Job search strategy discussion thread

You wanna connect?

No I mean, if its still open, it would be a 3 minute walk.

And that's a good demonstration of why networking (even if it's just a thread on TV Tropes forums) is helpful. Even if you've lived in an area for years, you might not know about a business or useful feature just because you always turned left on Main Street.

Well I don't know if its still open yet. Gotta visit there monday.

And it seemed like a pretty lousy place.

Oh well. Hopefully gamestop will call.

Yeah, I hear Linked In is good. I have a profile there, but it honestly needs a lot of work.

So does mine, let me show it to you... http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=198129675&trk=tab_pro

So far, it's been mostly useful for finding meetups I'd be interested in going to for face-to-face networking, like the bloggers meetup I went to tonight. One of the people there works for a staffing firm, and another one blogs on job search tips, so those folks I'll definitely be contacting again ASAP—but anyone can lead to a job.

We don't have anyone in common so it says I can't view your profile :P

Updated a bit—by the by, I am loosely connected to a VP of HR at Gamestop.

Oh man, that'd be a sweet gig, even if it was just basic retail <<

Tomu, I forget your answer, are you willing to relocate to the Northeast. Say Philly, perhaps?

word on the street is that gamestop is actually a pretty shitty employer

Yeah, they don't even carry Battletoads.

I've heard that too, but then again, all retail stores are shitty employers, so I don't know where they fall on the scale of terribleness.

It can't be worse than working for like...Meijer. Which I'm being forced to apply for.

At least the working condition isn't that bad.

Dammit I just want to work in a retail I am actually skilled/knowledgeable at!

edited 2nd Oct '12 10:38:38 PM by Thorn14

The good thing about retail is regardless of the stock, there are certain systems that carry over. Get the shit retail job. Volunteer to learn anything you get the chance to: inventory, stocking, receiving, pulls, whatever. Then use this as experience to get the better job.

Retail sucks wherever you are. People forget your human. Your boss will probably forget you're human. I appreciate what I learned from my retail job, but like hell will I go back unless I have to.

That being said, there is not a single major retail outlet in town I have not applied for. A job is a paycheck. Paychecks are survival.

I don't have a car/license so the actual relocation process would be pretty much impossible and I'd be pretty fucked once I relocated. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't mind relocating.

But, you know. That's kind of like "if it weren't for the lack of ability to sustain life, I wouldn't mind living on the moon."

Well, I'm hopeful that my job prospects might be improving - having been on a 4 month contract with a major bank that ends after next week, I've been told I'm being kept another 16 weeks! Even better, permanent roles are moving into my current team in the new year, so I'm now rather hopeful I'll still be in the company when that happens. That being the case, I could have a good chance at applying, especially since all roles are advertised internally for 2 weeks before they go external.

Here's hoping!

You know, I'm getting this finance degree, but I really have no idea what I'm going to do with it once I get it.

I'm in financial risk management. Morally better than a lot of other financial stuff, since it's making sure the rules are being adhered to, limits are enforced, rules obeyed, etc.

Okay. And how do you get into that field? Moreover, how do you get into the experience needed to get into that field?

My current role I got through experience working with large scale databases and spreadsheets, as well as my degree in financial services and risk management (joint honours in the two subjects) and experience working for banks. By "large" I mean such as the one that, printed out, was 15 A3 pages that took me 3 weeks to compile.

A knowledge of/interest in financial products and regulations naturally helps. To manage risk you must understand what the risk is, where it comes from, why it exists, what the implications of not managing it are, and how it can be minimised. Much of which is common sense actually, but as products and businesses improve and change, so risk protocols must do likewise to keep up.

What I specifically do now is Position Control. My manager describes us as watchdogs. Essentially, we make sure that, within the area we cover, all transactions are valid and within accepted parameters. By the former, I mean things like checking the estimate. So, all stock traders have to submit their expected figures based on their calculations, with the system then calculating what has actually happened the next day. Things like manual adjustments, after hours trading, system glitches, human error, etc, can all cause differences, which we reconcile. Where necessary, we actually prevent profit and loss being reported for a trade, so it can be fixed. So, for example, if someone booked a trade but for the wrong amount, or in the wrong direction, or to the wrong account, we could (subject to managerial authorisation at different thresholds) hold it back a day until it's fixed, then report the profit/loss accurately. By the latter, I mean we don't spend hours going over every loss of 10 cents commission on a transaction worth $4 million - but if the 4 million is what's missing, then I'll look into it and make sure I report to the right level of management what I'm looking into and what I've found out about it.

Where we discover issues, we generally have to ensure that they are dealt with so - which means pressuring people into taking the relevant action, since we identify, rather than actively resolve, issues (segregation of duties, Chinese Walls, etc). It's quite interesting, and gets you dealing with a lot of different people all over the world. For me that's mainly US and India daily, but China, Tokyo, Russia, Phillipines, Mexico - it varies often.

We collate our figures through complicated databases and spreadsheets hooked up to the firm's trading, risk management and reporting systems. Naturally, there are plenty of opportunities for tech-savvy people to get jobs forging and improving such system links.

This is what I consider practical risk management. The thresholds, parameters and protocols by which our team operates? Other teams dictated those. The decision as to what level of misplaced money we should be investigating, why it should be there, the implications of that - that is all financial risk management.

edited 3rd Oct '12 1:02:09 PM by CaissasDeathAngel

Okay, that's great and awesome and interesting and all, but, presuming that's an interesting field, it doesn't really answer the question of how I-someone with zero work experience-would ultimately get involved in it <<

I can't answer that exactly, hence the first two paragraph by way of at least trying to point you in the right direction. Demonstrable knowledge of financial products/regulations and any experience with dealing with large databases and spreadsheets should help. Any major bank will have analyst level positions open, that being essentially "back office grunt" level.

I've found that specific experience isn't necessary, they're more interested in the skills and background knowledge.

Well, how do I demonstrate skills and background knowledge? Hell, how the fuck do I acquire them? I'm going to school, but fuck if I know whether these classes are teaching me anything relevant :/

Got myself on a crew list. Hopefully that'll lead to a bit of work experience/pocket money in the new year (the production company itself hasn't actually began trading yet)

[[/updates]]

*cheers*