^^ You mean in day trading ? Of course that is the dream of everyone here. With the amount of leverage you can get at typical online brokers and the variety of instruments, short & long available to retail investors, you can turn yourself into a 1 person hedge fund overnight. Unfortunately it involves putting your own assets at risk, and you might go bust well, overnight. If you meant founding your own advisory firm, there are a 1000 things you can do, depending on your experience. A path that I’m finding more and more interesting is founding a leasing company on the side. It’s a relatively simple model and it puts you in touch with people with capital. Nobody ever mentions leasing companies, but they are in effect small banks. Some of them offer products like receivables securitisation, mezzanine and acquisition financing. These ones become, in effect, small investment banks.
topher Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I’ll add to the madness. I stopped searching for > jobs because one can only take so much rejection. > My time is better spent relaxing. > > From fall of 2008 to spring of 2009, I sent > hundreds of apps and tried to work my contacts. I > interviewed with about 10 companies. Some of the > companies took me to the final rounds, but in the > end, I ended up with nothing. > > Pay ranged from 20k lol at a start up HF to 75k + > bonus at a couple of different firms. I have no FO > experience, but was able to interview for FO jobs > partially due to CFA, but I have other things on > my resume that stand out I guess. I remember you from last year, you used to post every week about a new interview. You’re a UC Berkley graduate right ? I can’t believe you’re still looking.
I accepted a position and rejected an interview. Feels nice.
If this board is a small slice of CFA Institute’s members, the organization is going to have a hellova job over the next 5-10 years convincing people to sit for the exam.
CPierce Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > If this board is a small slice of CFA Institute’s > members, the organization is going to have a > hellova job over the next 5-10 years convincing > people to sit for the exam. Disagree. I think ambition and industry misconceptions will keep a steady flow of newcomers for the foreseeable future. Recent graduates and career changers will feed the cycle for a while IMO.
Think about how many idiots are paying 120k for an MBA right now as their answer to the credit crisis…CFA demand will continue for forseeable future
CPierce Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > If this board is a small slice of CFA Institute’s > members, the organization is going to have a > hellova job over the next 5-10 years convincing > people to sit for the exam. It’s probably even worse than this board considering that many test-takers are Indians/Chinese trying to switch from IT to finance ( which we all know will never happen)
dmnyc Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Think about how many idiots are paying 120k for an > MBA right now as their answer to the credit > crisis…CFA demand will continue for forseeable > future seriously what a waste of money. unless you’re a top 20 (20 being the absolute limit IMO) B-school student, dont even f’ing bother with B-school.
FrankArabia Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I don’t work in ibanking or research. But there > are lots of analyst positions at banks for risk > managment and treasury (middle office). there is > absolutely not recession here for those roles but > quite the opposite. from my estimate, > approximately 2 new hires per month just from what > I see. on an hourly adjusted basis, compensation > is similar to analyst at ibank. 55-70k for 40-45 > hour weeks. > > I understand however, most people don’t want these > sort of roles for one reason or another. Give me a site to apply or an email address to email it to, and you’ll see my app there today 
CPAbeatsCFA Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > dmnyc Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Think about how many idiots are paying 120k for > an > > MBA right now as their answer to the credit > > crisis…CFA demand will continue for forseeable > > future > > seriously what a waste of money. unless you’re a > top 20 (20 being the absolute limit IMO) B-school > student, dont even f’ing bother with B-school. Mostly agree. Although if you want to stay within the region of the B-school (assuming its pretty top-notch for the area) it can lead to good opportunities.
What bunch of losers. Get a job!
student1 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > FrankArabia Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > I don’t work in ibanking or research. But there > > are lots of analyst positions at banks for risk > > managment and treasury (middle office). there > is > > absolutely not recession here for those roles > but > > quite the opposite. from my estimate, > > approximately 2 new hires per month just from > what > > I see. on an hourly adjusted basis, > compensation > > is similar to analyst at ibank. 55-70k for > 40-45 > > hour weeks. > > > > I understand however, most people don’t want > these > > sort of roles for one reason or another. > > > Give me a site to apply or an email address to > email it to, and you’ll see my app there today I’m at a Big 3 Bank in Canada. I recommend you check out our website and looking under risk or treasury. These jobs are not strongly advertised and get overlooked cause everybody wants to be an ibanker or go into research. We just hired another guy today. A guy a week ago who was an intern.
FrankArabia – That sounds pretty encouraging. Canadian AFers looking for a job, please take note! On another note, I play in a dodgeball league with some of my buddies here in Texas. The other night, we played a team named Lawrence of Alabia. Frank, I thought you of all people might appreciate that.
risk or treasury category reminds of CIBC placements, and CIBC isn’t a big 3 
RBC uses that term a bit too. Big 3… ok, I’ll check RBC, TD, and BNS again. thanks.
Viceroy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > ^^ > You mean in day trading ? > Of course that is the dream of everyone here. With > the amount of leverage you can get at typical > online brokers and the variety of instruments, > short & long available to retail investors, you > can turn yourself into a 1 person hedge fund > overnight. > > Unfortunately it involves putting your own assets > at risk, and you might go bust well, overnight. > > If you meant founding your own advisory firm, > there are a 1000 things you can do, depending on > your experience. > > A path that I’m finding more and more interesting > is founding a leasing company on the side. > It’s a relatively simple model and it puts you in > touch with people with capital. > Nobody ever mentions leasing companies, but they > are in effect small banks. > Some of them offer products like receivables > securitisation, mezzanine and acquisition > financing. These ones become, in effect, small > investment banks. no, not day trading. I don’t believe in that sort of behaviour. The difficult part is getting the capital to work with. I would retire from my job if i had a bit of money to manage. working at my own pace at 15 hrs a day looking at businesses doing real work beats working 8 hours a day spreadsheet modelling and making presentation slides.
FrankArabia Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > student1 Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > FrankArabia Wrote: > > > -------------------------------------------------- > > > ----- > > > I don’t work in ibanking or research. But > there > > > are lots of analyst positions at banks for > risk > > > managment and treasury (middle office). there > > is > > > absolutely not recession here for those roles > > but > > > quite the opposite. from my estimate, > > > approximately 2 new hires per month just from > > what > > > I see. on an hourly adjusted basis, > > compensation > > > is similar to analyst at ibank. 55-70k for > > 40-45 > > > hour weeks. > > > > > > I understand however, most people don’t want > > these > > > sort of roles for one reason or another. > > > > > > Give me a site to apply or an email address to > > email it to, and you’ll see my app there today > > > I’m at a Big 3 Bank in Canada. I recommend you > check out our website and looking under risk or > treasury. These jobs are not strongly advertised > and get overlooked cause everybody wants to be an > ibanker or go into research. > > We just hired another guy today. A guy a week ago > who was an intern. The difficult part is getting these jobs with no risk or treasury experience ^^
Phil, Not true at all. I would say the qualifications of the people are high, MBA, CFA, Masters, tremendous with computers VBA, SQL, Access all that stuff i have no clue about. However, experience is not required by any means especially if you’re looking at just an analyst position. Only senior roles require experience but experience in the ibank definitely count. Two of our senior people that came on the team over the year were not experienced people. one was an ibanker and the other was a commecial banker.
FrankArabia Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Phil, > > Not true at all. I would say the qualifications of > the people are high, MBA, CFA, Masters, tremendous > with computers VBA, SQL, Access all that stuff i > have no clue about. > > However, experience is not required by any means > especially if you’re looking at just an analyst > position. Only senior roles require experience but > experience in the ibank definitely count. Two of > our senior people that came on the team over the > year were not experienced people. one was an > ibanker and the other was a commecial banker. Hey Frank, I was not implying that risk or treasury people were not very qualified. As you said, they use all these softwares. What I meant to say, and that’s the essence of your 2nd paragraph, is that it is difficult to get into these roles without prior experience. That’s the case in continental Europe, at least. Take an equity analyst, unemployed, 32 years old (no, it’s not me!). How can he get into risk/treasury? Isn’t he too old for analyst positions and too inexperienced for more senior roles?
If “you” or somebody was an equity analyst, they wouldn’t even have to start at an analyst position. You or they can easily get a manager role. The intern that we got came from an engineering background and really don’t have experience with banking at all, just an MBA from a top school here. risk/treasury jobs are kind of operational in nature which turn people off but you do make a lot of decisions in the senior roles in terms of hedges, funding, capital etc. the only thing about certain risk/treasury jobs is that they’re computer intensive so that might screen out a few people that way.
FrankArabia Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- … just an MBA from a top school here Lol “just”