I'm unfortunately stuck in a rut.
I've worked essentially as a commodities analyst at a very small macro research firm for 5 years, having taken this as my first job after graduating from a Russell Group uni with a bachelors in Maths. The money has been good, I've learned more than I could have imagined, and got the CFA.
However, I've massively struggled to find exit ops from this role. I want to stay in the sector, ideally to go into trading, asset management, or anything else where I can leverage my experience. Maybe it's because I don't have a masters, maybe it's because my firm has basically zero reputation. But after many sent applications with anything associated with commodities, I'm struggling to get past first stages.
Any tips or advice from you guys would be grand - I'd accept anything at this point (barring a massive paycut).
Kinda odd you aren’t getting a look for the interviews; could be a few things:
1.) you don’t have or aren’t highlighting your econometrics/python/coding/data analysis experience so not getting picked up by algorithms- fix is simple if just resume driven and harder if you need to pick up the skills but can be done (as a maths grad I kinda doubt this is hurting you but maybe you aren’t highlight what you have)
2.) your firm name is hurting you- by now you should have some industry contacts on either sell or buy side for some warmer introductions- if not then get to some industry conferences and start meeting people (I kinda doubt this to be honest as at your level of experience I think they’d be fine with a small firm)
3.) you don’t have the experience- are you building supply/demand models and forecasting curves? Or just “writing about commodities” (I only say this bc small firms can be unstructured)- to fix this teach yourself how to build these models
4.) your experience is too niche ie you’re a corn analyst or something but again doubt it at a small firm- fix would be to do some work examples on oil or something or highlight your analytical skills
Didn’t comment on interview skills since you’re not getting there and of course hiring environment is bad so that could be it. A masters could help but I’d address the above before going down that path. Also reps matter- if you are talking 5 openings could be bad luck, but if 20 then something to solve. Good luck.
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