I am so frustrated with this job search. I don’t know what it has to take in order to land a job with my qualification. I see so many ppl who barely have a bach. get jobs and its really depressing. I see a lot of experienced ppl here, so I was hoping to get some advice/suggestions about what I am doing wrong here. I have a bach. in finance and then completing my MS Accounting and a level 2 candidate. I am trying to get into research (willing to try out either equity or fixed-income). And location is not a preference. Anywhere, as long as I get the experience. I have couple of internships (one as fixed-income analyst) and the one previous to that was in IT for a concumer bank. I thought I would be in a good position once I get done with school, and have been got thru interviews, and I thought I kicked ***, but never got offered any positions. For those of you in the industry, what do you look for in candidates? I fail to understand HR ppl sometimes. Your replies will be highly appreciated. Thanks
"what do you look for in candidates? " Better grammar.
Sorry…I wrote the post in a hurry…
Avoid HR and focus on meeting people and money managers (maybe at a local CFA chapter). HR’s job is to protect the company from mistakes. They don’t have much incentive to find optimal talent - they’re much more concerned about making sure that no one too risky gets through the process. If you have an unusual background, sorry, but there are too many ordinary candidates that aren’t as risky. That’s the HR background. Actual fund managers and senior analysts are different. They want real talent. You’ll still seem risky, but they are likely to give you more of a chance to demonstrate that you’ve put in the work necessary to lower the risk over what it appears on paper. Then you argue that you are a great value and a great guy to work with. Of course, it still hasn’t rung the dinner bell for me yet, but definitely avoid HR. Headhunters aren’t much better (but they are marginally so).