lakers24 Wrote:
——————————————————-
> Wow your arrogance is incredible. I’m sure you
> really are the epicenter of the world. You’re
> pretty cool though so keep at it slugger.
lakers24, your problem is that you don’t do any research, whether it is about the industry or even about this message board. You pretty much indicated to us that you have made no actions towards moving to finance during your entire undergrad career; claiming that you “worked at the bank” shows some ignorance of what a bank/finance is. My sincere advice, figure out what all the different financial career paths that are out there, then get back to us about how you semi-qualify for them and ask how to make up for remaining shortcomings.
brain_wash_your_face Wrote:
——————————————————-
> Oh also, it is okay to fail. Do not be afraid to
> fail. From what I’ve seen, that is most people’s
> biggest mistake.
in fact, do fail. people learn from their mistakes and if you always do things right and never fail, then you have no learning experience. failure is key to success
lakers - you’re really easy to pick on because you don’t know much about the business you’re trying to enter. no one starts out as a trader. rarely someone will get a jr trader position after school, but that’s with related internships and coursework.
your best bet is getting a sales job with a firm and networking like crazy to get into either a training program or use related experience to get an advanced degree down the road.
iteracom: I didn’t say I am a trader and will stay there for my career. I said trading piques my interest. It doesn’t mean I’m certain I want to a career in trading, as I’m simply hoping to get an entry level position. I have had practically 0 exposure to the field so how do I know what I will like?
I researched and went to the orientation where I got the little pie chart that shows 25% of CFAs are PMs. I want to further my education in the field and feel this is a fitting next step as business school would be better later after I get experience.
ohai: Thanks for being constructive rather than the tear down approach.
1. Go for a mid markets brand name firm (Jeffries, Wells Fargo, RBC,etc) start in a back office role. Back office people move around a lot, and you might start in, for instance documentation, but with a good work ethic you could move to settlements. Try to move closer and closer to trading, for instance go to trade support, then middle office.
Along the way, get your CFA, and take classes at the community college in math (calc, diff eq, lin alg etc) and learn the product you want to trade (inside and out). Network while employed, both internally and externally and if you work your a$s off you could be a trader by 28.
I wish I had better news for you but here is the reality - Wall Street firms hire classes of traders out of the Ivy League schools, and mold them from a young age. Getting in another way is a chalenge, but not impossible. Good luck.
I know I don’t have experience but I don’t get why that makes it fun to put a target on my head. I’m asking questions and trying to get a better idea knowing there’s a lot I don’t know. I won’t lose sleep over it, I just don’t understand when everyone has been in this situation at some time.
It is entry level so people are starting here. The trader I spoke to on their floor said she got it out of school and they’ve taken non-finance people before. They haven’t told me no yet and it’s been a couple weeks since the phone interview so I guess that’s good.
lakers24 Wrote:
——————————————————-
> I know I don’t have experience but I don’t get why
> that makes it fun to put a target on my head. I’m
> asking questions and trying to get a better idea
> knowing there’s a lot I don’t know. I won’t lose
> sleep over it, I just don’t understand when
> everyone has been in this situation at some time.
> It is entry level so people are starting here. The
> trader I spoke to on their floor said she got it
> out of school and they’ve taken non-finance people
> before. They haven’t told me no yet and it’s been
> a couple weeks since the phone interview so I
> guess that’s good.
Thats true, but when they take a non math/finance/econ guy, they usually are standouts in other ways, for instance 4.0 GPA at Columbia with an equity research internship. I dont want to get your spirits down but you probably dont have a shot of getting a trading job right out of school. That doesnt mean you cant get there, just not right away.
There is more than one way to skin a cat, and not everyone in finance has an ivy league finance undergrad. If you go the non-traditional route it takes hard work, networking and being a standout.
Here’s an idea - use your creativity to think of the best way to leverage your skills and get your foot in the door. As others have said, there are thousands of Ivy leaguers with flawless resumes that would probably get the nod over Joe “but I’m really interested in finance” Schmo. However, every potential position isn’t offered to this entire population and hiring is often qualitative, and frankly more often lucky.
Leverage your connections, dig deep. Ask parents and friends if they share any boards, volunteer activities, sports teams, or other groups with someone successful in the industry. Don’t focus on your job search, try to think what you could potentially offer them so it’s not so blatantly one-sided.
Go places in person rather than filling out blind resumes online, leave an impression (preferably good, but even a poor impression probably is more likely than applying randomly online).
I know a person who got a job straight out of school from a mid-tier university at a hedge fund through a job posting on Craig’s list - probably not the place most people, especially the Wharton and Harvard guys are searching. Why? They wanted to cast a wide net, and the interviews went well.
Am I saying it’s easy or likely? Hell no, but I wouldn’t recommend spending time online searching for confidence - as you can see, you probably won’t get much here and it’s wasting valuable time better spent searching.
Deleted User
^^ditto.
but yeah, bacholor of arts is worth $0. take the back office route.
NYCGorilla Wrote:
——————————————————-
> yo lakers25, Im a back office accounting jockey at
> the age of 31 and looking to bounce, anythings
> possible kid.
Mobius Striptease Wrote:
——————————————————-
> NYCGorilla Wrote:
> ————————————————–
> —–
> > yo lakers25, Im a back office accounting jockey
> at
> > the age of 31 and looking to bounce, anythings
> > possible kid.
>
> youre also p.diddy’s third cousin which helps
Poor guy is getting picked on because he’s a noob, and a large majority of posters here are frustrated b@$tards who probably need to take the advice SuperiorReturn gave you. When life is tough, nothing seems to give some people more pleasure than trying to crap on someone lower on the totem pole.
So, main lesson: if you want to be in this industry, it helps to have a thick skin. If you want to get in now, it’s a tough haul and may not work, so make sure you have a Plan B to pay the bills while you’re working to make progress on Plan A.
You want a quote? Haven’t I written enough already???
I find it ironic that your pursuit of the CFA is to bring you closer to trading, as I’m one of a handful of former traders (along with a couple buddies of mine) that are leaving the industry…A big part of my strategy was trading pairs; I really enjoyed analyzing the relationships of one stock vs the other (in both correlated and uncorrelated sense), I guess that’s what drew me to a potential career in PM…and I should note that i have a bachelors in soc as well, lol.
Now having said all that, trying to get into trading is a lost cause. Volatility and liquidity are going the way of the dinosaur (do some research on how many traders have been leaving the industry or getting released, e.g. schoenfeld) and whatever new trading positions available are going to the quants - guys with physics degress. Even finance majors will have zero shot vs a guy with a masters degree in math, because after all, any strategy can be automated, right?
Unless you happen to be a really gifted trader (or your the long lost heir of J.P Morgan), proven with great results, you wouldn’t be trying to land that ‘pure daytrader’ job anyway. I just don’t know of any independent ‘day trader’ doing well anymore, the edges have dissapeared to the algos sending orders in nanoseconds. Sure you could do well on a longerterm basis (at which point you’d most likely have a regular job anyway), I think there may be some ways to make money outside the equity markets, but with everything moving toward a 100% correlation I wonder how long those edges will last too.
Hmm. That’s good info, but no one said anything about equity day trading or market making specifically. There are lots of other sorts of traders also. Someone must be using those algos, right?
Mobius Striptease Wrote:
——————————————————-
> B.A. > B.B.A., any day, any school
Watch out, you’re going to disrupt the anti-liberal arts status quo around here. Ironically, most of the best investors in the world have liberal arts degrees, many of them with no MBA or CFA. Academic finance education is overrated. Intelligence + work ethic > expensive pieces of paper.
“I lost my wife to a margin call. Wives get mad when you come home and say, ‘Sweetheart, I lost the house today.’” - Dennis Gartman on trading mistakes
lakers24 Wrote:
——————————————————-
>
>
> ohai: Thanks for being constructive rather than
> the tear down approach.
Dude, where’s my thank you ? Did you read my post ? I gave the only realistic way for you to get anywhere near finance and I don’t even get a thank you! WTF !
mo34 Wrote:
——————————————————-
> lakers24 Wrote:
> ————————————————–
> —–
> >
> >
> > ohai: Thanks for being constructive rather than
> > the tear down approach.
>
>
> Dude, where’s my thank you ? Did you read my post
> ? I gave the only realistic way for you to get
> anywhere near finance and I don’t even get a
> thank you! WTF !
I read it mo, it was a little racist.
"I talk the truth only.two month ago I pass the exam to study the econmic master" - qqqbee, Sept 1, 2010
SuperiorReturn Wrote:
——————————————————-
> mo34 Wrote:
> ————————————————–
> —–
> > lakers24 Wrote:
> >
> ————————————————–
>
> > —–
> > >
> > >
> > > ohai: Thanks for being constructive rather
> than
> > > the tear down approach.
> >
> >
> > Dude, where’s my thank you ? Did you read my
> post
> > ? I gave the only realistic way for you to get
> > anywhere near finance and I don’t even get a
> > thank you! WTF !
>
> I read it mo, it was a little racist.
Why ? I mean the guy studied Spanish for 4 years , can’t he make money with it ? Why did he study Spanish in the first place (I’m assuming because he likes it) .
SuperiorReturn Wrote:
——————————————————-
> i was jk.
> it was solid advice and probably the only route he
> has.
> but buddy wants to be a TRADER.
Oh Ok.
Well ..When I was a kid I was dreaming of beating Boris Becker at Wimbledon .. To be honesty, I probably had a better shot at it than he has at trading.
If I had his background,
I would scrap it out, build a big enough book, than move onto the banking side. Funding deals with power of my multi billion dollar book and rolodex of playas.
if that doesnt work, at least ur in the industry where you can talk to people
"I talk the truth only.two month ago I pass the exam to study the econmic master" - qqqbee, Sept 1, 2010
analyze: I’ve been thinking MBA but I don’t know if I would be better served with experience. I figure I have a better chance of going to a better school if I have experience + CFA.
mo: Haha thanks. I grew up speaking Spanish (not Hispanic though) and I studied it because I had a continued interest from when I grew up. It being an accent/edge is a plus. I’m glad I studied it.
sundevl - good points. thanks
spreads: I chose the CFA before I was aware of the trading opening or thought about trading specifically. I’ve gained more interest in trading as it’s what has popped up for me recently. I’m 21, I’ve got a lot of energy and I would only enjoy different routes. I think I could do and enjoy trading, research, analysis, etc. I’m doing the CFA to help my skills and get the resume credibility that I’m lacking in terms of school/work related background.
Many of you are going to laugh but I just became aware I have a link through a friend with Michael Milken haha
So it’s good that he is asking these questions on an online forum, right? It’s ok to sound like a noob here, but not during a job interview.
“I’m a CPA! I got money b***h!”
Studying With
Oh also, it is okay to fail. Do not be afraid to fail. From what I’ve seen, that is most people’s biggest mistake.
“Some people make shoes. Some people make houses. We make money and people are willing pay us a lot to make money for them.”
lakers24 Wrote:
——————————————————-
> Wow your arrogance is incredible. I’m sure you
> really are the epicenter of the world. You’re
> pretty cool though so keep at it slugger.
lakers24, your problem is that you don’t do any research, whether it is about the industry or even about this message board. You pretty much indicated to us that you have made no actions towards moving to finance during your entire undergrad career; claiming that you “worked at the bank” shows some ignorance of what a bank/finance is. My sincere advice, figure out what all the different financial career paths that are out there, then get back to us about how you semi-qualify for them and ask how to make up for remaining shortcomings.
brain_wash_your_face Wrote:
——————————————————-
> Oh also, it is okay to fail. Do not be afraid to
> fail. From what I’ve seen, that is most people’s
> biggest mistake.
in fact, do fail. people learn from their mistakes and if you always do things right and never fail, then you have no learning experience. failure is key to success
lakers - you’re really easy to pick on because you don’t know much about the business you’re trying to enter. no one starts out as a trader. rarely someone will get a jr trader position after school, but that’s with related internships and coursework.
your best bet is getting a sales job with a firm and networking like crazy to get into either a training program or use related experience to get an advanced degree down the road.
iteracom: I didn’t say I am a trader and will stay there for my career. I said trading piques my interest. It doesn’t mean I’m certain I want to a career in trading, as I’m simply hoping to get an entry level position. I have had practically 0 exposure to the field so how do I know what I will like?
I researched and went to the orientation where I got the little pie chart that shows 25% of CFAs are PMs. I want to further my education in the field and feel this is a fitting next step as business school would be better later after I get experience.
ohai: Thanks for being constructive rather than the tear down approach.
My advice -
1. Go for a mid markets brand name firm (Jeffries, Wells Fargo, RBC,etc) start in a back office role. Back office people move around a lot, and you might start in, for instance documentation, but with a good work ethic you could move to settlements. Try to move closer and closer to trading, for instance go to trade support, then middle office.
Along the way, get your CFA, and take classes at the community college in math (calc, diff eq, lin alg etc) and learn the product you want to trade (inside and out). Network while employed, both internally and externally and if you work your a$s off you could be a trader by 28.
I wish I had better news for you but here is the reality - Wall Street firms hire classes of traders out of the Ivy League schools, and mold them from a young age. Getting in another way is a chalenge, but not impossible. Good luck.
I know I don’t have experience but I don’t get why that makes it fun to put a target on my head. I’m asking questions and trying to get a better idea knowing there’s a lot I don’t know. I won’t lose sleep over it, I just don’t understand when everyone has been in this situation at some time.
It is entry level so people are starting here. The trader I spoke to on their floor said she got it out of school and they’ve taken non-finance people before. They haven’t told me no yet and it’s been a couple weeks since the phone interview so I guess that’s good.
Studying With
What piques your interest, buy or sell side trading?
“Some people make shoes. Some people make houses. We make money and people are willing pay us a lot to make money for them.”
lakers24 Wrote:
——————————————————-
> I know I don’t have experience but I don’t get why
> that makes it fun to put a target on my head. I’m
> asking questions and trying to get a better idea
> knowing there’s a lot I don’t know. I won’t lose
> sleep over it, I just don’t understand when
> everyone has been in this situation at some time.
> It is entry level so people are starting here. The
> trader I spoke to on their floor said she got it
> out of school and they’ve taken non-finance people
> before. They haven’t told me no yet and it’s been
> a couple weeks since the phone interview so I
> guess that’s good.
Thats true, but when they take a non math/finance/econ guy, they usually are standouts in other ways, for instance 4.0 GPA at Columbia with an equity research internship. I dont want to get your spirits down but you probably dont have a shot of getting a trading job right out of school. That doesnt mean you cant get there, just not right away.
There is more than one way to skin a cat, and not everyone in finance has an ivy league finance undergrad. If you go the non-traditional route it takes hard work, networking and being a standout.
Here’s an idea - use your creativity to think of the best way to leverage your skills and get your foot in the door. As others have said, there are thousands of Ivy leaguers with flawless resumes that would probably get the nod over Joe “but I’m really interested in finance” Schmo. However, every potential position isn’t offered to this entire population and hiring is often qualitative, and frankly more often lucky.
Leverage your connections, dig deep. Ask parents and friends if they share any boards, volunteer activities, sports teams, or other groups with someone successful in the industry. Don’t focus on your job search, try to think what you could potentially offer them so it’s not so blatantly one-sided.
Go places in person rather than filling out blind resumes online, leave an impression (preferably good, but even a poor impression probably is more likely than applying randomly online).
I know a person who got a job straight out of school from a mid-tier university at a hedge fund through a job posting on Craig’s list - probably not the place most people, especially the Wharton and Harvard guys are searching. Why? They wanted to cast a wide net, and the interviews went well.
Am I saying it’s easy or likely? Hell no, but I wouldn’t recommend spending time online searching for confidence - as you can see, you probably won’t get much here and it’s wasting valuable time better spent searching.
^^ditto.
but yeah, bacholor of arts is worth $0. take the back office route.
yo lakers25, Im a back office accounting jockey at the age of 31 and looking to bounce, anythings possible kid.
MattLikesAnalysis Wrote:
——————————————————-
> ^^ditto.
>
> but yeah, bacholor of arts is worth $0. take the
> back office route.
B.A. > B.B.A., any day, any school
NYCGorilla Wrote:
——————————————————-
> yo lakers25, Im a back office accounting jockey at
> the age of 31 and looking to bounce, anythings
> possible kid.
youre also p.diddy’s third cousin which helps
Mobius Striptease Wrote:
——————————————————-
> NYCGorilla Wrote:
> ————————————————–
> —–
> > yo lakers25, Im a back office accounting jockey
> at
> > the age of 31 and looking to bounce, anythings
> > possible kid.
>
> youre also p.diddy’s third cousin which helps
Cuz he’s black?
To the OP: Why don’t you get an MBA?
Or do you think CFA>MBA?
Analyze_This Wrote:
——————————————————-
> Mobius Striptease Wrote:
> ————————————————–
> —–
> > NYCGorilla Wrote:
> >
> ————————————————–
>
> > —–
> > > yo lakers25, Im a back office accounting
> jockey
> > at
> > > the age of 31 and looking to bounce,
> anythings
> > > possible kid.
> >
> > youre also p.diddy’s third cousin which helps
>
>
> Cuz he’s black?
who, diddy or nycgorilla?
Poor guy is getting picked on because he’s a noob, and a large majority of posters here are frustrated b@$tards who probably need to take the advice SuperiorReturn gave you. When life is tough, nothing seems to give some people more pleasure than trying to crap on someone lower on the totem pole.
So, main lesson: if you want to be in this industry, it helps to have a thick skin. If you want to get in now, it’s a tough haul and may not work, so make sure you have a Plan B to pay the bills while you’re working to make progress on Plan A.
You want a quote? Haven’t I written enough already???
I find it ironic that your pursuit of the CFA is to bring you closer to trading, as I’m one of a handful of former traders (along with a couple buddies of mine) that are leaving the industry…A big part of my strategy was trading pairs; I really enjoyed analyzing the relationships of one stock vs the other (in both correlated and uncorrelated sense), I guess that’s what drew me to a potential career in PM…and I should note that i have a bachelors in soc as well, lol.
Now having said all that, trying to get into trading is a lost cause. Volatility and liquidity are going the way of the dinosaur (do some research on how many traders have been leaving the industry or getting released, e.g. schoenfeld) and whatever new trading positions available are going to the quants - guys with physics degress. Even finance majors will have zero shot vs a guy with a masters degree in math, because after all, any strategy can be automated, right?
Unless you happen to be a really gifted trader (or your the long lost heir of J.P Morgan), proven with great results, you wouldn’t be trying to land that ‘pure daytrader’ job anyway. I just don’t know of any independent ‘day trader’ doing well anymore, the edges have dissapeared to the algos sending orders in nanoseconds. Sure you could do well on a longerterm basis (at which point you’d most likely have a regular job anyway), I think there may be some ways to make money outside the equity markets, but with everything moving toward a 100% correlation I wonder how long those edges will last too.
I know a quant who has received resumes from people who have 3 PhDs…
You don’t need social skills to be a quant… yikes.
"I talk the truth only.two month ago I pass the exam to study the econmic master" - qqqbee, Sept 1, 2010
Hmm. That’s good info, but no one said anything about equity day trading or market making specifically. There are lots of other sorts of traders also. Someone must be using those algos, right?
“I’m a CPA! I got money b***h!”
Mobius Striptease Wrote:
——————————————————-
> B.A. > B.B.A., any day, any school
Watch out, you’re going to disrupt the anti-liberal arts status quo around here. Ironically, most of the best investors in the world have liberal arts degrees, many of them with no MBA or CFA. Academic finance education is overrated. Intelligence + work ethic > expensive pieces of paper.
“I lost my wife to a margin call. Wives get mad when you come home and say, ‘Sweetheart, I lost the house today.’” - Dennis Gartman on trading mistakes
lakers24 Wrote:
——————————————————-
>
>
> ohai: Thanks for being constructive rather than
> the tear down approach.
Dude, where’s my thank you ? Did you read my post ? I gave the only realistic way for you to get anywhere near finance and I don’t even get a thank you! WTF !
mo34 Wrote:
——————————————————-
> lakers24 Wrote:
> ————————————————–
> —–
> >
> >
> > ohai: Thanks for being constructive rather than
> > the tear down approach.
>
>
> Dude, where’s my thank you ? Did you read my post
> ? I gave the only realistic way for you to get
> anywhere near finance and I don’t even get a
> thank you! WTF !
I read it mo, it was a little racist.
"I talk the truth only.two month ago I pass the exam to study the econmic master" - qqqbee, Sept 1, 2010
SuperiorReturn Wrote:
——————————————————-
> mo34 Wrote:
> ————————————————–
> —–
> > lakers24 Wrote:
> >
> ————————————————–
>
> > —–
> > >
> > >
> > > ohai: Thanks for being constructive rather
> than
> > > the tear down approach.
> >
> >
> > Dude, where’s my thank you ? Did you read my
> post
> > ? I gave the only realistic way for you to get
> > anywhere near finance and I don’t even get a
> > thank you! WTF !
>
> I read it mo, it was a little racist.
Why ? I mean the guy studied Spanish for 4 years , can’t he make money with it ? Why did he study Spanish in the first place (I’m assuming because he likes it) .
i was jk.
it was solid advice and probably the only route he has.
but buddy wants to be a TRADER.
"I talk the truth only.two month ago I pass the exam to study the econmic master" - qqqbee, Sept 1, 2010
SuperiorReturn Wrote:
——————————————————-
> i was jk.
> it was solid advice and probably the only route he
> has.
> but buddy wants to be a TRADER.
Oh Ok.
Well ..When I was a kid I was dreaming of beating Boris Becker at Wimbledon .. To be honesty, I probably had a better shot at it than he has at trading.
If I had his background,
I would scrap it out, build a big enough book, than move onto the banking side. Funding deals with power of my multi billion dollar book and rolodex of playas.
if that doesnt work, at least ur in the industry where you can talk to people
"I talk the truth only.two month ago I pass the exam to study the econmic master" - qqqbee, Sept 1, 2010
buy side
analyze: I’ve been thinking MBA but I don’t know if I would be better served with experience. I figure I have a better chance of going to a better school if I have experience + CFA.
mo: Haha thanks. I grew up speaking Spanish (not Hispanic though) and I studied it because I had a continued interest from when I grew up. It being an accent/edge is a plus. I’m glad I studied it.
sundevl - good points. thanks
spreads: I chose the CFA before I was aware of the trading opening or thought about trading specifically. I’ve gained more interest in trading as it’s what has popped up for me recently. I’m 21, I’ve got a lot of energy and I would only enjoy different routes. I think I could do and enjoy trading, research, analysis, etc. I’m doing the CFA to help my skills and get the resume credibility that I’m lacking in terms of school/work related background.
Many of you are going to laugh but I just became aware I have a link through a friend with Michael Milken haha
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