Considering prospects and salary increments in the 6 Industries
💁🏻♀️ If you are a Y1 or Y2 student, you would be considering the industry you would like to be involved in in the future.
💁🏻♂️ If you are a Y3&Y4 student, you would need to decide on which company’s offer you would like to take.
But other than considering the offer’s salary, considering what ✅prospect and ✅salary increment the industry could bring you is also very important.
Hence, HKCareers have helped you to analyze the 6️⃣ Industry: Big 4 audit & advisory, Bank, Investment Bank, Property, Conglomerates and FMCG.
So that you can get to know about your future development in different industries and make a better decision on your future career! No matter which year you are in, make sure you read this!
Big4 audit & advisory
- Low to High salary: In Big4, no matter if you are working for audit or advisory, the starting salary would be 15.5K only (except for Deloitte S&O, Digital and PwC Mgnt Consulting etc). The advantage of working in Big4 is that the salary could increase a lot for about 20%-30% each year. If you had worked in the same position for 3 years, your salary may be around 30k to 32k+. After five years of work, you could be promoted to Manager Grade, where the salary could be up to 50k+. Although the starting salary of Bank MT could be higher, there might not be as much increase as in Big4.
▶️Broad Exit Path: As working in Big4 audit is pretty tough, and might worry that they might not be able to work in the same company for 5 years. Considering this, there are still some good prospect even if you quit the company:
🔺 If you have worked in the audit division, you could work as In house Financial Controller, Internal Control Advisory or Internal Auditing other companies. If you have worked on a lot of IPO Auditing Projects before, you might be able to work in a Corp Fin Firm.
🔺As working in Advisory requires a lot of projects working, hence you would be able to broaden your network and get to know how different industry operates. For instance, if you used to be working as a Tech consultant, you could work as In house IT Project Manager or IT Business Analyst. Or if you used to be working in the Risk Advisory division, you could change to work as In House Risk Manager in Financial institutions.
▶️Experiences Matter: You could become a professional if you are working in Big4. For example, you would need to test for the CPA in order to be a Big4 Auditor. FRM would usually be tested if you are working on Risk, so if your expertise on the aspect is strong, the more experience you have, the less likely you would be replaced by others. For instance, if you are working as a Junior in the Cyber Security Risk division, you might think that its future prospects are pretty narrow. But if you keep working till you become a senior, it is hard for others to have the same skill sets and experience as you have💪🏽 it would even make it easier for you to be promoted to team head.
✅Bank Intern / MT
▶️high starting salary, great pay rise in the first 3 years: Most of Retail or CMB Bank MT’s starting salary is 35-30k! The increase in pay in the first three years is also good. Taking HSBC as an example, after the first two years of the program, your salary could go up to 42-43k excluding bonus. In the past, when the market conditions were good, employees could get bonuses for ten months at once. And if the market conditions are not good, it is believed that the bonus would maintain to 2-3 months. If you want to get the most money at a speed, working in Bank MT is not a bad idea!
▶️ Salary increase rate slows down in the mid-term: Although the increase in the initial stage of salary is high, the increase rate will slow down from the 4th to 6-7 years of the Retail Bank/CMB RM system! Only if you are promoted from RM to Team Head, your salary would be increased! Team Head’s annual salary plus Bonus could reach 1.5 million! If you are good enough, you could be promoted to Team head at 28 years old!
▶️CMB/Corp Bank RM exit: Many people would like to choose service company’s clients like CMB or Corp Bank when applying for Bank MT, as they give you more opportunities to know other companies’ executives or bosses and would be beneficial for later change of jobs. For example, if your clients are from Sun Hung Kai, New World, etc., you will become familiar with the real estate industry. In addition, some people will choose to transfer to different departments of the bank, as RM could give you a lot of opportunities to learn about different financial products, allowing you to switch to specialists such as DCM, private bank PB, etc.⠀
▶️Retail Bank’s Exits are quite different:
Since the Retail Bank is mainly engaged in product strategy and has less contact with other industries or bosses, people who are used to working in Retail tend to stay at the bank, with fewer bonuses compared to CMB. But the most positive aspect of Retail RM is that there are so many Digital-related initiatives, giving you the opportunity to enter Fintech and Digital Bank, which have new development potential.⠀
✅IBank 🏦⠀
▶️Attractive salary at Front Office: Despite the unfavourable market conditions, many investment banks are giving out Front Office Offers. Among them, Private Banking and Markets(S&T) gave out the most offers (HKCareers did mention these two divisions could have more headcounts than AM and IBD before, did you apply for them?). The salary of Summer Analyst, PB and AM, S&T, IBD could start at 45-70K, 45-50K, 50-60K and 60-70K respectively. Comparing them with Bank MT starting salary of 35K, their starting salary is almost 10% higher💰!
▶️The working prospect of Front Office Role:
📍IBD: The working hours of IBD are extremely long. Hence, it is common for people to change their job after a few years, for instance, working as VC or PE, or even become entrepreneurs.
📍S&T: People who used to work for S&T might choose to change from Sell-side to Buy-side, or they might change to work for Asset Management.
📍AM/PB: As working as asset management and PB allow you to get to know ultra high net-worth (UHNW) company owners, so rather than staying in AM/PB, some people might decide to work in Family Office or help UHNW companies to do asset management.
📍In recent years, there are more IBanker to quit their job to start their own business on Digital Currency Development or Fintech.
✅Property🏗⠀
▶️Stable income, little increase in salary compared to investment banks and banks: The starting salary of real estate developer MT is mostly around 20K - 28K. Even though there is not a great difference comparing the starting salary of real estate developers to Bank MT or Advisory, the increase might not be as much. Most of the employees who have been working for Property for 4 -5 years, their basic salary could achieve 40K-50K, but after working for 7-10 years, the increase might slow down to about 60K-70K. Hence, employees might not be able to reach 1million salary even if they have worked in the same company for 10years. It is quite difficult for people who pursue work in the Property division to be promoted to the senior management team.
▶️Attractive bonus: Generally, Bonus will last for 1-3 months. Sometimes when the number of properties sold is high, it may last for as high as 6 months.
▶️High stability with good benefits: Most of the time, people join the real estate industry because of the high stability and benefits, for instance, there would be a discount for buying companies’ estate.
▶️Attractive Commission: When Fresh Graduates join property management such as JLL or CBRE, they are mostly attracted to the commission of these international agencies. For example, if you rent out a floor of Victoria Dock to a certain company, the commission may be ten times of your basic salary, so there are some people who are transferred to an international agency after working as real estate developers for a few years
✅Conglomerate🏰
▶️Attractive salary, less likely to change jobs in the short term: The starting salary of Swire and Jardines is around 30K. In addition to the constant transfer between various departments, you might do a lot of Project-based tasks. Be sure to stay patient, as the skills and experience you learnt could be very valuable for you to look for higher-level jobs.
▶️International Exposure: There are a lot of international job rotations for Conglomerate, such as transferring you to work in the ASEAN region, which is very attractive to students who yearn for different work experiences and cultures.
✅FMCG💄
▶️high starting salary, average increase rate: the starting salary of FMCG is around 25-30K. The advantage of FMCG is that they are relatively stable, and their increase rate for salary is rather the same. Generally, if you have worked in the same company for 5 years, your salary could be around 40K+, but it may be impossible to reach 1million annual salary even if you have worked there for 10years. Another similarity with Property’s job is that there are many benefits, such as the same or discounted company’s products etc.
▶️many opportunities for a job change within the industry: Generally speaking, FMCG companies are more likely to recruit colleagues who have worked in the same industry, as they feel that these colleagues are already familiar with their own products. Besides, there is intense competition for FMCG companies, hence there are more opportunities to change jobs. Since most of the students who have entered FMCG are interested in the industry, they usually only transfer to other company instead of changing their careers.
We help university students like you to get into Investment Banking, Banking, Property/ Conglomerate and Advisory/ Consulting. Follow us on Instagram (ig: hkcareers) to know insider tips about grad job/ internship hunting. Visit hkcareers.hk to know more about the result-based career coaching program.
