I’ve recently been looking for jobs because I’ve been out of one since the very start of the year due to an extremely unfortunate incident involving my entire company dissolving abruptly.
A recruiter from HSBC reached out to me regarding a job titled Investment Broker. Duties include handling client investments. When I asked the recruiter if the position was one of a Financial Advisor, they replied with:
“Yes and no, we mainly do investments and deal with investment products like unit trust and structured ILPs etc.”
I attended the interview recently and there was a shit ton of paperwork to go through. They even required my credit history which cost $8. Thank god my interviewer was nice enough to pay for it because I am currently extremely broke.
During the interview, I asked them how their team sourced clients. They said that while asking your friends and family is a very good option, they have campaigns to help me source from strangers as well. They also will sponsor my training, however while I am being trained I will not get any pay which was the first red flag to me.
The second red flag to me was the fact that my basic is not guaranteed. I didn’t understand why they called it a basic then lmao, aren’t basics supposed to be guaranteed?? Before attending the interview, I asked the recruiter what the basic was and he said 3-8k/month, which I thought was good because usually FA roles are more or less commission-based. When I went to the interview, the interviewer actually said that my basic is not guaranteed if I do not hit their KPI. Not only that, but their position is considered a freelance role and there would be no CPF given.
I thought working in HSBC would be a good job as it’s a bank and banks are generally more trustworthy than other companies. Having been heavily burnt with my previous company, I was so happy that the tunnel finally seemed to have light, but I guess not hahaha…. I guess I feel kinda iffy but I wanted second opinions. And yes, I’m aware I can be pretty naive and gullible 🙁 (Fallen prey to scams and MLMs before..)
Netizens’ comments
- It’s just selling insurance for the bank. Sales oriented role but the lower end
- same job structure as insurance agents. insurance agents are also considered self employed and no CPF, they need to put it in themselves. it’s not a true ‘bank job’ the way you’re imagining it. you can further clarify with them what are the qualifications needed during the training, and check if the exams are the same as the ones for insurance agents.
- Damn I hate such recruiter, they know what they r hiring for but trying to be vague to make candidates fall for it
- Remember seeing people in polo tees trying to talk to you about your financial planning? That’s who you’re going to be if you join. Basically cold-selling to strangers.
Do you want to push expensive investment products on strangers, friends, and family in order to make commissions from whatever they pay into the product? Because that’s exactly where your “basic pay” will be coming from. - You’re in a difficult position, but maybe you can focus more on roles that use similar skills to what you were previously doing (i.e. do processes for fixed pay rather than sell for variable pay). Or at least aren’t so tough and possibly unethical.
- Same as being a low life insurance agent, just within the bank.
Everything is the same as being an agent, no base paY and commission based, and you’ll just be asked to push products that don’t make any financial sense to clients.
All their investments / ILP can’t even beat the market / index funds. Can you in good conscience intro this to people knowing that all of these are scams?