Career Interview

No industry or job is what it seems to us. Students in colleges and universities live in ivory towers. Not only do they know little about the outside world, they also have misunderstandings about industries or positions. Even teachers basically work in schools after graduation and don’t know much about the industry than students do.

However, when students choose a career, their so-called "good" and "bad" subjective understandings often do not conform to the objective situation. On the one hand, school students with the ultimate goal of employment should pay more attention to industry and career information, understand the trends of the job market, and especially prepare early according to job requirements for their favorite industries; on the other hand, communicate with people in the industry. But this kind of communication still requires your own ability to distinguish between what is the objective situation of the industry and what is the other party’s subjective evaluation. Everyone has different professional values, and their evaluation of the same job can vary greatly.

Credit rating agencies are an industry among financial institutions that has received relatively little attention from students. Naturally, a large part of the reason is due to salary. Precisely because it does not receive much attention, it arouses my curiosity. I believe that there must be an unknown side behind things that are not paid attention to, so let’s take a look at the credit rating agencies that you don’t know about. Interviewee’s background: Ms. Huang

Previous occupation: China Construction Bank branch

Current occupation: Branch of a well-known credit rating agency

Position: Evaluation Director< /p>

Major studied: Bachelor of Finance? Master of International Business

Working time: 2014-2018, 4 years

After graduation in 2012, he joined China Construction Bank. I started as a counter clerk and later moved into the back office to be responsible for the provident fund business. For many people, this job is not bad because there is no performance pressure, and the work content is relatively simple and easy. But at the time, I felt that such a job was meaningless and I couldn’t learn much. If I didn’t take the initiative to leave , I may have seen the end of my life, so I resigned in 2014 and planned to take the Ph.D. exam and find a job while reviewing.

At this time, I invested in some asset management companies, as well as banks and credit rating agencies. Because I was planning to study for a Ph.D., I hoped to find a working environment conducive to self-growth. Although the credit rating agencies have very few staff, But they are all students from some famous schools, such as Hong Kong Chinese, Foreign Economic and Trade, etc., and the rating agencies are different from other financial institutions in that you can understand the full picture of many financial institutions and have access to banks, enterprises, securities firms and the government. This is Something I couldn't achieve in my previous job at a bank. So I chose a credit rating agency.

The income is indeed not high. If you are under the pressure of various loans, you may not be able to accept such a job. As the head of the department, I also need to recruit analysts. Basically, they all have cars, Young people who own houses. The company has different departments, and the income structure of each department is different. The income of the marketing department is linked to performance, and the salary of analysts is relatively fixed, which can meet basic living expenses.

Although the income is not high, there are good opportunities for personal growth. Simply put, if you work in our company for about 3 years and work hard, you can be fully qualified to work in financial institutions such as securities firms. At work, we evaluate dozens of companies a year. Each time we evaluate one company, it is equivalent to conducting a comprehensive investigation and understanding. This is a very valuable experience. Therefore, my colleagues around me actually use this job as a platform for development.

For example, a boy born in the 1990s who came to our department two years ago was actually very good judging from the quality of the fresh graduates at that time. Even so, at that time he entered a securities firm or entered The headquarters of a certain company is still relatively difficult. In the end, he stayed to work in our company, studying for a master's degree and accumulating work experience at the same time. Now that he is about to graduate from his master's degree, he has also been transferred to the head office to start working. Of course, this is inseparable from his very clear career plan.

In addition, even if they can accept the low income in a short period of time, many students are scared away as soon as they hear the salary package. We hope everyone will find what they are looking for in our company, and if not, don't stay. Otherwise, it is a waste of personal and company time and cost.

I can’t vouch for other departments, but the evaluation department is like this, because the analyst’s work requires high professional knowledge, so if you are willing to study or further your studies, you will be able to complete your job. Next, the company encourages it.

Our team will also make learning plans for ourselves. For example, this year we plan for everyone to learn R language together, so there is a healthy relationship between colleagues that helps each other. Even if some colleagues leave, we We will also maintain a good relationship, and everyone will develop better and better.

Writing skills. When recruiting, we will first arrange an interview. After the interview has no questions, we will arrange a written test, which is to write an analysis report and give one week of preparation time. This requires applicants to have academically standardized writing and must not be oral. , must have logic and financial analysis skills. Therefore, if my writing ability is not high, I will have a hard time with the written test.

In addition, dozens of analysis reports have to be written every year. Although we are doing the research of each institution as a team, there must be one person who is mainly responsible for writing the analysis report each time, and others are responsible for it. Review, we have to review it many times before finalizing it. If there is an obvious mistake, this responsibility is also very heavy.

Every year, colleagues move to the investment banking departments of securities firms, the risk control departments of state-owned enterprises and banks, because these departments attach great importance to employees’ work experience related to risk management and control, and there is a large gap in such talents; there are also some Colleagues have been admitted to civil servants, such as the Banking Regulatory Bureau, the People's Bank of China and other departments, because they not only accumulated a wealth of cases in credit rating agencies, but also have excellent abilities in writing normative articles, and these abilities are transferable. Of course, once you have the ability, you hope to have a higher income.

During the project, we will go to the company or institution to conduct research and understand all aspects of the company, such as the overall strategic policy, management quality, production and sales status, financial status, and future investment orientation. , capital flow, etc.; each department of the enterprise must be visited individually. In order to ensure the objectivity of the information, we also need to conduct investigations on the production site to achieve cross-verification of information, and ultimately make objective decisions on the business risks and credit risks of the enterprise. The evaluation is comprehensive. According to regulations, the assessment of an enterprise must be completed within 15 working days, but multiple projects can be carried out at the same time. After doing twenty or thirty projects, it will become easier.

The branch has about three departments, the comprehensive financial department, the marketing department, and the rating department. The comprehensive financial department has relatively fixed personnel; the marketing department requires certain resources and experience in the financial industry, and there are more men in the marketing department; and the rating department is composed of analysts. It can be a bit more complicated at the headquarters level.

There is no unified national identification. There are internal evaluation standards within the company, which are divided into assistant analysts, mid-level analysts and senior analysts. These evaluation standards are mainly based on professional abilities, project experience and acquired qualifications. assessment. In addition, some rating agencies are qualified for capital market assessments, and analysts conducting capital market assessments need to register with relevant departments (for example, the National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors).

Bachelor degree or above, major in economics, management or related majors, and understand basic financial knowledge. If you pass the CPA exam, you will have an advantage.

The ability of self-learning, although you are all writing analysis reports, you can learn different things from each project. The ability of self-learning determines whether you can quickly find the differences between companies in different projects. In this way, we can find the key points of evaluation more quickly, and in terms of industry analysis, we can quickly transform our thinking and evaluation methods, and at the same time focus on summary, otherwise there will not be much improvement.

There are also the writing skills and communication skills just mentioned. To improve your writing skills, you can read more analysis reports and see how others use normative language; although analysts must be able to write, when going to companies for research, they need to conduct interviews with company leaders, and interviews with senior executives are Project research is very important, so communication skills are also very important.

It has a relatively free atmosphere. While working in this company, I started my own family and had my own children, and I am still studying for a doctorate.

Let’s talk about the development of the industry. Before I entered this industry, I thought the credit rating industry would develop rapidly. However, our country’s industry is too dependent on policies and there is no clear concept and plan. Therefore, the future role of this industry is not very clear. Of course, employee mobility is relatively high, so if you have been employed for 5 years, the company will award you a merit award.

I think this job is suitable for students who don’t have high salary requirements at present, but have a greater desire for personal growth. For example, your goal is to work at a securities firm, but your current abilities and resources If you are not satisfied, you can first accumulate your own strength. Credit rating agencies are a good platform to cultivate relevant capabilities.

The above is all the content of this professional interview. If you have any questions about the insurance industry or auditing positions that you are interested in, please leave a message in the background and I will try my best to help answer them.

(The above content has been published with the consent of the interviewee)

Finally, I must remind that career interviews are aimed at the vast majority of people who are about to enter the industry. Interviews are conducted based on what you want to know, but they do not have much reference value for individual people. Most financial institutions are result-oriented and focus on resource integration, so if you have good resources or the ability to integrate resources, then Your growth and development path in a financial institution may be different from others. I'm not saying that you don't have to work hard. You also need to think about your future development direction, and of course you should have higher requirements for yourself.