Graduate Opportunities

Salary: Competitive

You have an alternative
Banks, brokerages and hedge funds aren’t the only options if you’re looking for a graduate programme in finance. Clearing is a career path that will take you to the heart of the global markets.

Why clearing?
Clearing reduces risk in financial markets, so policy makers are now regulating for many more asset classes to be cleared. This is the greatest opportunity in our history to create new clearing services for new asset classes. These are exciting times for clearing.

Why LCH.Clearnet?
We’re the world’s largest clearing house group, so we can offer you a bigger canvas on which to develop your career: more variety, more challenges, more opportunities to work with world-class clients and colleagues. With us you’ll be exposed to the banks, the exchanges, the clients, and everything in between. It’s like working for dozens of financial organisations, rather than just one. We can also offer roles in a very wide choice of business areas, ranging from Technology & Development and Risk, to Settlements and Sales & Marketing.

Our graduate programme, two streams
For 2012 we have a brand new graduate programme to develop talented and ambitious graduates into the clearers of the future. This new programme is divided into two streams:

• IT Stream – working in our Technology and Development team
• General Business Stream – working in our business focused teams in areas such as Operations, Risk and Collateral & Liquidity Management, Exchanges & Repos, SwapClear and ForexClear

Three rotations
Whichever stream you join, the graduate programme is based around three 6-month rotations in different parts of our business. The aim is to help you integrate rapidly into the work environment and build your professional credibility, while also giving you a broad understanding of LCH.Clearnet to help you decide which type of role is ultimately your best fit. When deciding on your rotations, we take a flexible approach, tailoring your experience of the programme to your talents, skills and aspirations, although we also have to take into account the needs of the business.

Formal training
The on-the-job learning on your rotations is supplemented with a full programme of formal training. This begins with a structured 2 week introduction to the markets in general and to particular asset classes, and developing your personal skills in areas like communication and team working. You have your own personal mentor throughout the programme, and we offer generous support to study for relevant professional qualifications, beginning with an entry-level professional qualification in your first six months.

Technology Programme
Our Technology and Development team accounts for about half of LCH.Clearnet’s headcount of 1000. You’ll be based in our London office, sitting with the rest of the team and working in project teams of usually up to a dozen people, although some teams are rather larger. On each of your three rotations you’ll be making a visible impact from day one, and will typically experience three product areas, with an emphasis on programming.

We start our graduates in developer roles on our core clearing, settlement and risk management systems where you’ll be helping us develop new clearing services that are central to the functioning of the markets. You’ll have variety because you won’t specialise in a single asset class, and you’ll be collaborating with our people in business operations, risk and sales & marketing in Paris, New York and India, as well as London. You’ll also be expected to meet exceptional standards because our systems are part of the UK’s critical national infrastructure.

To join the Technology Stream you need a good Technology related degree and a strong interest in financial markets.

General Business Programme
Joining our General Business Stream gives you the opportunity to experience three different parts of our business. You might spend six months with our 80-strong ForexClear team, rolling out the world’s first foreign exchange clearing service. You could be with SwapClear, our world-leading clearing service for over-the-counter interest rate swaps with a market share of over 50%. Or you might find yourself in the world’s best risk management team – our group of 60 or so people who continually assess our market, credit, liquidity and operational risk, while at the same time evolving our risk strategies.

The roles across our General Business Stream are many and varied, so they require different educational backgrounds. Risk Analysts, for example, need to be highly numerate, whereas for our sales or marketing roles within SwapClear or ForexClear we can consider a far wider range of educational backgrounds.

Who we’re looking for
To apply for either the Technology Stream or the General Business Stream, you need to have achieved, or be on track to achieving, a 2.1 honours degree or equivalent. We also look for some personal qualities that apply across our business, including:

• A lively and genuine interest in the markets
• Strong communication skills
• Team working
• Enthusiasm and energy
• The confidence to question accepted thinking

Our selection process
We’re looking for talented, motivated and ambitious graduates, so our assessment process is rigorous. It comprises:

• Online application form
• Telephone interview
• Online numerical reasoning (Business Stream) and IT (Technology Stream) tests
• One-day Assessment Centre including interviews, a business or technology case study and further numerical or technology testing

How to find out more and apply
Your first step to beginning a career with LCH.Clearnet is to visit our graduate website and complete our online application form at www.lchclearnet.com/graduates

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