Backwards Britain

Something does not ring true. Companies do not indicate they will hire you unless they actually have made a firm decision and will actually go out of their way to avoid insinuating someone is going to be hired unless they are. Secondly, I know of no company that gives reasons for non hiring other than the legally defensible "...overwhelming response from highly qualified candoidates......."

Seems like another of those non trading posts designed to stimulate responses and clicks. Some mornings it seems the whole front page of ET is made up of BS non trading posts these days.
 
Quote from mokwit:

Something does not ring true. Companies do not indicate they will hire you unless they actually have made a firm decision and will actually go out of their way to avoid insinuating someone is going to be hired unless they are. Secondly, I know of no company that gives reasons for non hiring other than the legally defensible "...overwhelming response from highly qualified candoidates......."

Seems like another of those non trading posts designed to stimulate responses and clicks. Some mornings it seems the whole front page of ET is made up of BS non trading posts these days.
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Well, that is true. At my first data vendor job, There were insinuations that I will be offered me the job. They told me they could not give me an offer in person but I should go home and be expecting a call.

With UBS she did said "we are likely to offer you the postion" She was giving me guidelines on our to fill in my personal details on the company's intranet. The interview was on a Wednesday and I was told that I should get a call on Friday.She said they will then send out a contract. If it arrives late, I shouldn't worry it will be because of paper works in HR. I was pretty sure I had the job.
 
If this is what happened then the only thing I can think of is that you were interviewed by some very junior people. This suggests it was an initial screen rather than the final short list interviews. People senior enough to actually hire are also senior enough not to act as you describe.

If you want to land a job in a competitive arena like this it will take more than 5 interviews - how many who interview with Goldman et al on campus at Yale/Harvard are actually hired? How many of these people actually land a job with their dream company?

You will greatly increase your chances by finding ways to get in front of the actual person with bottom line responsibility for a desk and who has the authority to hire. i.e. a decision maker. Personnel dept people are not decision makers, they are almost without exception idiots in my experience. Quite often after the interview with the Head of Whatever there may be an interview with an idiot from the personnel dept. This is an exercise in walking on egg shells and saying corporately correct things.
 
Quote from mokwit:

If this is what happened then the only thing I can think of is that you were interviewed by some very junior people. This suggests it was an initial screen rather than the final short list interviews. People senior enough to actually hire are also senior enough not to act as you describe.

If you want to land a job in a competitive arena like this it will take more than 5 interviews - how many who interview with Goldman et al on campus at Yale/Harvard are actually hired? How many of these people actually land a job with their dream company?

You will greatly increase your chances by finding ways to get in front of the actual person with bottom line responsibility for a desk and who has the authority to hire. i.e. a decision maker. Personnel dept people are not decision makers, they are almost without exception idiots in my experience. Quite often after the interview with the Head of Whatever there may be an interview with an idiot from the personnel dept. This is an exercise in walking on egg shells and saying corporately correct things.
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What I think happened was at the first interview, I was supposed to have met two guys, but I was only interviewed by one. He was very impresss and wanted to take things further. I a call from HR calling me for a second interview. The second was supposed to be another premises. A few days before the second interviw I received another call asking that the other guy who missed the first interview wanted to see me.

My second interview was at 9.30, so I quickly went to see the other guy. He just wanted to see me. We spoke for 8 mins and I went off to the other premises for the ssecond interview.

I think he was the one who overruled the decision.

I was expecting their call on the friday but nothing. When I called on Monday asking if they made their decision, I was told that someone was on holiday and so I have to wait .That was also the first time other candidates. I knew right then something was up. I went on their website and say the job advertised again.She called the following day,saying sorry we felt that you were quite good, but they had to go with someone with more experience. I told her the job is being re-advertised . She told me it must be a mistake. Technical problems.
 
Have you tried getting into a back office somewhere? Even starting in the reception has to be better than shelf stacking!!!!

I found myself job hunting last year as it become apparent that the trading for myself thing was not working out. I applied for every job on efinancials and cityjobs, from the $2.5mil exec position in new york to the back office of a french bank. Every conversation with job agency consultants gave me more ideas about how to present my C.V. and what to learn about (the internet is a wonderful thing). My academic qualifications do not even include an A'level. Heck when i was at college i studied media and wanted to into advertising!!!!

My advice is to set your sights lower on starting out and make yourself busy in your lunch hours. Even data analysts at RBS get the opportunity to talk to people in other areas and gain experiance closer to the markets.

Good luck
 
I dunno how much of an impact your being of African origin has made on the proceedings....

but I do know that I am Irish and I applied for approx 400 City jobs before I got offered one.

I did so on the advice of a Scottish music biz lawyer who told me "if you really want to do it, keep sending emails and don't stop until you've got it"

I also worked in Tesco (the bakery) for four years!

stop posting on websites and apply for more jobs.
 
Dacker, hope you weren't being nasty...Did you mean to suggest trying F...rance instead? No don't think they've got many jobs there in finance...

AbPQuant - have you looked at doing the CQF? http://www.7city.com/cqf.php?area=quants&outline=cqf&course=cqf&oid=4

Even just part of it would show willing to an employer - or you could start it and use the fact that you're doing it to get interviews.

When you type "quant" into jobserve or monster.com do you actually have a good portion of the skills they want? If you don't then get started!
 
I would assume that considering the political correctness climate someone with your background and credentails would be a shoo in.

get in touch with everyone in your
network and see if they can be of assistance.

find a professional recruiter who understands your problem and will go the extra step for you.

lots of luck.
 
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