Hi prash42,
I'm a financial services professional with diverse experience (mortgages, underwriting, real estate valuation, financing, etc).
My situation was a bit unique in the sense that I worked across different sectors so I could not pin myself to one area.
You seem to have an excellent profile in terms of your qualifications and designations, which would help. I just had my MBA + work experience and only recently gave my CFA level 1 exam.
I landed in summer of 2015 and did all ground work, networking, etc. Later given personal situation took up odd jobs until Feb 2016, when I got my first break with an accounting job for a property management firm. Its more of a clerical role than accounting (much below my expectations) but atleast far better than odd jobs.
I'm sure you will get good offers given specialized qualifications, where I lacked frankly. In interviews, I know hiring managers can stump you on 'Candian experience' but no one can question a CFA or CA designation, which are gold standards. I heard about different recruiters including Hays, Robert Half, Lannick Group, Randstad, etc. They would be excellent and highly responsive as long as they need a candidate like you for their clients. For some roles recruiters are too investigative and detailed that they dig so deep in to your work/technicalities as if they were the hiring manager/your prospective boss. So just be prepared for this as I had such experience and its understandable since they need high-quality candidates for high-quality roles.
Situational Questions: This is where most interviewers trap you with lot of hypothetical and 'what if' scenarios. In India these questions are common but not designed as traps but more to understand your lateral thinking or leadership approach. For eg. how you dealt with an arrogant subordinate.
In some cases you may want to balance/down-play strong tones and show your ability to balance different extremes and priorities. Canadians generally may not prefer someone who is too decisive or takes extreme or bold decisions - they need people who can understand and appreciate different points of view, invite ideas even if you dont necessarily agree, etc. In the example of arrogant employee if you decided finally to let him/her leave you need to prove that you counseled them, re-trained them, gave additional support, identified and solved their concerns, etc. and finally the person improved and at one point he/she decided to move on although he/she loved working with you (sounds sugar coated) but thats how it works here. If you were to tell them that you took a tough but hard decision for better interests of the team, mgmt, etc....I would appreciate your point as I go by the context, but not the interviewers.
I dont claim expertise as Im still learning, but Im sharing snippets from my personal experience. At the end of the day its the interviewer's call. Personally speaking I would prefer testing a candidate with a real project/assignment (which most lazy people would dread doing) and serious candidates will give their best, and later interviewing and selecting will be a piece of cake. I've seen the best candidates who impress you in 30 minutes can sometimes turn out to be poor executors in their work/project despite their street smart personality.
You can connect with me at
https://ca.linkedin.com/in/sridharvca
Stay in touch. I'd be glad to share experiences and meet with professionals like you, so we get a chance to learn from each other.
Good Luck.
Sridhar
prash42 said:
Torontosm,
Thanks for your thoughtful response. I will be in Toronto for a couple of weeks in late September / early October to meet as many people as I can (recruiters, business school alumni, contacts established through LinkedIn, CFA Society Toronto, etc).
Thorek/Scott and Vlaad are not names I have come across before, will certainly look into them. Please do share names of any other specialist recruiters you can think off.
Thinking out loud, I probably need to be flexible in the kind of openings to pursue, given the economic slowdown. I've been an EM equities fund manager for the past 6 years, and worked previously in M&A (3 years, New York) and credit (4 years, India). In your experience, how open are Canadian firms to hiring career switchers? I guess my question is, will I be taken seriously if I apply to positions in wealth management, investor relations, finance roles in companies, etc? I have an MBA from a US business school, CFA charter, and CA from India.
Best,
Prash42
