Wall Street is looking for IT skills as a top priority, particularly programmers and database experts, according to eFinancialCareers.
If you are looking for a job on Wall
Street, IT skills are the way to go, particularly programming and database
expertise, according to a recent study conducted by a leading career site
network for the financial services industry.
eFinancialCareers,
a global career site network for professionals working in the investment
banking, asset management and securities industries, recently released its top
10 skills searches on Wall Street, and programming and database skills come out
on top.
eFinancialCareers has been tracking
the rise of the "quant" on Wall Street, and the signs are everywhere. A "quant"
is a quantitative analyst, which is a person who works in finance using
numerical or quantitative techniques. Quantitative analytics jobs comprise the
second-largest group of jobs on eFinancialCareers, and it is up 30 percent
year-over-year. However, IT is the largest group.
Moreover, IT skills not only
dominate in terms of job postings, but also in terms of the search for talent.
Over the last three months, Wall Street talent scouts who have been scouring
the talent pool have been looking primarily for workers with IT talent. Indeed,
programming languages and technology skills have dominated the search for
talent on eFinancialCareers by a large margin.
Whether big data, "algo"
jockeys, high-speed trading or client service, Wall Street craves tech skills,
as revealed by the top skills searched for on eFinancialCareers.
At the top of the job search list is
C and Java programming skills. On Wall Street, these languages support speed of
execution, supporting large quantities of data and enabling firms to do
real-time simulation and modeling. Next is SQL skills. SQL is the most
searched-for skill for querying and manipulating databases.
The next four skill sets on Wall
Street's "buy" list are fixed income, risk, project management and business
analysis. Technology pervades these jobs, as well.
For instance, an investment bank and
securities firm hiring for a fixed-income quantitative analyst is looking for
candidates well-versed in matrix-oriented programming languages such as MATLAB,
R, Python, or GAUSS, and a working knowledge of Ruby, Visual Basic for
Applications (VBA), SQL and database programming. Another investment bank
recruiting for hedge-fund administration requires knowledge of SQL server and
Visual Basic. And a world leader in insurance and financial services
requires strong development skills and especially programming skills with C++,
C# or Java for an associate director in product valuation.
In addition to the programming
languages and database, fixed income, risk, project management and business
analysis skills make up the top five searches on eFinancialCareers from June
through August 2012. Rounding out the top 10 are accounting, operations, financial
planning and advising, compliance and quants.
These are the weapons that firms are
wielding to manage risk and extract profit in a tighter and trickier
environment, eFinancialCareers said.
A recent study conducted by IBM and
Broadridge Financial Solutions shows that financial services firms are being
challenged to deliver innovation and efficiency by new regulation and customer
demands. The firms are looking to technology for help.
"Regulation and operating efficiency
have always been concerns for securities firms, but the growing demands and
sophistication of today's financial services clients are requiring firms to
innovate, not just in the products they offer, but also in how they adapt and
run their businesses," said Ron Lefferts, financial markets industry leader for
IBM Global Business Services. "Leading firms have looked at their own
ecosystems and are embracing new operating models as part of their
organizational DNA to get closer to their clients and create a differentiated
experience."
Darryl K. Taft covers the development tools and developer-related issues beat from his office in Baltimore. He has more than 10 years of experience in the business and is always looking for the next scoop. Taft is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and was named 'one of the most active middleware reporters in the world' by The Middleware Co. He also has his own card in the 'Who's Who in Enterprise Java' deck.
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