Month: November 2025

• Eric Sim spent over two decades in banking, working at banks like Standard Chartered, Citi, and UBS.
• Sim says getting a job as a graduate or young professional is tougher these days because of AI.
• He shared four tips, or what he calls the “CATS” framework, that people can use to land jobs.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Eric Sim, 55, a former banker who became a published author, professional speaker, and career coach. The following has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider has verified his education and employment history.

Finding a job is really difficult these days, and that’s largely because of AI.

The problem is magnified if you are a fresh graduate or a young working professional.

At the junior level, most jobs tend to involve grunt work. You don’t need to have a high level of expertise, but you need to put in a lot of hours. That work can be easily done by AI.

In investment banking, AI can easily edit and build financial models when we make pitch books. Senior analysts and associates can then review the AI’s output. This means that instead of hiring three junior analysts, banks can settle for just one hire.

That said, people shouldn’t be fazed by how tough the job market is. Looking for a job has and will always be difficult.

When I graduated from Lancaster University with a master’s degree in finance in 1997, I couldn’t find a job in London. I had to return home to Singapore after I ran out of money. To make things worse, I had to continue my job hunt amid the Asian financial crisis.

I wasn’t a standout candidate. I had no network and no special skills. The two years I spent doing foreign exchange sales at a local bank before going to graduate school didn’t help me land any front office roles.

In the end, I decided to pivot and was lucky to secure a middle office role doing risk management at Standard Chartered. From there, I began to work my way to the front office, and I eventually joined UBS as managing director in 2011.

Here are my four tips for landing jobs and navigating layoffs, or what I like to call the “CATS” framework.

1. Build up your competencies

The C in “CATS” stands for competencies. You need to pick up skills that go beyond your current role.

When I was at Standard Chartered, I wanted to build up my skills in sales. To do that, I asked my insurance agent to sign me up for a five-day sales boot camp that was popular among insurance agents.

Later, when I was working at Citi, I picked up photography. That allowed me to become a photographer for a client’s event, which helped me grow my network and build relationships.

When I worked at Citi and UBS, I offered to train my colleagues in other departments. This improved my public speaking skills and helped me secure a side gig as an adjunct associate professor of finance at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Looking back, it was these peripheral skills that pushed my career forward and allowed me to secure job transfers from Singapore to Shanghai, and then Hong Kong.

So don’t just be good at your job. Everyone is good at their jobs. It’s the additional competencies that you pick up that will give you the extra edge.

2. Make yourself appealing to others

The A in “CATS” stands for appeal. You need to make yourself more interesting because skills can become obsolete.

I decided to express my creativity by picking up art. My art pieces aren’t complicated. One of my pieces was a tribute to the luncheon meat I used to eat with my instant noodles while working in Hong Kong. I sawed the cans in half and moulded them together.

Making art makes me more appealing to others. For instance, I can post photos of my artwork on social media and engage in discussions with my peers.

3. Be a trustworthy person

The third letter, “T,” stands for trust. You need to be trustworthy because when people hire, they don’t just look for skills. They are looking for someone whom they can trust.

And in order to be trusted, you have to be consistent.

It’s not difficult to achieve. I stick to the same attire of blue jackets and white shirts. I arrive early to meetings.

It’s about doing the small things well. After all, if you can’t even get the small things right, why would anyone trust you with big things?

4. Grow your social capital

The last letter in “CATS” stands for social capital.

If you don’t have a network, you are essentially competing against thousands of people whenever you apply for jobs.

That’s why you need to start building and maintaining your network. Social capital means being generous in buying people coffee or treating them to lunch. Treat your colleagues with respect, including the junior ones, because they will climb up the ranks someday.

Global fossil fuel emissions are projected to reach a record high in 2025, according to new research published Wednesday by the Global Carbon Project.

The group published its 20th annual global carbon cycle trend analysis in the journal Earth System Science Data, along with a full-year emissions projection for 2025.

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Global fossil fuel carbon emissions are expected to grow 1.1% in 2025, the report found, higher than the average growth rate of 0.8% per year over the last ten years.

To limit warming to the goals set out by the Paris Agreement, global emissions would need to have peaked by the end of this year. The projected increase is another reminder that the world still has a way to go to get on track. 

“We have to have emissions of CO2 declining every single year over the next 20 to 30 years if we want to leave warming below two degrees,” says Pierre Friedlingstein, a professor at the University of Exeter who focuses on global carbon cycle modeling and led the study. 

Read More: The World Is Failing Its 2025 Paris Agreement Target. Now What?

That is far from the case. The 2025 Global Carbon Budget projects 38.1 billion metric tons of CO2 emissions this year from using coal, oil, and gas to fuel society. 

In the U.S., where President Donald Trump has rolled back a number of climate initiatives and committed to more oil and gas drilling, emissions are projected to grow by 1.9% this year. China is also expected to see emissions rise by 0.4%—that comes as the country’s emissions have been on the decline in recent years given heavy investments in renewable energy. 

The report joins a chorus of warnings that the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C is likely out of reach. The U.N. predicts the planet will likely exceed this level of warming within the next decade. At the opening session of COP30 last Thursday, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres called the missed goal a “moral failure and deadly negligence,” noting that even a temporary overshoot would have “dramatic consequences. It could push ecosystems past catastrophic tipping points, expose billions to unliveable conditions and amplify threats to peace and security.”

Many parts of the world have been making inroads towards decarbonization. In the last decade, 35 countries succeeded in reducing their emissions while growing their economies—twice as many as the decade prior, the report found. In the past, it was largely the U.S. and European nations that were able to decarbonize, but the process is now becoming more widespread, with Thailand, Serbia, South Korea, and Jordan among the countries decarbonizing, says Friedlingstein.

“Some countries are moving in the right direction, but it’s not fast enough,” he notes.

The report also examined the impact of climate change on carbon sinks, like plants and the ocean, which help absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They found that climate change is reducing their storage capacity—and that 8% of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration since 1960 can be attributed to climate change weakening the land and ocean sinks. 

Fossil fuel emissions have been going up by around one percent every single year over the last few years, says Friedlingstein. “And to limit warming to any climate target, 1.5 or 2 degrees, you have to bring emissions to zero.” While 1% might not seem like a major increase, any rise in emissions puts the world one step further from global goals.