I went to HSBC London yesterday! That 43 floors office almost the tallest building you can find in London city as the buildings in London are usually not more than 30floors =p

Left Bristol after lunch, we reached HSBC only at 5pm.

The security was really tight!
Firstly, you have to pass this guard house before going into Canada sqaure (a new gated area where most of the banks HQ are located. Other than HSBC, you have Citigroup, Bank of America, Natwest, Barclays etc etc). It's just like the custom check from JB to S'pore or vice versa. They ask you to open ur car boot and examine all the things you have in the car. Luckliy we were representing the uni so they didn't really bother to check on us.

Next, when you enter the ground floor, you have to put all your bags through the scanner (just like how they do it before you board a plane) then you have to register with the reception before they give you a pass which allows you to go through entrance (like those ticket machines in LRT/Subway stations)

The ground floor was great! Black Granite tiles filled up the 25feet wall (yeah, the first floor's ceiling was more than 2 stories height) with loadz of huge TV screens with live CNN, BBC, world markets and economic news on it!

After you walk through the entrance to the lifts, they have 5 blocks of lifts.. each has 6 lifts which means they have 24 lifts altgt.. first one for floors 2-7. Second for floors 8-15, Third for floors 16-25, 4th for floors 26-35 and 5th for floors 36-43 and the speed of the lift is really fast untill you can feel the pressure in your ears when we enter the lift to the 25th floor!

We visited the Trading floor which was huge! as big as a football stadium which people trading on FX, commodities, equities and markets. then you specialize in Asian/European/American markets...

After that, we get to meet recent graduates and interns which gave us tips on how to apply and how to get through the interview..!

As we reached quite late, they canceled the schedueled trading game so we went straight for reception with all Bristol ALUMNI working in HSBC London!

There's this man who graduated in BComm(Bachelor in Commerce) in 1950. and clearly, Bristol has not been offering this course since "I-don't-know-when" =p

Met with some 20th century grads as well who are quite new to the job market!

They all said about the same thing, talking about what their work is like, and why you should choose HSBC and also encouraging you to apply!

However, there's this Malaysian guy who lived in DJ and graduated with a MEng in 2002. He has been working in HSBC IBD(Investment Banking Department, not Islamic Banking Division coz that's what comes to mind if you tell a malaysian banker =p). His point of view was pretty funny! he said "ohh, so you are interested in IB? but you know how long my hours are?? i come in every morning at 9am and i won't be back untill midnight. If I have work to do I even have to stay till 2/3am in the morning or come back during the weekends which is non unusual. As a girl, I don't think you should be working like that blah blah blah..."

How funny that is??? Every other ALUMNIs that I have spoken to actively encouraged me to apply and one even said that I have an advantage coz i'm an ethnic minority there so I may have a higher chance or what.. but then this guy sort of discouraged me to!" hahaha I wonder what will his boss say if he/she overheard over convo?!

but it's quite true, we left the office at 8.30pm and the office floors are all still bright and crowded just like normal working hours!

No doubt the world HQ is in London and they employ twice the amount of people compared to the Asian HQ in HK or the regional HQ in S'pore but there must be a reason for them to do so! I believe they definitely have more work compared to the other HQs! so I shall say what one of the employee told me is invalid. This is what he said(the Malaysian) when I asked him why he doesn't wana go to work in S'pore or HK and rather live so far away from home "S'pore? look at the currency, you'll earn half the amount of $ you are earning here.. HK? they only half the amount of ppl working there compared to this London office so you have to do more work!"

So realistic? but there are quite a number of M'sians/S'poreans there! only in IBD itself there're alr 15-20 of them! a very diversed culture HSBC has!

The HSBC in London is just great! they have a nice classy Italian restaurant inside the building as well as a very well equipped gymnasium with nice shower rooms...!

I guess that means you can literally stay in your office and not go home at all!

working in London is prestigious, but you will have to sacrifice loadz of time and sleepless nites!

This is what I found... the time when ppl get to go home:
in london: mostly around 11pm/12am
in HK: slightly earlier around 9/10pm?
in S'pore: 8/9pm
in M'sia: 7/8pm
in Australia: they're mostly set to go even b4 the office hour ends for the day!

so which is the best place to work? Australia.. HAHAHAHA! on top of that, you only work for 4.5days bcoz everyone will be in a weekend mood after lunch on Fridays =p

to all those Malaysian who do not plan to go back to work (esp gov scholars):
nvr complain about how bad your country is! just bcoz we have too many seniors like you all we end up having what you say "a bad working environment/no potential" back home!
You should be thankful that you have got a scholarship and thus go back to serve the country! without what the gov give you, you wouldn't even be able to look for a grad job!

I really can't stand those ppl who keep complaining about how bad it is to work back home! I feel that they have NO RIGHT to do so! If they don't want to go back and work, they shouldn't be complaining because they are contributing to the brain-drain as well!