Confused88,

If you are still following this trail, let me give you a concrete example.. These days LinkedIn is an amazing tool to just get a handle on how other actually progress in their professional career.. just Google for one 'Adrian Seow Goldman Sachs'.

Apparently he is a ex Manager at CIMB Investment Bank who just joined GS as Analyst. From Linked In, he started in CIMB IB as trainee and all-in probably spent 4 - 5 years there. And BTW he graduated BEng & MEng in E&E from Cambridge.

This is just to give you a favour of the competitions you are facing - lets forget the fresh graduate path as these would be the source of the bulk of the BB's analyst supply pool.

This is a top performing CF fella graduated from Cambridge with few years working experience at the top local IB but only joining GS as an analyst.

In terms of career path - if you are sure you want to get to a BB CF - the best bet is to take a job/ path that can help you increase your chance of getting admitted to a top school mba like Harvard / wharton/ chicago.

Perhaps you can consider taking a year off doing non-profit or join army => these non-conventional paths typically are the easiest to break into top mba program. There are lots of website and resources on how to get into top mba so I wont repeat them here.

But, at the risk of sounding snobbish - please let me be frank, with a Monash degree and that you are not starting off your career in any of the foreign BB (I think there do are few selected Monash getting into foreign BB at the onset of their career from time to time), the only viable chance to ultimately get into a BB especially in Sg/ HK is via a top-notch MBA.

This is just how the game is... but the good news is you are still young and there should still be time to get your career back on track to achieve what you set to achieve!

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Added on August 22, 2011, 3:11 amJust a bit of ranting and sharing of my personal experience which I hope may be helpful to some of the forumers ==

BTW I didnt know that I wanted to get into banking when I did my undergraduate at Melb U (I did a Economics/ Law double degree with a First Cls Hons), so you all are definitely in a much better position than i started out..

Incidentally, at the introduction of a family friend, I started my career at a local boutique as an intern in early 2000s.

that's probably the best career move that could ever happen to me cos it opened up my eyes to a completely new world that I never know of before.

I came back to serve a close to some 3 years term as Analyst and was given opportunities to actually co-lead some of the transactions - given the relatively small size of the firm. further as it's a small firm, we cannot compete on distribution/ platform but more on the merits of the ideas . so I was involved in few award-winning deals (not just by sheer size but was more chosen because of its innovativeness). I also did my cfa then..

My starting salary as a full time position was RM1800 or RM2200 - I cant really recall now but was steadily increased to close to RM5k by the time I left. Bonus was pretty good - I think my worst ever was a 9 months .

Then I did my Master at Oxford - of course in 2006/7 it was then the best moment ever for banking.. Jobs were fairly easy to find..

I then joined a foreign mid-market private equity house as an Associate (we still have cUSD2billion funds for deploy).. my starting paid was close to USD10k per month - and for whatever reason I recalled only paying like 5 or 10% tax in Singapore - it is supposed to normalise to 15% after 3 years), and my bonus was in double-digit. so, yes it's one hell lots of money for me - considering i was still in my mid-late 20s then.

But my firm was adversely affected and in fact, it didnt survive the financial crisis... it was eventually liquidated in 2009..

Since 2009 I went through a turbulent period, i must confess. And now I am with a family-office doing small scale start up ventures in Malaysia...

Some of you may wonder why didn't I look up for another banking job?

Frankly, I still very much love banking, and I enjoy the challenges especially in bringing a transaction eventually to closure. But on personal front, I got married in 2009 and we decided to settle in KL. So Singapore was not a choice. The foreign IB were not hiring in KL at that time at all so I have to learn a tough reason on to be realistic on my pay-scale which for a while was hard to swallow..

None was willing to offer anything more than RM 12k (for VP position) which I find quite difficult to raise a middle-class family in KL (can anyone recommend a good gated-and-guarded housing in KL that cost less than RM1m?!)

Secondly, at my age and stage of career, I am focusing more on building up my own ''equity''. its always easier to negotiate with family offices or smaller establishment on what we term in Private Equity, Carried Interest or a form or profit sharing.

plus, I also know I am not that good to be in such 'more-favourable' negotiating table as compared to says if employed by a top foreign BB as I lack all the pedigree to be truly a star (Eton or some US private private schools etc - then Harvard magna cum laude plus the Olympic medalist => this is no joke, GS Asia was run by a pair of Canadian twin brothers who won the rowing medal in Olympic; neither do I have a billionaire family like our Dato' Justin Leong)

Cant complaint - I have my fair share of luck.. I guess such is life! I hope that some of our investments would turn into a multi-baggers so I can accumulate enough capital to move to the next stage of my career/ life -)

This post has been edited by too_old_for_this2: Aug 22 2011, 03:11 AM

The sg job market was hit really badly during the crisis and I pretty much found a lot of my own friends and other peers in same situation as me.. In fact, some have not even found a job since 2009. I would argue it has not really recovered ever since - unless you are covering Indonesia .. KL market on the other hand is relatively more stable (I guess that probably is due to the lower cost base than anything else).. Cant say I am really a reluctant returner but begger cant be choosers so I have to make the most out of it.. it's sth that I am actively pursuing now.. been in touch with few headhunters but market is still very luke-warm.

To Maverick2011, I dont have your answer to your exact question but as usual, I can try to pinpoint some data point (I try to limit data point to local banks)

1)CF - Head of Department. A typical MD level at says CIMB (they call it Team Director or sth) would be raking in something close to RM40 - 50k p. mth as based. bonus would be anywhere from 12 mths to 36 mths. Head of CF would probably rake in 80k per mth but you are not likely to get there with just 15 yrs experience, unless the odder batch steps down. These days, I were made to understand even if a 10 years Director can make close to 30k at cimb. at the same time, Maybank under TZ has greatly revamped its senior troop comp to be on par or even more competitive than cimb.

2) Sell Side Analyst . A typical Head of Research would probably raking in RM30k+ but bonus usually wont be more than 12 mths. I stand to be corrected here as I dont have that much analyst friends.

3) Head of Dealing. This is really hard to gauge cos I heard that one CIMB Head of Treasury actually made a lot more money than Jay Razak (sth like RM15+ million in a good year). On the other hand, one senior dealer at Ambank that I know of made some RM30k per mth whereas another guy at OSK only make 15+k. This fluctuates hugely but my guess is that this CIMB fella is probably more or an outlier than anything.

In summary, IB head > Analyst > Head of Dealing on average.

This is the trend at foreign IB as well .

There are quite a few top gun Malaysian just for sharing:-

Check out the Richard Ong brothers (both spent years at GS, and one is a multi-billionaire running his own pe fund in China; the other now the Chief Investment Officer at Temasek / GIC). They are probably the top percentile-representative of the IB career path. And then there's Kendall Court's Chris and a few more..

Then there is this Penang fella Cheah of Value Partners, ex Morgan Greenfell Analyst Head who then founded one of the largest hedge funds in asia with >usd5b AUM (just fees alone he would be pocketing some USD50m per year). He would probably the top % representative of the Analyst career path. -and if you never hear of him, google it. his story would be a true source of inspration (he has to drop off high sch at 15/ 16 and work as rubber tapper in some kinda of sob story)

I cant thk of anyone who made as much money or as high profile as Head of Dealing. but if you mean Trader, there is one Malaysian ex-Citi prop trader based in NYC - his firm is called Kamunting Capital or sth like that - again with ten of billions AUM..

So sky is indeed the limit.

No doubt everyone has a burning desire for big money but what make you stand out from the other guys to really excel in the industry (and how to get in if you are not in yet)?

This is the question I ask myself every day!!