求指点~拿到摩根的operation offer，非常迷茫！

raiy

i had intern experience @ UBS operation and some FT exp @ commercial bank operation. I hope I could give you some insight...

As an operation profession, you must ensure the transaction made at the front office to complete on time and accurately. For example, a fixed income sales brings back a swap contract with another bank (counterpart). Middle office guys (i.e. sales assistant) help booking the ticket filled with all the transaction information and check necessary information (i.e. trade limit, counterpart limit etc.. ). Then the completed ticket would send to operation (back office) for further step in order to complete the deal timely and accurately.

How to monitor and ensure the completeness of one transaction? 1) Check with counterpart on the information of the contract to confirm2) set instruction to ensure all the payments to be sent and receive at a timely manner: involving a lot of reporting and checking 3) chasing and answering inquiries from different parties...

i am not sure what kind of function you are in. This is one of the example in IB operation. In general, operation has to do the very best to support front office to complete transactions. It might sound boring to generate reports, check line by line or monitor closely the market to provide info to FO. But everyday you might encounter different kind of delinquencies and problems which need strong problem solving skills to be a successful operation professional.

Pros in IB operation:
1) many of my ex-colleagues are offered opportunities to rotate in different functions and locations (within operation). You can gain a good level of international exposure.
2) if you are the top ones, you could be offered PROJECT to streamlines the process or so. In IB front office, such kind of projects are rare.
3) you can still learn quite a lot on different financial products if you are eager to.

cons:
1) Long-hour work! (my ex-colleagues worked till 11pm or even 1am sometimes)
2) STRESSFUL! you are the one to support which means you have no say! front office just want to know when to complete but not how to complete. Who cares how difficult or complicated the process would take! you are the one to execute.
3) chance to move to front line? little... esp these few years. Middle office has much more direct contact with front office. operation only deal with operation and middle office.... but of course, everything is about timing and luck. A girl in my bank used most of her working time to mingle with sales head and went clubbing with sales guys. She got a sales position there within 6 months and moved to a better bank within a year~