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Manager Research

Why consider a career in manager research at Watson Wyatt?

The primary role of a manager researcher is to form a view on the skill of investment managers.  We are fortunate that because of our client base, this typically has given us great access to some of the world’s best investors.  A role at Watson Wyatt will get you early exposure to these.

We research a wide range of investment areas.  These include equities (global, UK, US, emerging markets etc), bonds (credit, emerging markets, absolute return mandates etc), property, hedge funds and private equity etc.  However this list is constantly evolving as new areas develop.  We like to give our researchers exposure to more than one area to help develop their skills.

What skills do you require?

• A team player. A new joiner would be part of at least one team responsible for researching a particular asset class.  Teams tend to range from 3-8 people and may be located in different offices around the world.  Two people attend each meeting and attendees maybe rotated to ensure challenge and a fresh pair of eyes. Teams typically have people from different backgrounds (career manager researchers, previous fund managers, consultants and graduates for example).
• Good listening and questioning skills. A significant part of our research process is conducted through interviewing fund managers to understand how their decisions are made in practice (which often may differ from marketing material!) and to assess whether we believe the manager has a competitive advantage over other investors.  This requires an ability to put people at their ease and to form opinions based on meetings attended through careful listening skills.  Preparation for meetings also involves identifying the key questions to ask to help form our view based on desk research and analysis.
• Good written skills. All members of the team need to clearly document meetings that have been held.
• Intellectual curiosity.  We believe the best investment professionals have a thirst for knowledge, and it is no different for a manager researcher.  As part of the role new hires will be expected to study for the Chartered Financial Analyst or Actuarial professional qualifications. Over time we expect you to develop in depth knowledge in a particular investment approaches.
• Numeracy. It is important to be very comfortable with numbers and analysis to support our work, but we note this is not a role where team members spend all day crunching numbers.
• Client skills.  An ability to communicate clearly (verbally and in writing) with clients including Watson Wyatt consultants.  Responding to clients requests for information in a timely basis.
• Organisation. You will need to work on several pieces of work at any one time!

What will you be involved in?

• Attending research meetings – usually around two hour meetings with the investment professionals to help form our view.  This will be with another member of the team so to some extent the learning curve can be steep even for new joiners.
• Forming a view on a manager – all new joiners are expected to provide their view of the strengths and weaknesses of a manager from day one based on what they have observed.
• Documenting research meetings – this is important to try to ensure our research views are captured.  This includes writing up detailed meeting notes and a summary of the manager’s strengths and weaknesses.  This can form a significant part of a new joiner’s time. Some of these documents will be used directly with clients.
• Identifying interesting managers – this can be quantitative screening, manager referrals, websites, newspapers etc… There is no single way to identify an interesting manager.
• Prioritising which managers to be seen – this will involve gathering information from the manager and assessing whether it looks like they could have a competitive advantage.  Areas to cover include the experience of the investment team, the strength of the process and whether the business structure is well aligned to investors.
• Monitoring managers – this may involve quarterly calls with managers and documenting those calls for clients.
• Conducting ad hoc project work – to try to improve the process and systems we use to identify, analyse or store information on the managers we research.  Often, these projects can include numerical analysis, excel based work or writing “thought pieces” for clients.
• Client work – after the first couple of years, there will be the opportunity to talk directly to clients about managers and to help them select new ones.