This article gives you guidance on what you can do to secure your new Asset Servicing job. By reading this you will gain an overall understanding of the process and your options. There are no jobs listed on Corporate-Actions.net. Instead, this guide points you in the direction of other websites where you can check the latest job postings in your country.
Which Jobs are there – what are they called?
To answer that question you may want to look at this site here. It provides resume samples of 177 Corporate Action Specialists. It gives you a very detailed idea of what daily tasks are being performed and what skills are important. The main positions listed are Corporate Actions Analyst, Specialist, Representative, Consultant, Project Analyst, Administrator, Associate, Expert, Supervisor, Team Leader and Manager.
Where are they based geographically?
It’s tempting to assume that Corporate Actions Jobs can only be found in the world’s financial centres, including Mumbai, Delhi, London, New York, Singapore, Hong Kong, Paris and Frankfurt. But after years of moving jobs to low cost countries (or cities) it’s safe to assume that there are jobs to be found outside of the usual financial ecosystems. It’s also not unusual for the industry to move jobs to cheaper countries and cities in consecutive migrations. This makes it more difficult to pinpoint where the jobs are based over time though as it just keeps changing.
How can I find the jobs?
There are several routes into Corporate Actions (also referred to as Asset Servicing). One way in is via apprenticeships that are organised by the industry in cooperation with universities. Sometimes your placement might even be part of your school’s curriculum. It’s worth informing at your school to see if they offer such opportunities. Another way into the industry is by looking for jobs online.
How do Employers look for Candidates?
Usually jobs are advertised “internally” on the companies’ own job boards first. For external recruiting it’s believed to be common that several (for example 3) recruitment agencies are being given a brief and that each can send through the CV’s of 3 candidates. This means that hiring managers view around 9 CV’s and pick 2 or more candidates for interviews.
Where can I find Corporate Actions Jobs online?
You can start with searching in one of the main online search engines like Google, Bing,Yahoo, Baidu, Yandex, DuckDuckGo, Ask.com, AOL.
You may also use a less well known search engine (on the back of Bing) called Ecosia. Every search you perform goes towards planting trees!
The above search engines will all forward you to other online destinations and they could be anywhere. So where do you start?
The answer to this question is that it very much depends on the country you are in. There are a couple of websites that have worldwide coverage. There are several reasons why employers and job seekers would want to use international job boards:
Experienced Corporate Actions specialists can be hard to find in certain parts of the world. For international employers it can be attractive to scout for talent from other countries and it is especially practical to use international job boards if several positions in several countries/states need to be filled.
For Job seekers, if relocating to another country is not a problem for you, then the international coverage broadens the scope of opportunities.
Typically, these international sites act as a “man in the middle”, offering employers or recruiters to post a job ad on the one side and offering job seekers a search functionality on the other side.
Prime examples of international job boards are:
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com)
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with nearly 660+ million users in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. There is also a Jobs Section in which you can search for jobs. Use search terms like for example Banking Operations, Asset Servicing or Corporate Actions. In the below scrreenshot you can see the search function (November 2019).
The big advantage of LinkedIn is that you can connect directly with industry professionals. It’s like Facebook for professionals.
Indeed (https://www.indeed.com)
Indeed say they are the #1 job site in the world with over 250 million unique visitors every month. The below screenshot shows you how to search for Asset Servicing / Corporate Actions Jobs on Indeed.com.
Glassdoor (www.glassdoor.com)
Glassdoor offers millions of the latest job listings, combined with a growing database of company reviews, CEO approval ratings, salary reports, interview reviews and questions, benefits reviews, office photos and more. Unlike other job sites, all of this information is shared by those who know a company best — the employees. In turn, job seekers on Glassdoor are well-researched and more informed about the jobs and companies they apply to and consider joining. The interactive map below shows which countries are covered.
The below screenshots show you how to look for Corporate Actions / Asset Servicing jobs on Glassdoor.com. Try it yourself!
Monster (www.monster.com)
The below screenshots show you how to look for Corporate Actions / Asset Servicing jobs on Glassdoor.com.
The below screenshot shows you which markets are covered by monster.
As the above international sites have huge numbers of visitors it is likely that your CV is ending up on a large pile of CV’s when you apply for a job. So to win this game, your CV will have to really stand out! So make sure to check the above websites for their guidelines on now to tailor your CV to this industry. The Resume Help section from Monster.com is a good example.
In addition to job boards with international coverage, there is also a large number of specialised niche job boards. Some of these specialised sites also act like a “man in the middle”, however there are also sites that “belong” to certain specialised recruiters. So for example a recruiter specialising in banking operations can post job ads on their own site and job seekers can find them there. There are advantages in using recruiters for both the employer as well as the job seeker. By giving a brief to the recruiters, the employer can be very specific about what they are looking for, also about soft skills that cannot be written in a CV. The employer will also not have to go through large amounts of CV’s to pick out the right ones as this is done by the recruiter. For the job seeker there are also distinct advantages; the recruiter can educate the candidate about the role, get a feel for the candidate and see if they fit in the brief that was given by the employer and not unimportantly; the recruiter can help you tailor your CV and provide guidance on what to say during the job interviews! A recruiter can also propose you for more than one vacancy.
Where can I find specialised niche Job Sites?
By its nature, specialised niche sites operate often only locally. So the answer to the question will have to be broken up by country / city.
United Kingdom:
Cityjobs.com is a niche website for finance jobs in the city (of London). They act like a man in the middle as in that 3rd parties can post job ads on their platform.
Efinancialcareers is also a site that specialises in finance job in London.
Cerfinancial are committed to developing long lasting relationships with clients and candidates, providing recruitment services across the following areas:
- Operations (which includes Corporate Actions)
- Finance & Accountancy
- Compliance
- Corporate Governance
- Projects / Change and Transformation
- etc
The advantage for candidates is that if you don’t succeed in securing one position, the recruiter may know of other opportunities.
United States
Do you know good recruiters specialized in Asset Servicing? Let us know and I’ll include their details here! Marco.Meijer@corporate-actions.net
India
Do you know good recruiters specialized in Asset Servicing? Let us know and I’ll include their details here! Marco.Meijer@corporate-actions.net
Other Countries
Do you know good recruiters specialized in Asset Servicing? Let us know and I’ll include their details here! Marco.Meijer@corporate-actions.net
What search terms should I use?
The terms “Corporate Actions” and “Asset Servicing” are used interchangeably on job sites. So the advice is to always search for both keywords.
From a conceptual perspective, “Corporate Actions” form part of the wider container word “Asset Servicing”. It’s depending on whether income and interest processing is considered as part of Corporate Actions or whether they are seen as separate events on their own. So for some instances it may be worth it to search for “Dividend or Income Processing” as well. There are also jobs for which Corporate Action experience is required but forms only a small part of the job. Search terms like “banking operations” or “banking business analyst” may show job postings which list Asset Servicing experience as a “nice to have”.
How much will I get paid in an Asset Servicing Job?
Again, this is very much depending on the country / city you work in. A complicating factor in some countries is that it is not customary to add salary details in the job advertisement. Instead of numbers, you will find references to salary along the lines of “competitive”, “market conform” and “negotiable”. So as a solution, readers who want to know more can look at the job boards mentioned above as there are many postings that do mention salaries. Pretty much all these sites have salary calculators as well. So let’s put some to the test:
Unfortunately there were no results found on Linkedin (as of November 2019).
New York
You can try this out on the salary checker here on Glassdoor.com
USD 67k per year is an amount that is returned. You would have to do the search yourself to see how much confidence you would assign to that number.
US as a whole
The figure is about USD 6k lower than that of New York so around the USD 60k mark
London
For London the number that is returned is around GBP 44k per year. You would have to do the search yourself to see how much confidence you would assign to that number.
UK as a whole
The figure of the UK as a whole seems to be a lot lower than that of London (around GBP 17k per year less so around the 27k mark).
India (as a whole)
For India as a whole the number of IRP 570k (the equivalent of around USD 8k) per year is returned but it is questionable how much confidence should be assigned to this number.
So when you go through the interview rounds and you get to the part where you talk about salary, then you would be doing yourself a favour when you check the several online salary calculators first. This way you can ensure you ask for a realistic amount and can underpin what you are asking with an objective measure.
Can I send my CV unsolicitedly to the major employers in the industry?
It is also possible to apply for jobs directly with some of the major employers in the industry. It’s good to bear in mind though that most of them will have preferred supplier systems with recruiters in place which means that they will forward unsolicited cv’s to recruiters or HR service partners. Some of these companies have their own “career sections” on the company website and you can become a registered member after which you will be notified of relevant job postings in the future. The drawback of this is usually that a lot of information needs to be input in talent management systems like Taleo. The idea is that your CV gets “automatically read” when you upload it but the reality is almost always that you spend about an hour adjusting all the information before you can submit it.