Career Advice

Hello everyone,

Some background: graduated from a state school with a finance degree. I never participated in any investment banking related clubs/activities and never had an investment banking internship. Was unemployed my first year out of school and was not sure what I wanted to do with my life. Ended up getting a job as a financial advisor at a very large firm and worked there for two years. Recently was hired by a very large asset manager in a sales oriented role. Over the past few years, I have grown and learned a lot, and have found that I enjoy reading the research reports my company puts out and have started diving into financial modeling and developing some of my own unique investment ideas. Upon further research into hedge funds it seems to me like a career path I would enjoy long term. I applied to some MBA programs where I will be able to work full time and obtain my degree and want to take the CFA

My question is do you all think it is possible to make a jump into hedge funds? I realize it would be a few years out from now as I still have lots to learn, but does it matter that I did not complete the typical investment banking-private equity route? My thoughts are that if I can obtain my MBA, my CFA, and maybe move internally within my current company to one of the mutual fund teams as an analyst or something like that that I could maybe justify my background and experience to jump into hedge funds. 
 

What are your thoughts? Crazy? Possible? Little bit of both? And if it is possible, what would that career path look like/what should I be aiming for to keep my expectations realistic. Any and all help is appreciated, thank you very much.

3 Comments
 

A standard route now is school -> HF for the large platforms - would look into all of their hiring criteria, fund I’m going to also hires standard masters students for the graduate programs so you could go for a cheaper course - another avenue to look at

 

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