MS, CFA®, job opportunities

I am a recent MS graduate (Financial Engineering, University of Montreal) now working as a credit risk analyst for a Quebec Bank in Montreal, Canada. I am interested in working in New York but am intimidated by the competition and unsure which jobs are perhaps a good match.

I have little experience but am considering doing the level I CFA® this year in hopes this will help me for New York. I am not interested in going head-to-head with Harvard PhDs for quant jobs in New York.

1) What kind of jobs should I look for in New York if I want a mix of finance and quantitative? What is a good match for me? I'm not even sure what kind of job listings to check and get confused with all the titles - investment banking, equity research, etc. Is financial engineering too quant? Can risk analysis/management be mixed finance/quantitative? Should I search for MS in the job listings?

2) Will a CFA® help me? Or would rather FRM/PRMIA actually help me significantly? This topic seems to have very mixed reviews on this forum. Remember, I dont want to be a full 100% quant. Id rather not attempt to compete with ivy league PhDs - there seem to be a lot of them, they get burnt out after a few years of the postdoc stuff. But I get the impression that FRM/PRMIA is nice yet redundant with my MS and not even that well recognised.

2 Comments
 
Best Response

CFA wont help you. Look into trading or something like that. See what banks recruit at CMU or Princeton. Don't bother looking for MS degree postings because most places don't specifically recruit or post jobs for a MS degree (either BS or MBA).

 

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