讀神科,入iBank

ANChan59

原帖由 Fortress 於 14-03-25 發表
大部份人爭的學校叫神校，那大部份人爭大學課程，叫神科吧

可以咁講，神科不一定多人爭，多人爭不一定是神科，你看看所謂神科，選擇 Band A 的不多，肯定少過水泡科。下面連結是港大中大的比較分析！


http://www.edu-kingdom.com/home.php?mod=space&uid=107125&do=blog&id=18097

ANChan59

Fortress 發表於 14-3-25 00:20
大部份人爭的學校叫神校，那大部份人爭大學課程，叫神科吧

可以咁講，神科不一定多人爭，多人爭不一定是神科，你看看所謂神科，選擇 Band A 的不多，肯定少過水泡科。下面連結是港大中大的比較分析！

http://www.edu-kingdom.com/home.php?mod=space&uid=107125&do=blog&id=18097

ANChan59

talent2000 發表於 14-3-25 00:25
讀呢科，真係好睇背景，大學。不係個個可以係陳德霖....

讀邊科？

siubotze

It's an interesting topic.  After working in I bank for more than 1x years, I think I am qualified to give my comments here.  From an economic standpoint, I banker does not create value.  The essence of the investment banking or trading is not creation of value, but transfer of wealth.  The whole game is about transferring one's wealth to another, no matter it's from the rich to the poor, or the other way round.   From the transfer, we made a huge chunk of money. Whether it's fair for someone has not created anything for the society to earn that big sum go money, that"s another story.

Back to your topic, if you want your son to join the I bank as front office banker,sales or trader, as his parents, please make sure you have a wide network and great financial support (for putting your kid into top schools e.g. Ivy League). 99% of the fresh grads we hired are from overseas top schools.  For those study the so called 神科in hk, I m sorry, your chances are very slim even if you are graduated from the top 3 in hk.   The fact is, they don't even know what are the universities in hk.  Even when you get in to I bank as frontline these days, the compensation has been significantly reduced after 2008.  The competition, on the other hand, is getting more and more intense.  The return is not as great as before.

Having said that, there are still lots of opportunities in the back and middle office in an I bank that can offer your kid with decent career opportunity.  The pay is generally higher than in other fields.  However, you will be expected to work for 24 hours a dat, 7 days a week.  People at I banks all think that they are smart.  You can imagine how stressful it is when serving these so called smart folks.

In short, it depends on what kind of life you want your kid to have.  I have to say even being in I bank, I will NOT want my girl to work in an I bank.  Hope this can give you some perspectives.

shadeslayer

I am of the opinion that many of the > $1.xM a year jobs in the commercial sector are equally demanding, high pressure round the clock, might as well get paid a bit more in ibanks or other higher pay industries.

HKTHK

回覆 shadeslayer 的帖子

Senior management of MNCs are paid similar amounts as ibank MDs these days.   But it takes 15-25 yrs to make senior management of a MNC but 9-12 yrs to make MD.

HKTHK

回覆 siubotze 的帖子

I am not sure I know a single ibanker who would want their children to go back into the industry.  And I know a lot of ibankers ...

honeybunny7

Not to argue or anything, just to offer a different point of view on whether or not banking adds / creates value. I believe the answer is yes. Take IPO as an example. The banking functions involved in IPO include at least Corp Fin, ECM and Research. Through IPO a private company can raise significant amount of capital to invest in future projects / expansions that could be otherwise impossible to achieve with its own P/L and private funding. Hence the process of IPO contributes partly to the additional value created down the road by this company, and the banking functions that made this happen got a cut of the pie. However, how much do they deserve is debatable.

Other functions such as traders and derivatives sales all create value if you look at the fundamentals of what they do, but then nowadays people focus too much on only the few "bad crops" and use that impression to define the entire industry...

honeybunny7

回覆 ha8mo 的帖子

Well many professions are stressful, particularly when you are just the junior of course you'd be so enslaved.  Think auditing, medicine, consulting, civil engineering, I.T, law...  all these professions have crazy hours.  Well auditing is probably the worst because the base pay is so so so low in comparison to other jobs that require that amount of hours, and the work is so so so tedious and mundane as well.
I guess if a person does not truly love the work, then that person wouldn't see the value-add or purpose of his/her job, and everyday would feel like a challenge or even hell.  Can any amount of monetary compensation make one go through 30+ years of sufferings (hating your job! seriously!)?  I don't know...         

ANChan59

Fair comment.

btrue

... the title got me thinking about how s'one with a divinity degree (perhaps graduate of Stephen SL Lam's program) would fare in an ibank, anyway ...
It's a pity that ibankers don't want their children in the industry.  Is the grass always greener over the other side?  I know a fair number of doctors; they generally don't want their children in their field either.
It's really hard for teenagers to know what they want to be for the rest of their lives.  Sure there are career talks in high schools or company visits, but the subject matter of many of the professions  nowadays (example, ibanking) is so specialized, and the environment is so complex, I really don't know if a teenager can be expected to understand enough to make a life decision.   Isn't it to some degree a leap of faith?
Parents' preferences play a major role, through explicitly expressing their wishes, subtly cultivating their interest,  helping them connect with aunties / uncles in the industry or otherwise creating exposure for them.  
But, parents' advice is most accurate when the subject matter is their own profession.  Beside technical knowledge, a kid needs to have the right soft skills, mentors to pass down the tricks of the trade (pardon my cliche), and connections as mentioned above to succeed beyond the first few years.   Parents in the industry are in the best position to assess their kids' suitability, and kids have a natural advantage if they're suited to follow their parents' footsteps.   Unless there is good reason, why throw it away?   

MrBeast

tcmsung 發表於 14-3-26 15:03
Well said.    Better to advise your child to choose a career with high interest than with high yiel ...

I have become cynical as i age.  How many people r fortunate enough to enjoy what they do for a living?  Or even if one can get into a field ones interested in, there is no guarantee that the people around r enjoyable to work with.  So wouldnt it be better to work in a dynamic industry thats well paid, build up the wealth then move on to do something more interesting?

hkparent

原帖由 tcmsung 於 14-03-26 發表
回覆 MrBeast 的帖子

Very well said. Agree!

siubotze

That's perhaps why we seldom see any bankers work for 30+ years.  By late 40s, you are either forced to retire, got sick of the whole game and retire or change to a totally different professions.  Yet I have to admit if I have to work like a dog but earning less, I would rather suffer from great deal of stress and earn more.

honeybunny7

回覆 MrBeast 的帖子

I am fortunate enough to have "brushed shoulders" with banking and immediately "saved" myself and switched to a job that I truly enjoy doing (for the moment).  And I have been fortunate enough to have met many other people who also love what they do, and many of them were my mentors.  In fact, these people are so passionate about their work that when they talk about it, you can see the sparkles in their eyes, and you almost feel compelled to learn more about or even try out their jobs because they are so passionate that it's infectious.
In contrast, you look at those government officials on TV, and what do you see?  They all seemed annoyed, uncomfortable, discouraged, or even defeated.   

You are right in saying that there are many people who don't enjoy their work, or even dislike or hate their work.  But I believe some of them endure such "suffering" by choice, instead of due to limiting circumstances such as the financial burden of sick family members.  Therefore, as parents, would you wish that upon your child?  Or would you rather encourage your child to follow his/her dream, and to pursue his/her own happiness?

honeybunny7

回覆 MrBeast 的帖子

And also, not saying that it's impossible, it is indeed very hard to "accumulate wealth and then switch to something more interesting".  I would not give this piece of advice to my kids because it's most likely a lie.
Say banking, your total comp during the first few years, however unbelievable for a person of this young age, wouldn't be enough for you to accumulate "wealth".  You would have to work till you are at least 30 then you'd start seeing "wealth" in your bank account or at least 2 real estate holdings (if you're really good).  But by then you'd be so specialized that it's really hard to switch to anything interesting if you're talking about marketing, fashion, etc., unless you are willing to start from zero again.  At the most, if you're in Research or Corp Fin you can switch to do Business Development, CFO, buy side.  I don't know if there's a natural switch for Equity and Derivs Sales.  For trading you may just retire and day trade for fun, or set up your own shop.

Say law, I don't know much about this career path but I suppose you only make big bucks when you have made a name for yourself, and that would be when you're in your 40s/50s (correct me if I'm wrong)?  If that's the case, then yea...   

While it is absolutely possible to switch your career after banking and law, but then the choices would be much much limited if your pre-requisite for switching is to have accumulated "wealth".  What could happen is you work a few years in these high-stress professions and do exceptionally well and also save all money, so you can accumulate enough seed money (not wealth) to then start your own business.