Rumour has it that jobs in the public sector are easy to come by. My experience suggests this is sadly not the case.

Both before and after losing my job in the finance division of a major US investment bank, I’ve looked at roles in all three branches of the tripartite system of financial regulation that has served us so well recently.

1).The Bank of England

When I looked a couple of months ago, the BoE was inviting speculative applications from experienced financial economists interested in identifying future systemic risks to the UK financial system (presumably they were expecting greater responsibility for financial stability to come their way). I almost applied, but was distracted by a Treasury role. Since then BoE have put recruitment in the hands of an agent and have narrowed their criteria for financial stability roles - you need a PhD to apply.

2). HM Treasury

A few months' ago, I responded to a newspaper advertisement for a managing director responsible for Financial Stability - a new role at the Treasury. I followed the instructions and looked at the Civil Service Careers website, whose address was given in the advert. It didn't exist, but transferred me to a beta testing website for a new civil service careers website. I entered the job title - it didn't exist. I searched on salary and other criteria - it still didn't exist.

Several days later, I found some of the application details through the website's technical support area and through the newspaper. There was enough to go on, even if I didn't match the ideal candidate profile (which included significant experience of working with government ministers).

It took a couple of days to knock up a good covering letter, at least the retired senior civil servant (Treasury) I got to edit it for me, thought it was good enough. He did also warn me that there was probably already a shortlist of applicants as this was not unknown with Treasury positions.

After I dispatched the letter, I received no acknowledgement that HM Treasury had received my application. I chased this, and received an 'out of office autoreply' saying that the recruiter was on holiday for a week or so. Immediately after Easter I chased again, and received a reply that the recruiter had left HM Treasury and was no longer responsible for applications - no mention of who was. I called the head of HR at the Treasury, and he assured me they had received my application. The next day I received the disappointing news that I hadn't been called for interview. I was offered feedback on why.

I called the new recruiter. I asked for the feedback. I think the exact response was 'other candidates matched the criteria set out in the application pack better than you did'. I insisted on going through the criteria line by line. The recruiter admitted that 'it must have been your lack of experience dealing with government ministers'. I also asked about the background of other candidates. Surprisingly all were external, none had experienced any difficulty applying through the - non-existent - website, and, less surprisingly, all had previous public sector experience.

3) The FSA

I've applied to the FSA several times. Briefly, the high points;

i) I attended an open evening which led to an interview. I think the job was manager of a team responsible for financial supervision of Lehman, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch etc. The inteviewers asked me detailed hypothetical questions about how I would handle the relationship with a firm which had notified FSA of a failure to notify FSA under the conduct of business notification rules - I kid you not.

My main point in response was that FSA should be focussing on the financial/prudential rules when supervising large systemically important investment banks. Following the interview, the FSA didn't offer any feedback so I called the recruiter. He said I should fill out a written application and attend another interview. At that interview I was told I had applied for an associate position, and that as I was overqualified I was wasting my time.

ii) I tried to apply for a position in the financial reporting policy team responsible for audit, accounting policy, valuation and disclosure. There were two required 200 word sections in the on-line application. One of them was missing from the on-line form. The other one deleted its entire contents when I tried to save my completed application.

In the mandatory sections of the online application form I highlighted my knowledge of financial products valuation (this was late last year when regulators were panicking about how to value illiquid financial products), my experience of accounting policy work, my ideas for improving independence and objectivity of external audit, and my interest (as a user) in financial statement disclosure.

At interview I was told each member of the four man team covered one area, and they were looking for someone to fill the disclosure slot, so I was told not to discuss valuation. The interview had started 20 minutes late, and had to finish 40 minutes later. I was reminded of this by the lead interviewer pointedly checking her watch every time I started to speak. A couple of weeks later, the same job reappeared on the FSA website, except it had changed to 'valuation and disclosure'. I didn't apply.

iii) I've tried to apply for one of the new 'intrusive' financial supervision roles the FSA is apparently recruiting for (see the Turner Review). Personally, I’ve never seen these on the FSA careers website. I have asked Lord Turner's office why not and how to apply, but I have received no reply. Incidentally (possibly coincidentally), I sent Lord Turner a list of proposals to improve the regulatory regime, including a suggestion to introduce a more 'intrusive' regime of financial supervision long before Hector Sants started talking about it.