If you want a top MBA, avoid trading
From seeing my trader friends get absolutely crushed with top b-school admissions the past few years, I'm convinced that if you have any intention of going to a top school, avoid trading. The skillsets you develop there are not what schools want. Fair or unfair, they just don't like traders. Even working at a second-tier consulting firm like Deloitte will be better than working at Getco/Jane Street.
I can see why. Besides, trader-turned-MBA-applicant = Loser
This sentiment (largely among posters here in highschool and college) is what makes this board really clownish. People all have different career paths in life and I certainly don't think someone who leaves a trading job to seek a top MBA is a loser. You need to get a grip on reality and stop your internet prestige whoring.
Of the three traders I know who applied to B school , one went to GSB , one to Wharton and one to Columbia. I think that your friends might not be marketing themselves correctly
y the hell would you want to go to bschool after a trading gig?
Depends. If you traded say , CMBS or Credit Exotics or Interest Rate Swaps , your options are very narrow unless you want to continue in that specific instrument. You might want to broaden the range of jobs that you can take. You might want a broader exposure to finance and business. Even if it teaches you nothing , a good MBA opens up doors for you - that's undeniable
Didn't ShortTheWorld get into Duke from Trillium?
Couldn't a trader apply to B-School be viewed as someone who failed and couldn't cut it in S&T?
One could say the same thing about a consultant/corp-dev/IBD/Hedge Fund analyst as well. Don't many firms promote internally to associate and beyond?
Yes, Short is at Duke now.
Don't lump trader to MMA = loser. Some go for specific reasons.
Ha ha ha, touche
I think this is very much true for prop trading firms, much less so for top sell-side and definitely buyside trading desks. Part of it is self-selection. The good traders at shops like Getco/Jane Street/drw/sig/jump are much less willing to give up their earning potential for a full-time mba, so many of them actually do the part-time mba at booth to pick up additional knowledge. Another thing is that prop traders don't really have the type of work experience that adcom wants to see (bunch of liberal arts politically correct women for the most part), and it's very difficult to show those attributes in the application.
The funny thing is - HFT might actually be better for this as you co-ordinate among network engineers , developers and researchers.
I also did quite a lot of volunteer work when I was waiting out my 9 month non-compete. I taught Math and Science to poor kids. You must have done other things along some lines
Hmm. This is actually a good point. I know one guy from Getco/jump starting at stanford gsb this fall, and he told me that in his application he emphasized the fact that he coordinated projects between programmers, IT guys, traders, etc. He made sure to hit home the point that his job involved leadership and teamwork. Plus, he had insane stats, which always helps.
I think the sample size of people from top prop shops applying to MBA is too small to draw a definitive conclusion, although my impression is that adcom in general does not think that the skillsets deployed in trading add much value to a b-school classroom.
I was a trader and met a few while I was thinking about business school. I think you guys forget one major thing about trading that causes a lot of people to leave. It gets boring after a while and if you do semi decent you can afford to do other things in several different fields. Not one trader I met during the business school process was a loser and most went back into trading a either a new product or sales after MBA. Several went to management consulting in the product their traded MBA
HFT trading exciting?
are you fucking kidding me? any actual HFT traders on here?
It's initially exciting because it's so novel. But , later on it really begins to drag. It also pigeonholes you like no other industry.
it was novel in 2008 but now the market is saturated and you find out just how replaceable you are. oh well i don't give a shit, plan is to make the fuck you cash in 5 years and it's off to my pleasure compound in the philippines.
A number of folks I worked with on the trading floor left to get MBAs. Most of them landed at M7 schools.
Sometimes you get bored or burnt out. Especially in a role where your job is to provide liquidity.
my job is provide liquidity
lolololol
This thread is retarded. There's no point in talking in generalizations like this. It's a waste of time. There are former traders at HBS, there are former HF analysts at HBS. Lloyd Blankjew was a trader, looks like he managed okay without yalls brilliant industry insight.
I opened this thread thinking "yeah, no reason for a sell-side trader to get an MBA anyway". But after thinking about it, you could have value as an analyst working directly for a PM if you have sell-side execution experience AND an MBA. So if you're looking to make that shift, it could be possible to make that move.
Can't imagine why any trader would want to get an MBA.
to put their career on a different track.... reason most people go to get a MBA
Career transition, networking, etc. As monty said, trading gets boring and monotonous. It was exciting for a while but got old, and I had a hard time waking up in the morning to go out and do it.
Of course if you've had it with trading it would be a good move, I totaaly forgot about the option of a career switch. Just meant that I thought an MBA would not advance your career as a trader.
And I've only been trading for a while so to me it's still lots of fun.
I know a few people where a MBA helped them get into new products
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