Another interview today, significantly more intense than yesterday’s. The whole thing took over 2 hours, and there were three of them. And of course one tries one’s best to be really focused, so when I got home afterwards I felt exhausted. More questions, and their questions about the business side of things required real thinking. (Is an average-price option cheaper or more expensive than a corresponding European option?) They also asked their questions in person, which takes more concentration and energy than filling in a quiz on paper in a quiet room on your own, which is what I did yesterday. On the technical side they tested actual ability rather than just theoretical knowledge. They had a list of tasks that they wanted to see me do, ranging from trivial Excel tasks (simple formulas) to some proper VBA tasks (including one that required me to write code to sort an array – and I’ve not sorted any arrays manually for over a year at least!) And again two of them were sitting there in the room, occasionally peeking over my shoulder to see what I was doing. Distracting, to say the least.

So their approach to recruiting was more professional and thorough than the others’, which is a good sign. But I don’t know if I would want that job, now that I’ve heard more about it – and more importantly, heard more about how they work, and how the place works. In particular I doubt I would learn very much there apart from nitty-gritty details about Excel. First of all the team is ring-fenced from the rest of the technology department and only works for one group of traders, so there are few contacts with other teams, i.e. no chance to learn from others, and few (if any) opportunities to move forward to new areas. Secondly they are, according to their own descriptions, so busy that they don’t have much time to show the ropes to any new hires, and rarely have time to discuss their projects with each other, much less have any training. Any learning is to be done in your spare time. Which to me indicates that training and learning is not a priority for them. And it is the top priority for me. They also mentioned that they spend 90% of their time improving and extending existing spreadsheets, which again means that it’s all about tinkering with details rather than broadening your horizons or learning to think about bigger projects and processes. On the whole it appears like a narrow role with no real room for growth.

Far more promising was a discussion I had today with my current company. I met the head of our department’s technology team, who also happens to be in charge of career development for the Technology division in Europe. Our team has worked quite a lot with him on various projects, so my manager had mentioned to him that I was considering a career change. After hearing my story, his firm opinion was that instead of trying to slowly shift from the business side towards technology, the best way forward would be to join the Tech division’s graduate programme, effectively starting from the very beginning, together with people who’ve joined straight from university.

After the initial shock of the idea wore off (“Go back 5 years and start over? Throw away almost 5 years’ worth of advancement?”) I have to agree that the idea might be a good one. It would, almost per definition, be the fastest way to learn things, because that’s what graduate programmes are about. It would also be more efficient than trying to share my time between doing my current job and at the same time trying to work my way into Technology. And it has a lot clearer and broader long-term potential than the two other jobs I’ve seen thus far, which both seemed quite focused on one relatively narrow area both in terms of technology and in terms of the business area it’s applied to.

To be continued.