I recently graduated from a top 40 (but non target) university in June and have been working since. I was unable to get a job in my desired fields of Asset Management or trading, but I did get a position in a financial analytics (middle office/quantish) role at a major rating agency in San Francisco. I'm glad that I found a job with a respectable company and that has good opportunities for advancement, but the work itself is tedious, low pay for finance standards, and has a government job like environment (yet I have still been a top performer). I don't know if I just sound impatient, but from talking to peers in finance and reading this site, my current position my put me in the front office kiss of death. My long term career goal is to start my own hedge fund. If I were to switch jobs, it would be to go to either front office asset management, trading, or equity research. I have also learned from this experience Which of the following options should I take with my current situation (or something else if you have a better idea)?
Options:
- Continue Networking and try to jump to the buy side as soon as possible. If that does not work apply to to top ten business schools after two years work experience.
1a) Same as plan #1 except wait a year before looking to jump ship
- Stay and move up within my current firm until going to top 10 business school after two years of work experience.
3 (and least desirable option by a longshot). Stay at current firm until I find out what I want to do outside of finance. I have other interests than investing, and if I continue to get shutout because of where I went to college, I'll pursue something I enjoy more than ops style work.
Resume stats: 3.5 GPA economics major, one hedge fund internship and one real estate investment firm internship, know VBA and basic PHP
Doesn't matter what you're learning to do right now as long as it gets you into a top 10 B-School. You need contacts and a loaded network to start a Hedge Fund. So what you must do is get into B-School, land a job working as a buy side analyst, make some friends, launch hedge fund at 35yrs old (or right out of b-school with some friends if you have big balls and can get AUM).
Hello
Your first aim should be of getting in top ten business schools. Try to build your network which will help you later in hedge fund field .
All the Luck Thanks http://www.fintel.us/
best of luck
I think there is a lot of mis-information about top-10 b-schools. My recommendation would be plan 1. if you do not have pre-mba work experience in investment banking/pe, or major hedge funds, it is going to be almost impossible to jump straight into a reputable fund after graduation. Sure you could probably get a job as an analyst at fidelity covering a sector, but if you want to work at a nice distressed shop or reputable fund they are pretty much only going to go after the ex-bankers or ex-buy-side students. hedge fund jobs are pretty hard to come by even for b-school students (unlike banking and m/c where you just have to work a bit harder than the average student to almost guarantee yourself a job at a top-10 bschool), so if you aren't amazing at networking its very slim
so the best bet is to jump into the buy-side ASAP. if you can work at a random fund for 2 years and still get into a top10 bschool your chances of joining a reputable firm after mba and then starting your own fund are much higher. of course there is a trade off of getting into bschool, as the skills you're learning here at a big name company will allow you to get into a top-10 school whereas working at a 2-person hedge fund might not help your application that much (as admins like to see management experience and ability to work with people, not pure analytical/stock choosing abilities)
regardless i think you seem pretty motivated. going to business school and lateraling is a solid backup plan but i think you can be more proactive than that
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