Financial stocks have, for the time being, cooled down after a 30 month tear, and so have the searches of financial company hiring managers for new employees.
The trajectory of hiring at investment bank Morgan Stanley ($MS) roughly follows the same arc as that of Citigroup, which also posted an increasing number of jobs until its stock price took a deep breath. The jobs have hardly disappeared, but they have reached a plateau that curls off into a hint of descent towards the end of September.
In total, Morgan Stanley is looking to add about 2,000 employees to the roughly 80,000-person firm, a number that has rocketed upward in lockstep with the bull market over the past 18 months.
Morgan Stanley wants associates, developers with Java proficiency
As of September 29, 2018, the most common job listing for Morgan Stanley was for Registered Associates, an entry-level position that manages client relationships under a Financial Advisor. The position had 147 total listings split up under three seperate exact title names, which were combined to reflect the true number of hires for that role.
| Job Title | Job Title (Count) |
|---|---|
| Registered Associate | 147 |
| Client Service Associate | 88 |
| Developer — Java | 32 |
| Service Associate | 20 |
| Business Service Manager | 18 |
| Intern | 16 |
| Java / Scala Dev (Application Development) | 14 |
| Java Developer | 13 |
| Senior Registered Associate | 12 |
| Wealth Management Associate | 10 |
Surprisingly, even as the summer drew to a close, the investment bank was also still seeking a sizable number of interns.
Like any bank partly rooted in Silicon, it needs plenty of people who know Java, banking’s programmatic cornerstone. Java is far and away the most sought after language at Morgan Stanley, as it is listed in more job descriptions than double of all listings with other programming languages, such as C++ and Python, combined.
| Programming Language | Available Jobs |
|---|---|
| Java | 227 |
| C++ | 44 |
| C# | 26 |
| Python | 11 |
| Javascript | 8 |
| SQL | 3 |
| Perl | 3 |
Similar to other major international investment banks, Morgan Stanley jobs cluster in New York and London.
However, Morgan Stanley also has a sizable number of vacancies in India and Budapest, as it looks to unburden itself of employees in high-cost financial centers. The company opened its Budapest office in 2006 to support back-end operations, and opened an office in affordable Bengaluru, India in 2015.
Outside of New York, Morgan Stanley is largely avoiding other costly metropolitan areas in the United States for the same reason. According to Reuters, it has taken this approach for the past few years, and is similar to those adopted by other firms whose growth has been affected by soaring costs of living in major world cities.
| Country/State | City | Job Openings | Country/State | City | Job Openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U.S. / New York | New York | 517 | U.S. / New York | Purchase | 36 |
| United Kingdom | London | 199 | Germany | Frankfurt | 33 |
| India / Maharashtra | Mumbai | 143 | China | Shanghai | 28 |
| Hungary | Budapest | 132 | U.S. / Utah | South Jordan | 28 |
| Canada / Quebec | Montreal | 131 | U.S. / Ohio | Columbus | 19 |
| India / Karnataka | Bengaluru | 101 | U.S. / California | San Francisco | 16 |
| United Kingdom | Glasgow | 94 | U.S. / Texas | Dallas | 13 |
| U.S. / Maryland | Baltimore | 77 | U.S. / California | Beverly Hills | 13 |
| Hong Kong | Hong Kong | 75 | U.S. / Massachusetts | Boston | 12 |
| Japan | Tokyo | 50 | U.S. / Arizona | Gilbert | 11 |
In other words, if venture capital is leaving the Bay Area for places like Phoenix, why can’t nearby Gilbert, Arizona — formerly known as the Hay Capital of the World — become the next Wall Street?
This quick look at Morgan Stanley is part of our regular review of the top investment banks and firms around the world. We already profiled Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase. We'll keep revisiting these companies, as well as add new ones to our watch list, regularly.