Most difficult/competitive city to get a finance job in?
NYC is clearly the hub of finance, along with some other industries, but does this make it more competitive (so many people wanting finance jobs in NYC) or less competitive (sheer amount of jobs/companies mean more opportunities for applicants) than other cities?
If you were to explore elsewhere in the USA (West, Midwest, or South), or I guess even the world, would you have a harder time getting a finance job in a smaller city because of less job opportunity or would the lower amount of interest in the city help you out?
If you have specific details that you know of (for example, "I know that for private equity in particular there is more competition in X city because of Y" or "consulting jobs are easy to get in X city because of Y") feel free to share.
I have just been wondering whether getting a finance job in NYC really is as competitive as its made out to be when compared to trying the same thing elsewhere.
In the US, many California gigs are incredibly hard to get because firms are required to pay double overtime.
Interesting, I didn't know that. But I guess I also don't necessarily tend to think of overtime and finance jobs as going together.
Inaccurate. In California, firms are required to pay more only for non-exempt employees (hourly workers). While true that SAs can make a fudge-ton of money over a summer (as I did), salaried employees are NOT covered by California overtime laws.
http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_overtime.htm http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_overtimeexemptions.htm
I would actually say London is probably tougher. You have all the EU stuff and regulation really hurting hiring, plus you're competing with people from the continent who have multiple languages.
It's going to be anything outside of the hubs, that doesn't have a huge amount of stuff. I.e if you work for goldman in salt lake, you're going to to have a tough time finding another gig in that area.
Actually, you will be offered nearly every gig in that area. They will mostly be at small shops (and all the good and bad that come with that), but I have seen that if you have high finance experience in non-target cities your exit ops include nearly ever shop in that city. There will always be the 1-2 that still recruit from new york but when they have 100 applicants with backgrounds in ops and FP&A at Lockheed apply, any front office investing experience is highy valued. The hard part is breaking into your first gig but after that you are more in demand (in your city) than you might think.
Flip side of the question, but I've heard HK is a bit easier since the region is growing. Hiring practices are a bit different too, though.
Then would NYC be considered a relatively easier place to get good jobs?
Also, speaking of "difficult" places, you can also say that Montreal, Quebec is a rather difficult place to get jobs if you don't speak French. Most jobs require you to be bilingual.
I would assume Mogadishu, Somalia would be the most difficult place to get a finance job, limited opportunities, unique dialect not to mention the whole decapitating people who provide loans/charge interest thing
loooooooooooooooooooool.
London is very tough as you need language skills i.e. if you're in fixed income / equity sales and you're selling to Italian or French clients you're going to need to speak French / Italian, there's only so many English speaking clients in Europe.
Other cities such as Singapore and Sydney are tough to get into jobs like ibanking and probably more competitive (although many people here won't agree). Financial services is dominated by a few firms and there aren't as many boutiques etc and you have to be getting pretty much a 4.0 to get in ibanking, in a place like Sydney you probably need a double finance and law degree with almost perfect grades.
every finance job is difficult to get.
Thanks everyone for the interesting replies so far. There is some good information here that I hadn't previously thought about.
Wouldn’t pretty much anywhere in the EU be difficult for a non-EU national to land a job, because they have to first give precedence to their own according to law? So hiring you would mean they couldn’t find a single person who could do the job, which is unlikely given many countries’ unemployment situations?
Seoul?
Outside of NYC, what other cities in the US would you consider hubs for finance? What about when looking at the entire globe?
North Korea is the hardest place as if now.
FEMALE in Korea...I'd like to see that.
No wait...UGLY FEMALE in Korea...yes, 3 SBs to find someone like that
^ Will SB if some BSD Wharton manage to break in and prove on wso
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