Ok…The title might have been a little exaggerated. Here is the deal. I’m graduating in a couple of months, and have been looking to get some sorta trading job. However, I had no contacts, and I never got a response from any company that I applied to. Good GPA (3.5+), but crappy school. However, my resume looks great! Good experience in real estate related stuff, and some math based research. Now, I got this contact at a big shot (really big shot) firm. (I dont really wanna disclose too many details here, but if someone is willing to help me out, we could communicate via email. ) He happens to be the President of the company, and wants to meet with me. As they dont really hire traders, I cant say “trading is all i wanna do”. But I’m sure that he knows others could hook me up with a trading job. But would he be willing to use his contacts to help me out? Or maybe I should just tell him that I’m really interested in what his company does… That way, I’ll atleast have a better chance of getting a job? I’m so confused… Maybe, I could somehow tell him that I’m interested in both… If I cant get something through his contacts, maybe he’d be willing to interview me for a position at his company??? Lots of n00b questions, but some of you guys were probably in the same situation right after college… It would be great if someone could help me out!!! BTW, its not an interview. He just wants to meet with me.
Sorry dude, you’re not likely to get much help on here until after the exam. But here’s my $0.02. Just be friendly and tell him what you’re thinking… you think you’d like to do trading because X, Y, and Z, and you’d like to know 1) If he thinks this makes sense, or maybe there’s another role you’d be better in. (Sometimes traders discover they want to do investing, and vice versa - the two are similar, but not quite the same… if you don’t know the difference, try to explore it). 2) Ask him what kinds of things you should be looking for, and what kinds of activities will set you up best to be attractive. 3) Ask if he can direct you to other people to talk to to learn about this role and perhaps even find a job or internship. 4) Ask if you can report back to him on your progress. People don’t mind giving advice; they do mind being pressured to give you a job, so just be friendly, curious, and open to the possibility that he might recommend you go off in a slightly different direction (or maybe not, but don’t focus narrowly on “I just want to trade,” unless you are absolutely sure that that’s the role you want and nothing else will do).
Very good advice there, BChadwick.
Thanks for your input BChadwick.