languages is not that relevant, type matters.
german and french are somewhat useful but banks have frankfurt and paris offices so its not great.
Most useful languages are those where no regional office exists and coverage is done primarily from london(so eastern euro and nordic languages are a huge plus).
dont think UK ppl are at a disadvantage, most tend to go to markets anyway and you UK is largest M&A market in europe and UK M&A coverage at a senior level is always done by british people so youll always need british analysts coming in
EMEA teams at the bank I'm at are almost entirely made up of European guys and speak 2-3 languages. The UK section people are maybe 90% English and don't speak any other languages.
Number of languages can be relevant depending on the job you apply. Coming out of law school, languages was huge for me (I speak 4 fluently, and conversational on a further 2). It gave me opportunities for secondments to the foreign offices, which when I was starting was difficult for a 1st year associate, but regular for a 2nd year.
I've always wanted as many languages as possible, makes it all the better exploring different cultures.
I would be most interested in knowing a language vastly different from any european language and mainly for the impact on your thinking and knowledge, im limited to 3 european ones.
english is fine, for now.
Definitely helps. Fluent in 5 (4 European and Russian) + studying Mandarin for the past 2 years. London is about as multicultural as it gets so I have found it great for building relationships within the City as well as abroad.
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