Prop Trading or Investment Banking, Which is harder to break into?
(Chimp, 10
Points)
on 12/2/12 at 11:20am
Just kind of curious, from what I've read on here it seems that when people talk about ib, they make it seem almost impossible to break in if you arent from a target, whereas when people talk about prop trading, it seems like its as simple as getting a job in telemarketing or something. So which one is more difficult, or are they the same





Spunking into something warm
Spunking into something warm every weekend is hardest, for sure.
The HBS guys have MAD SWAGGER. They frequently wear their class jackets to boston bars, strutting and acting like they own the joint. They just ooze success, confidence, swagger, basically attributes of alpha males.
^what he said. Jesus, how
^what he said.
Jesus, how dumb are you? I take it you know there are all kinds of prop trading places. From a churn'n'burn to the Tier 1 shit or are you going to group everything together?
CNBC sucks
"This financial crisis is worse than a divorce. I've lost all my money, but the wife is still here." - Client after getting blown up
Not sure where you saw that
Not sure where you saw that getting into prop trading was a cake-walk (?) ... I've had interviews for IBD and prop trading and will say without doubt that the prop questions were far more advanced and difficult (think linear algebra, probability, matrices, etc...).
mountainvalley: Not sure
Not sure where you saw that getting into prop trading was a cake-walk (?) ... I've had interviews for IBD and prop trading and will say without doubt that the prop questions were far more advanced and difficult (think linear algebra, probability, matrices, etc...).
Though I agree that most prop trading interviews are tougher and more technical, I think I see the source of OP's confusion. It ultimately comes down to numbers. When people talk about IBD on this site, they generally refer to bulge brackets, and talk about how competitive it is just to get a phone interview without OCR. On the other hand, it seems like every other week there's a post on here from a nontarget kid with a title "Got an offer/interview at [no-name or rip-off propshop], anyone heard of them?". There are obviously a lot fewer BBs than there are T3-style propshops, and because OP can't distinguish between Getco and a rip-off shop (as Working9-5 refers to above), it seems like prop trading is easier to break into.
To offer my 2 cents of OP's question, no valuable career move is easy to get. If it's a good career starter, it will be hard to get, regardless of the industry (banking, prop trading, etc)
It all depends on whether you
It all depends on whether you are a profitable trader, which isn't easy. The sheer fact that you are asking how difficult it is to get into a shop says you aren't going to add value for the partners.
"A man generally has two reasons for doing anything. One that sounds good, and the real one." - J.P. Morgan