Little back ground:
I currently work for a large retail mortgage lender...current role is sales manager. I run a team of bankers and my main function is to drive production.
I am also in my last year at Ross's evening MBA program. I will be done this fall and plan on recruiting, focusing on S&T (preferably sales).
A position opened up within our cap markets dept...title is hedge desk trader. Went and interviewed for it today. Main function of this role is to hedge our pipeline, mainly by selling MBS forwards...and there is some cross-sectional hedging as well. Our pipeline is running at about $3-4 billion right now (down substantially from $7-8 billion just a few mos ago before rates shot up). We also put together some of our own bonds and sell them to traders. Also the dept is constantly trying to come up with new and better analytics to better predict our fall out ratio...so someone like me, who has been working in the front lines for many years, who has a "pulse" of what's going, is value added.
They love me for the position...but they know that there is a strong possibility that I will be leaving at the end of the year. Also my compensation requirements are above the limits for this position...though I would still be taking a substantial pay cut.
My thoughts are that if this experience can give me a leg up on recruiting, then it's worth it. I think that one of the hardest "learning curves" in any industry/function is "speaking the language" and with respect to this, I will at least have "market" experience.
And there is also a possibility that i can renegotiate my compensation once I am finished with school (though what they can afford to pay will still be a lot less than a typical all-in comp for a 1st year S&T associate).
Now I've perused these forums for a few months...but I am still very ignorant on the various roles, functions, exit ops, etc...My thoughts are that since this position will require daily interactions with traders at many of the big banks, i can leverage it as a networking opportunity and better my chances at landing the job I want after graduation. Even if I decide to stay with (which is a strong possibility...many reasons for this but dont want to bore you with minute details), i can still use this role to build a network of relationships for exit ops 3-5 yrs down the line.
So for someone in this, or similar type of a role, will the experience that is gained in the next 9-10 mos be something that could give me the leg up on at least landing more interviews with BBs? What type of exit ops would be there (if i were to stay in this role 3-5 yrs) for this type of a role? Would most of the ops be in some type of risk management role?
Any and all advice extremely appreciated.
