eFinancialCareers

In part I of a two-part series, we look at the jobs in Asia where Western bankers (sans Asian experience) might just find themselves in demand.

But first, a reality check

Singapore and Hong Kong are no longer good places for bankers who can’t cut it in the City or Wall Street. Although certain professionals - especially those in the functions listed below - still have a shot of securing a job in Asia, the bar to entry is high and vacancies for expats are often either very senior, and/or very niche and product specific.

Their lack of local clients and language skills means foreign candidates aren't always appropriate for front-office jobs. If banks do decide to employ expats, they will consider internal relocations first and they will search for staff who have worked in Asia earlier in their careers.

James Carss, director, banking & financial services at Hudson, offers the following assessment: “In a very tight job market, there are few areas where overseas candidates can actively compete with local candidates in Hong Kong. All front-office areas are extremely quiet, with the exception of private banking where Asian relationships and a healthy AUM are essential.”

Sam Belcher, manager of banking & financial services at Ambition in Singapore, warns: “Candidates need to have solid, stable experience, good qualifications and a compelling reason as to why they want to be based in Asia. And they would need to fund a trip out here for interviews.”

And even if you are luckily enough to land a job in Asia, you’re unlikely to become a fat cat expat. Apart from a handful of top-level leadership jobs, most banks now only cover a basic initial relocation (flights for your family and one-month’s accommodation). You will probably be employed on local terms - so forget the car, school fees, rental allowance and other glamorous perks.

Enough of the bad news, here a few sectors where some hiring is still happening (more to follow on Friday)…

Information technology

IT recruitment in Singapore remains one of the sectors least affected by the financial crisis, and there are opportunities for techies willing to relocate as banks like BNP Paribas and Barclays Capital look to grow their IT hubs in the city state.

“More than 80% of our IT banking perm placements made in Singapore and Hong Kong investment banks recently have been from UK and US candidates,” says Will Feint, principal consultant at recruiters Confero.

IT roles fall into two categories, he adds. The first requires specialist experience, for example on specific technical products that the bank hasn’t implemented yet. “For these types of products, there just aren’t the people within Singapore to fill the requirements and the only way they can get the resources is by looking overseas,” explains Feint.

Generalist techies, such as Java developers and Unix administrators, are also often sourced from overseas, not because the talent doesn’t exist in Asia, but because candidates from New York and London can offer experience of working in larger, more complicated businesses environments.

Transaction banking

Bread and butter banking is making a comeback and firms like Standard Chartered, ANZ, and Citigroup sometimes hire foreigners, especially in non-sales roles.

The product and supply-chain knowledge that London bankers bring to trade finance jobs is of particularly interest to banks in Asia, says Farida Charania, director at search firm Nastrac.

Within the cash management sector, senior product and implementation experts, with experience in the sophisticated London market, are in demand. “With Asia growing at a much faster rate than anticipated, the skill set available locally is just not enough to service the growing demand of companies in this region,” she adds.

Risk and compliance

UK and US-experienced product compliance or risk managers with extensive product knowledge are still in demand in Hong Kong, says Robert Conway, head of banking & finance at Talent2.

He adds: “Banks are still open to looking at fixed-income and equity compliance candidates from the UK or US because there is a bigger pool of candidates over there and the market is more mature. The same applies for professionals in market risk and quantitative/counterparty credit risk roles with extensive capital-markets product knowledge.”

Skill set not mentioned above? We have seven more job sectors to explore in Friday’s follow-up article.