What are some appropriate career paths given my interests?
Taking a short break to get on WSO after a long hiatus due to long working hours, and hoping to receive some guidance from you all before I get back at it....
I'm 2 years out of undergrad, and am highly considering going after an MBA in a few years. I'm interested in pursuing consulting, but would like some feedback in general on career fields that might fit me well (banking, law, business development, consulting, etc.) given my personality. For consulting in particular, I'm curious to hear if there are any specific areas in particular that might be fitting... any feedback would be helpful!
LIKES: (ordered starting with highest personal preference)
-Operations and Strategy
-Planning and Coordinating
-Financial / quantitative / data analysis (excel)
-Public speaking
-Problem solving - advising and teaching others
-Focusing on a few projects as opposed to many
-Business development / sales / marketing
-Networking, cultivating / maintaining relationships (never said I excel at it though!)
DISLIKES:
-Detailed technical / math-y analysis (e.g. anything requiring anything beyond basic calculus)
-People that can't pull their own weight
-Not being challenged
NEUTRAL:
-Running meetings
-Excessive travel (if I went for consulting, I would want to end up at an office where there is some opportunity to work locally)
-Managing lots of people directly
Elaborate please
Why is your screen-name QuantKing, if you don't want to do quantitative analysis? Not meant to call you out, just genuinely curious. Also, this point pretty much eliminates banking and business development as these are both fairly analytic and technical in nature (at least in the beginning) and while they may not require advanced math, they are centered on quantitative reasoning. I would go for consulting if I were you. Hope this helped somewhat, best of luck!
I merely said quant analysis isn't my favorite of all things - never said I wasn't good at it. To the contrary, I'm pretty damn good at it. Pursuing engineering masters part time while working full time with a 4.0 gpa to date... fairly high gpa in undergrad as well
Also, are we talking about the same thing here? When I say "technical / quantitative analysis", I mean using advanced calculus to solve a complex physics or design problem (or the equivalent in finance). If we're talking basic finance NPV calculations and spreadsheet number crunching, I actually do like that. It's just advanced math that gives me a headache.
Should probably have specified this.
Sales. It hits a lot of your likes.
this.
tell us more about what your interests in finance are. what you listed pretty much permeates all areas of finance at some level. do you like research, do you like playing with spreadsheets, do you like finding & meeting with clients, what about finance intrigues you?
I like playing with spreadsheets. It's fun and I'm good at it. I like taking a massive and complex set of data and simplifying into a tangible form that can be presented to management types. Finding and meeting with clients intrigues me - I think this would be exciting, but I feel my soft skills could use some development in that area. I have no problem approaching and engaging new people (I do this on a weekly basis at work and am quite comfortable with it), but I feel I can be a little awkward about it.
Go for a quant trading or hedge fund goal. If you're a math geek please go for that. Way back then I'd have killed to do that. Spinning a PE or IB position isn't what you want as a goal of you're quantitively focused.
How would you summarize difference between quant/HF and PE/IB? I was under the impression - at least at the entry level - that both paths require a lot of number crunching. Also, would I be well served to pursue an MBA before either?
I enjoy quantitative analysis. Also enjoy strategy and operations focused work. I think building and maintaining a client base would also be fun, however, I'm not sure how well I would fare at sales.
The quant aspect of IB or PE isn't very tough. Outside of a few more complex formulas in excel it's basically addition and subtraction and when it gets super complex, division. But you get really good at excel and ppt. My analyst/associates can format a ppt like superman.
If I had to do it all over I'd go for a more math, engineering or physics degree and get into a quant hf. The people I know who have the most money at a younger age are hedge fund or prop trader types who had no finance background but were super intelligent (think Susquehanna, Jane St, DE Shaw).
How would you summarize difference between quant/HF and PE/IB? I was under the impression - at least at the entry level - that both paths require a lot of number crunching. Also, would I be well served to pursue an MBA before either?
I enjoy quantitative analysis. Also enjoy strategy and operations focused work. I think building and maintaining a client base would also be fun, however, I'm not sure how well I would fare at sales.
You seem to like pretty much everything. Maybe you should whittle that list down a bit.
But I agree with a poster above. S&T seems like a good match. Consulting does not. But you do have pretty broad interests so a tough call for strangers to make.
I reduced a few bullets and ordered from most to least significant. Perhaps this will help
OP: how old are you?
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