Back office to middle office?
I'm currently working a back office job doing corporate action/settlement at a custodian banking environment (HSBC/Citi/Standard Chartered) for a little over 1 to 2 months in Hong Kong.
I wonder how long I should stay at my current job and what it takes to move into middle office roles such as trade support/risk management/compliance.
I'm not the front office material guy and I honestly want to have my life settled in the middle office.
Any help will be appreciated, thanks!
12 months.
Is there specific things that I can do to do that enhances my chance to move into middle office? I realize I cannot stay in back office doing settlement forever after the first few weeks of work... How does one usually move up to middle office from the back tho?
I made a move from Ops to MO to Risk (current). I was in an Ops settlements role for about 12 months, and since my moves were internal a lot was predicated on keeping a good reputation (good annual reviews, being a go to guy for my group, taking on and delivering projects nobody else wanted). I also think it's important that you become an expert in the products/business you support. Understand the markets, the trade life-cycle from your firms perspective (data flow), who's booking the trades (TAs/SAs), who manages the books P&L/Risk, etc. A lot of guys I worked with, while both good at their job and good people, slipped into that 9 to 5 button pusher mentality. It's important to avoid that reputation.
After a year and a half you should start looking. Since you are doing settlements and corporate action in the back office now, you could try getting into a middle office compliance role like regulatory reporting or monitoring and testing. It will be hard to get to a coverage compliance role though on the desks with that background. I imagine the same things can be said for risk roles, things like counterparty risk and country risk may be an option but things like market risk will be difficult. To put it as simple as possible, try to work your way into the 'non sexy middle office roles' first then later on you can work on transitioning into the sexier middle office roles like market risk, equities compliance, etc.
Thank you very much for ShotOnEhlo and yeahright's advice. These advices are very useful and I appreciate it :)
thank you for all the answers above.
i think you need to be honest both with yourself and the board with where you REALLY want your career to go. There is nothing "wrong" with BO/MO/Compliance/Risk/etc...IF that's what you want to do...
If you just want a job that pays decent but not amazing...but have stability and fun and not a lot of stress/responsibility...then these roles are fine.
If you want to take a shot at making millions of dollars (and are willing to get fired if you don't perform like a rockstar), then you need to re-evaluate...not everyone wants that kind of stress or risk/reward kind of career...tho that's mostly what this site is aiming at...
Moving from Back Office to Middle Office Role at a BB? (Originally Posted: 12/15/2014)
Hey everyone,
I will be starting full time in a "Risk Consulting" role (aka essentially Internal Audit) at BofAML. The program is a two year rotational program and my plans were to switch into a middle office role if possible (Structured Finance or Credit Risk maybe). You always hear many fellow monkeys asking about the switch from Back to Front Office but what about from the back to the middle?
Based on experience or what you guys have heard how difficult is it to make the switch to a BO role like Risk to more of the "MO" roles at a BB (particularly at BAML)? Any advice or feedback would be greatly appreciated!
Interested as well
Fairly common. Be rated a 1 or 2 (top 30%) at year and it should be reasonably easy to do. At Citi, for highly rated people they have the equivalent of a resume book that made these type of jobs reasonable easy.
BO (ops) to MO - how possible is this transition? (Originally Posted: 07/24/2017)
I know ops is regularly shit on in this forum, but I would really like some constructive advice here. I'm starting my first job out of school in ops (not in an IB). I know it's BO but realistically speaking, its probably one of the best options I have right now unless I want to remain unemployed for an extended period of time while looking for the perfect job. Couple of reasons for this - I don't have a strong GPA and relevant internships in a bank.
Tbh, I don't have any aspirations to get into FO roles, but MO is where I would like to be eventually, in functions such as risk or compliance (arguably BO). BO to FO is frequently talked about on this forum, but I would like to know more about moving from BO to MO. Is this transition usually more common or easier to make? Are there any certifications that could help? Finally, in terms of comp, would MO be paid significantly higher than BO?
Hi- I would say skilled MO comp is much higher than BO. The big question for you is this- do you have MO skills? Relevant coursework? Modeling and financial analysis skills? If so- take to BO job. Get yourself situated so you do a decent job and keep a good reputation and then start networking within your firm to move to MO. I would say you need to move in less than 2 years otherwise you will be branded with all the other low-skilled BO employees. Also- be personable to everyone, friendly, and helpful. Go above and beyond to help and find answers when you don't have them. This skill that will set you up as a desirable teammate and someone that others would want to give a chance and vouch for. Good luck.
Thanks for the advice. I do have some modeling and financial analysis skills gained through coursework, but not in jobs per se. Some MO jobs are almost as hard to come by as FO jobs where i'm from, so I was also thinking along the same lines as you, moving internally to a MO role, however would the move from BO be as challenging as to the FO, or would this move be easier due to some transferable skillsets etc?
Hello, wondering how it played out for you?
please update I am in a very similar situation right now
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