Career move: Compliance to Research

You will probably just come and tell us how hard marriage is and how everyone you know is divorced or infertile, and even if we aren’t infertile, our children will probably go to prison or die, because everyone does these days. I mean, sorry, it’s an intimate affair, family only.

^ lol

Alright I will post because you seem a little bit ambitious, a litte funny and seem to not take no for an answer. i work in sellside research at a bank.

A few possible paths:

  1. F500 financial analyst (fp&a) ->sellside equity research: if you’re already in finance, it could be easier to get into research. You’ll still be 1 of 500 resumes in any scenario, but this could work. Especially if the F500 job is in the same industry as the sellside research job. Note i don’t think buyside is possible here.

  2. F500 financial analyst->MBA (a good-top program)->network->research. May slightly improve your odds as you can get an internship in between your first and second year in research. Make sure it’s not a bad MBA program and people actually get research internships from the program.

  3. Private wealth management->F500 financial analyst-> research. All else fails, do a financial advisor job. Yes your pay will suck. Yes it will be sales. But at least you’re doing something with the market, and perhaps advising funds to people. Then move into an RIA or FP&A type position then the world is your oyster.

you can see a clear trend in my paths: at some point you need excel and forecasting skills. Aka work in excel, write stuff, work with financial data. I really don’t think its possible to get a job in research otherwise unless you get into a top mba program. Then anything is possible and people will hire you just because you have a big brain.

your first job after compliance just won’t be in research. Sorry to break it to you.

Well, you seem like a cool chick – I mean I want to be your bestie/BFFL after seeing your replies to Itera. And I’m sure that will help. But you really should be doing stuff like learning Excel, even if its not for your job.

Here it comes. . . wait for it. . . wait for it. . .

LendingClub and Prosper make available all their loan level data. That is a very large data set with tons of information you could learn Excel analysis skills. Okay, that’s my obligatory LC pitch.

In addition to LC/Prosper, there is also Quandl which houses a lot of data which can be easily imported into Excel. You could learn to do things with that as well. FRED is a good place to look at data visualizations.

You also may want to expand your search outside of hedge funds for risk management. The roles you described sounded like quant jobs. There are risk management roles in consulting firms, commercial banks, insurance companies, and plenty of other places.

I knew it was coming and you still managed to troll me, lol!

PWM to F500 FP&A is probably less likely than compliance to FO. There are such little transferable skills. I’d just as soon hire a plumber.

^ hey hey… plumbers are amazing poeple who get paid very well.

^ That’s why I’d hire one over a PWM guy.

^ oh ok, as long as we’re clear on that

^ Plus he could fix that damned bathroom faucet at work that sprays all over and makes it look as though you pissed yourself.

whta skills are missing

i disagree. Adding together buyside and sellside research jobs, there probably aren’t more than 2-300 spots on the sellside open a year and I would guess a similar amount at the buyside associate level. I’m talking bronze and higher type accounts so accounts with at least a few billion in capital, no high net worth picking stock positions.

despite the lack of hard skillset overlap, I think that two levels of the CFA down plus some financial world experience should be enough to get an entry level fp&a job. There are thousands of those jobs available especially if you include all the private companies out there too. Much larger universe of jobs and thus much better odds.

admittedly I have never worked or hired for an internal finance division job.

You said F500. Yes, I agree an entry level spot at Bob’s Fish Emporium FP&A group is possible for someone from PWM. The issue is you get folks with too much experience to be entry level but no relevant experience for the intermediate/senior roles. Most PWM guys would be there if trying to get into a F500 FP&A group.

Thanks Waterbucket! I’m positive, but not insane - I don’t expect my next job to be that, something in the right direction.

I’m also not going to sew my ego to the title of “Research”. It’s like this: I like doing certain things. I don’t get to do them in Compliance. I would do them in Research, but where else can I do them - financial analyst, I’ve seen some job specs. Some are much closer, some are just… I don’t even know what they need the person to do, put reports together and do a lot of “liaising”. Anyway, I’m open to it. I had a fleeting thought on investment guidelines. It’s further away that Financial Analyst, but closer to what I’m doing now… I know y’all have a natural aversion to Compliance, but it’s technical, lots of exposure… you just don’t get to perv at balance sheets and get to grips with it as much, you just get to see a lot of what is in the accounts and what investors are going for. Ideas?

Also, @rawraw, great practical suggestions, will get into that. May result in many questions, but, dare I say it, it sounds fun!

Even if I limited it to only F500 companies I would estimate that the number of open entry level jobs are still 2-3x times more numerous based on an assumption of 3 open jobs per large cap company than the sum of buyside and sellside gigs open that I described. Those are much better odds and you get hard skills. Maybe most of the entry level jobs are posted and filled by university students, but they are there nevertheless.

Agreed on on middle or higher level, but i don’t think it’s particularly relevant to the earlier points.

Sorry do Bob’s Fish Emporium FP&A group have an entry level vacancy? Man, I’ve wanted to work there for AGES!

^ Yes. But the planning consists only of how many fish pellets to buy and how often to clean the fish shit out of the tanks.

Also, don’t know about UK but regulatory compliance for banking is in great demand in USA due to new regulations. I know the Big 4 accounting firms have been adding those spots, which may not get you out of compliance but may get you into an easier spot to laterally transfer. Deloitte seems particularly aggressive in growing their compliance practice

^+1

PM me for a fun story of my experience with Deloitte! So yeah it is something I have considered but I’m naturally nervous of going into something where it might be that I carry on without gaining any more relevant experience. Any body any thoughts on investment guideline compliance?