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January 13, 2014

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Home » Business » Finance Special

Finance sector is a hot spot in jobs market

By Feng Jianmin | January 13, 2014, Monday | Print Edition

China’s job market may have cooled amid slower economic growth, but one realm remains hot for recruitment — the finance sector.

As Shanghai moves toward its goal of becoming a world-class financial center, the need for talented professionals in banking, insurance, fund management, broking, shipping and trade increases. The emergence of Internet finance poses new challenges.

The demand for professionals with local insight, global vision, financial skills, industrial experience and e-commerce knowledge in a rapidly changing landscape is being addressed by educational institutions.

“Financial education has been flourishing in China for about a decade, and some early practices are already not applicable anymore,” said Wu Fei, an associate professor of finance at the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance. “The most sought-after people now are those with a deep understanding of both modern finance and domestic market operations.”

The college is offering a variety of courses, such as behavioral studies, innovation training and communications skills, to cultivate talent.

“We encourage students to be practical in developing their presentation and financial product development skills,” Wu said. “Those are the high-level talent required now.”

Constance Fan, an associate with executive searching firm Eric Salmon & Partners, said financial companies are increasingly looking for professionals with local knowledge and connections in additional to financial sophistication.

“We can see two trends in the quest for talent,” she said. “Whether it’s a bank, a brokerage or an insurance company, employers are emphasizing practical experience over educational background. The other trend is more obvious in investment firms, where people with various industrial backgrounds are needed to help with corporate management after acquisitions.”

Fan added that many industrial companies are opening their own investment arms to search for potential merger-and-acquisition opportunities.

“In either case, being local is of the essence,” she said. “That’s partly why we see a scarcity of qualified talent. The system is still different in China. You cannot simply import experts from abroad. Foreign financial institutions tend to place foreigners in top executive positions, but they prefer locals to be their department heads.”

Still, a global perspective has never ceased to be an important element moving up the career ladder.

International educational service provider EIC said in a report last month that about 450,000 Chinese people went abroad to study in 2013, about 10 percent more than 2012. More than half of students chose to major in business administration, finance and economics.

Meanwhile, the agency said it expects the number of overseas returnees to hit a record after one of its surveys found that 22 percent of overseas students deemed the Chinese domestic job market more attractive. Shanghai is the most attractive city for returnees, and financial and real estate are the most popular industries they go into, the survey showed.

The government goal to build Shanghai into an international financial center and recent round of economic reforms embodied in the new Shanghai free trade zone send clear signals about the importance of international knowledge.

Randy Ou, principal advisor to the CFA Institute’s Shanghai representative office, has welcomed nearly 200 new members. More than 20,000 took the exams last year. The institute is a global association of investment professionals offering the Chartered Financial Analyst designation to qualified people.

“We have more than 3,000 members in China, nearly half come from Shanghai,” Ou said. “That is remarkable, but still a small fraction when compared with global membership of more than 100,000.”

Holding a CFA certificate, Ou admitted, does not automatically guarantee someone will be top talent in the industry, but it does show that the candidate meets a globally recognized standard of professional skills. Compared with global professionals, Ou said China’s members possess good financial skills but sometimes lag in areas such as communications and ethics.

Students from the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance and Tsinghua University will represent China in a CFA research challenge this year, and they hope to attain China’s first Asian title.

“Introducing best global practices and internationalizing the China market are aims of the government, but the number of financial professionals in Shanghai is still far behind what financial authorities have projected,” Ou said.

A report by the Shanghai Financial Service Office in 2011 said the city expected to be home for 320,000 financial workers by 2015, nearly 10 percent more than the level at the time. The office said it expected 15,000 of those workers to have earned international financial certificates such as CFA, CFP, FRM and ACCA. The number of CFA members was expected to double in Shanghai within two years.

The launch of the free trade zone creates new opportunities for job seekers with advanced skills.

“The market is young here and it changes everyday,” Ou said. “It is always important to watch the latest trends.”

 

Finance Special


 

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