Getting a Hedge Fund job as a Political Science Professor?
Hello all,
I was hoping to get some advice on the types of jobs/funds that might be a natural transition from my current job as a political science lecturer. Just to give a little quick context, I'm in my mid-twenties, was an adjunct professor for 3 years, and am now a full-time lecturer, but on the non-tenure track. I teach primarily courses in international relations, and my own research has been mostly related to immigration in the past, but I am working on an article related to the impact of political event on exchange rates. I've always had an interest in the buy-side, and was a member of the investment club as an undergrad, have read very widely about valuation, hedge fund strategies, etc. (Graham, Malkiel, Veale, Schwager, Ittelson, Schilit, Drobny, etc.). I've taught myself a lot about trading equities, options (from LEAPS to reverse iron condors, etc.), and currencies, as well as hedging methods and managing risk, and I've done quite a bit of investment personally. However, since I am on the non-tenure track and have had a fascination with applying my interest in international politics and political economy on the buy side,
I was wondering if anyone could suggest the type of job that might be relevant given what I have described as my interests. So I guess this all leads me to two specific questions that I hope someone in this community with hedge fund experience can help me answer. First, how likely is this type of background to get me hired (taking for granted I have an enormous amount of enthusiasm for the markets and think about them all day) given that I am not a math, engineering, or science PhD? Second, what type of role should I be looking to apply for (research, portfolio associate, etc.?) and which type of fund would be most conducive to my experience/interests? Perhaps someone with my background has no chance of getting hired into a buyside role? What do you guys think? I appreciate any practicable advice that you could give.
Hedge funds are just a specific subset of asset management. Hedge funds just seek to be broadly uncorrelated with overall market changes through the use of hedging but in many cases the investment framework long-only asset managers use and hedge fund managers use are basically the same. In certain cases there are key differences but speaking generally here. There's a ton of crossover. The head of my firm actually has a a PhD in a similar field to political science. I think if you can try to emphasize the statistical knowledge you've gained through your academic coursework (even if exaggerating a little) but then back it up with self studying you could put yourself in a pretty good position.
Lmao you call linear regression a statistics background? Every college kid on earth knows that
Not sure if you realize this but linear regression analysis can get pretty complicated.
-Understanding how to determine if your regression coefficients are significant -Determining out of sample performance via cross validation -Dealing with multicolinearity -Determining if model residuals are truly random noise as regression assumes -Dealing with missing data -Outlier screening and variable transformation/scaling
All of the above are necessary for doing regression analysis properly. Just because the math is superficially simple/understandable with some calculus and basic linear algebra in no way means that regression analysis is simple.