Working with HSBC in England

Robin1982

I will be soon going to an assessment centre/interview in England to try and get on to the HSBC I.T. Graduate programme (18 months long). I've already passed the aptitude test (Oct 26th), and have been told that the centre/interview is the last stage of the process.

Thing is that they haven't confirmed a date yet for the centre (asked but no direct answer + they are still visiting UK colleges too), and I'm now going on 4 months out of work. I graduated last year with programming-type degree (got 1st incl very good thesis mark), worked as a stock trader for a year (don't believe the hype) and want to go back to programming. I've already turned down a job (admittedly not the best one I applied for), and am actively interviewing for a few software/systems jobs in Dublin, but, because of the name, think it would be best to go with HSBC, but the wait is concerning me.

My questions are:

Does anybody know if the graduate programme is any good, info seems hard to find?

Anybody know anybody who works or has worked with HSBC at any level? Good feelings?

And finally for the IT people out there, is a seemingly general IT graduate programme the way to go, or would it be better to try and get into a real software development house?

damnyanks

Depends on your ambition and what you want to do. Most grad programs in the UK (Banks especially) are based on rotations, chances are you are going to do a 9 month rotation working in lets say support and maybe 9 months as a developer.

From experience the roles really depends on who is looking for staff inside the bank. If you work as a developer you will learn a lot about specific products in the bank. What sort of trader were you and what city were you in ? I've been given an offer to do algoritmic trading (development team creating it that is). Don't really know a lot about trading other then sales trading (whatever that is) is meant to be terrible!

Robin1982

hey,

I was a trader in Dublin (IFSC) with independent US firm (quite big), trading equities and futures, but worked with funds, bonds and options too. The trading was mostly statistical arbitrage & index arbitrage trading (basically maths/stats based). Interesting field (i like maths), don't get me wrong, and the experience and just general status of the job is exciting (good $$$ too), but the long hours for (to me) pretty meaningless work (buy something for $1, cause theorectical value $1.05, try to sell it, do it a billion times, do it a new way - maybe i'm not a natural capitalist) compared the nature of development.

Algorithmic trading is basically just what it entails, program-trading using formulae. As a developer, it shouldn't be too huge of a deal to design (not easy though either), just good scaleable code... thats what I wanted anyway.

Sales trading is basically being a broker (middleman in everything but name). Whether it be cold calling people telling them to invest or just giving out investment news & IPO stuff - from what I saw it was glorified second hand car selling but I'm a cynic...

[edit] Three 6-month programs is the deal in HSBC, of which 2 will probably be in Sheffield (which I've heard bad things about, but thats another story...) plus i haven't got the job yet but i'm positive

damnyanks

Sheffield is meant to be quite nice. A lot of money is meant to have gone into the development of north england. Depends on what sort of person you are but not mad for the whole bank types in London.

Gets boring quickly... it's a dog eat dog world etc. but I would rather be pleasent to someone rather then narky and trying to catch them out on their work.

Robin1982

As an update, HSBC assessment centre due to start late Jan/early Feb 2006