My background: BS and MBA from local 3rd tier college. 8+ years in IT. Passed all three levels in first try. No prior exposure to investment process. Target firm: small (<30 employees), local (< 300,000 population), 800m under management. Target position is analyst and then moving onto portfolio manager. Would a salary expectation, outside of any bonus, of around $65,000 realistic? If not, what do you think is realistic? Thanks for your opinions.
Tough to say. What area are you in? I think starting for analyst is anywhere between 30-40k? For entry positions, employers especially in this economy are not willing to pay more so they would rather pay someone with lower qualifications for 30k than someone with outside experience with 65k. I think 65k is reasonable for a portfolio manager. If you’re talking about a general job with MBA experience + your charter, 65k is more than realistic… but entry level positions typically don’t want MBA employees unless the employee doesn’t mind the paycut. As a MBA graduate + charter status, however, I would think that you should be able to get a job that pays more… like at least 80k. Reason I say this is that the internships pay pretty well, and if you were going to settle for a job that pays 65k, you could have done this without an MBA. Weren’t you paid close to 6 figures in IT? Why the change and potential paycut?
Ocean Mist: thanks for the reply. I appreciate your input. The situation is there is mutual interest between the target firm and me. Their intention is to get me in the door, get me acclimated to the investment process, and then after a short time period (1-2 years at the most), make me a PM. The starting position of an analyst is a “transition” position, if you will. A couple more pieces of info: location is Midwest, and I don’t have the charter yet – only passed the exams. With this new info, what would you say would be reasonable if I was asked what my expectation is? One more thing: I wish I am paid 6 figures 
The reality is I’m not and there is no room for advancement.
fwvagabond Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > No prior exposure to investment > process. fwvagabond Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > after a short time > period (1-2 years at the most), make me a PM. The > starting position of an analyst is a “transition” > position, if you will. Anyone else see something odd here?
Move to NY. You will make a lot more here with your background.
Asset Mgmt: if you don’t mind, would you share that oddity with us? Thacharter: how much more would you say I could make in NY?
what’s your ‘IT’ experience?
Mar350: Development mainly. Coding in programming languages and database development. Also project management and admin-type stuff (such as training new employees).
^ if you don’t move to Finance, you can make close to 85K to 90K plus bonus. You can cross 100K mark in NYC
pupdawg82, thanks for the input. But if I were to move to finance, what do you think I should expect based on my background, location, and firm info?
we have a lot of IT guys at our bank that pull 85k plus and do a variable 9-5 (project based, have CFA) if you’re new to the analyst/pm stuff, 65k is a start. you’d get more in nyc just for living exp.
65k sounds really low to me, but I guess your location might be the major thing (i’m outside the states and I would be looking for 3/4x that amount tbh). 8 years exp & MBA & CFA would put you at the 30 yo mark and pretty well qualified. However, if that salary is not massively different to what you get, allows you to get by in life AND get great experience, go for it. Otherwise, i’d be asking them to pony up a little more. You should aim to be reassuringly expensive when prost.tuting yourself in this life. Now for the part you really want to know, do this if you have not done so already: 1. Ring up a reputable recruitment agency firm and say you are looking for that type of job in that location. They will try to get information from you e.g. CV/meeting. For a much less painful option: 2. Get on efinancialcareers website (and others) and narrow down your search to that area/job to get comparables. You do not need to reference expected salary on your background, only on the job you are applying for. If they are looking for someone with your background (it sounds like you could have some good skills, so presumably in low supply) and want to get into bed with you, they will negotiate. Good luck.
fwvagabond Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Asset Mgmt: > > if you don’t mind, would you share that oddity > with us? Just seems a little weird that a firm with close a 1b under MGMT is willing to make someone, who will have had at most 2 years of investment experience (from what you’re telling us) a PM. Attaining the CFA designation doesn’t really mean anything if you don’t know how to apply it. Most traders/pm’s say you haventreally learned how to trade/be a PM until you’ve lost almost all of your own money doing it. It’s not a knock on you (even though this is the internet so by definition you have to take it personall) it just seems a bit riske. But I like threesomes and that’s riske, so to eath their own.
Be wary of using past data points to try to predict the future. The only real way to determine your value is to go to the market (i.e. circulate resume and see what offers you get). It could range from zero (no one needs you) to a shitton of money.
I was in a pretty similar position. I had tech job experience but absolutely ZERO finance experience, passed the exams and then offered a entry salary as if I was a college grad. By the way, I’m also located outside of big finance cities. If you’re expecting 65k, I think it’s a pretty good start (my starting point was way lower, and AUM of current firm is similar to your offered firm). Good thing about working at a small firm is they will increase your pay exponentially faster. Also, is this a hedge fund? Hedge fund pay are heavily leaned towards performance based bonus at the end of the year (albeit with very low salary), so you might still be big bucks.
There are a good number of jobs that combine IT and finance, and CFA would throw you over the top. Say writing some SQL code to pull financial data and putting it into a quant model. Problem is - in a town of 300k, that job will be difficult if not impossible to find.
Who cares, if you have an offer to get some good experience and this is what you want to do, you should do it. The experience is more important than the pay of your first position. After a few solid years you can bounce for more cash.
Ok people, first of all, no investment experience = no charter The CFAI doesn’t care if you have 8 years in IT, or passed 3 levels on the 1st try each. There IS a difference between having passed 3 exams with no experience and actually having the charter. In finance, the CFA is valuable yes, but work experience is worth even more. Having passed the 3 exams will give you a leg up on other people trying to get the same job, but it WILL be an entry job, and you start at the bottom. There is NO WAY you will go from entry analyst to PM in 1-2yrs. Don’t even bother dreaming about it, not a chance. There are hundreds of IT programmers wanting to get into finance. At GS, nearly every single back office/IT support analyst wanted to break into front office. And for a method of comparison, a recent grad from a top undergrad business school in finance and good investment internship experience will easily have the upper hand against a 8yr IT with MBA for an entry level job. hands down
I love that this guy makes a jump most people say is impossible and instead of helping him, or congratulating them most comments are about how it can’t be done, or it’s meaningless. Do I sense some envy here? I love how people treat this industry like it’s a gov job, you need to get an MBA, be a sell side analyst for 2 years, then be a buyside analyst then finally you somehow automatically earn the PM role. And it’s discussed as if there is no other way… I don’t know any more than the OP, but obviously this firm sees something in this person they like and see them as PM capable. I say congratulations on making the job, good luck and enjoy the new job!
pgh.ndt Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I love that this guy makes a jump most people say > is impossible and instead of helping him, or > congratulating them most comments are about how it > can’t be done, or it’s meaningless. > > Do I sense some envy here? I love how people > treat this industry like it’s a gov job, you need > to get an MBA, be a sell side analyst for 2 years, > then be a buyside analyst then finally you somehow > automatically earn the PM role. And it’s > discussed as if there is no other way… > > I don’t know any more than the OP, but obviously > this firm sees something in this person they like > and see them as PM capable. I say congratulations > on making the job, good luck and enjoy the new > job! You have wayyyyy to much faith in the system, I’d say the people on AF are more realistic, which is why I like it so much. People aren’t afraid to tell you the truth. It’s awesome OP jumped offices and got a job, do I think becoming a PM in 2 years is intelligent? No. Not on the OP’s part, on the firms part.