Trader + Career Advice = Next Job
Hello WSO,
I'm hoping for career advice/input on how to get to the next position. Any advice on my work experience, or advice on where to reach out to/who, would be greatly appreciated.
My background:
- institutional sales trading (equities) 3 years
- buy-side trading (derivatives) 3 years
- programming experience (think python)
- currently in midwest
My target:
- hedge fund in NYC/CT/Boston area
- size: preferably AUM >$1b
- strategy: can be anything equity or global macro/systematic related
My goals:
- continue to use my programming skills
- continue to learn from smart people
- leverage my trading background
need more detail....were you just an execution trader? did you participate in idea generation? research? what exactly is your value proposition? if you are on the quant side...what kind of quantitative techniques are you proficient with?
great questions.
It's not a great market really ever for execution guys, you really need to leverage your prime brokerage/cap intro contacts from the bulges to get looks at new seats unless you know a PM personally. Even then, it's really just GS/MS/JPM that are giving solid intros.
Macro will be tough unless you have a PM willing to go to bat for you as a pre-interview reference. Equity salestrading isn't looked upon the same way OTC derivs market making is. If you want to trade, the platforms (namely Millennium and Citadel) are usually recruiting for central execution desk guys but these are pure execution seats. The opportunities at discretionary macro platforms that may have given guys a shot in the past are few and far between now that Brevan is a shadow of its former self, and Graham is really emphasizing systematic. For both of these they prefer a background in OTC rates/fx and to a much lesser extent commodities market making. Baly might be an option in Chicago, but I don't have a real feel for what they're doing lately.
My advice would be to leverage your network, speak to your PB/Cap intro contacts, and just don't get discouraged as it's not an easy market - particularly if you have to relocate.
Depending on your background I would be careful with positioning yourself as a quant, only because typically those backgrounds require highly rigorous coding/academic credentials. DE Shaw comes to mind as a place where there is more crossover between trading and analytical responsibilities for some books.
Really appreciate the info/insight. I've spent some time learning software development to be able to bring coding capabilities (not quant per se) and trading experience, with the thought being that some firms may need a multi-tasker to sit into a trading role. ie: work on data related work, some research, automate a process, etc.
Agreed to not position myself as a quant as I don't have the MsC or PhD to back it up.
Appreciate anything else that may come to mind.
Baly fires a ton of macro a few months ago.
Thank you for the pointers.
What would be considered an "alpha-extraction" unit? Where do those exist? Hedge funds can be broad, so a value shop? A quant shop? A multi-strat shop?
Thank you
Maybe you can be an analyst on a PM team at a multi-strat or a multi-manager, maybe a research quant in a value shop etc. You can be successful in any shop, as long as you are one of the guys actually contributing to the bottom line.
Just curious, why avoiding execution desks could be useful? I am looking into S&T/AM industry given my interests and would like to learn more about
execution is now viewed as a lower-value commodity....the real high-value lies in the idea generation
I'm going into a sales-trading desk this year. What do you think the market is currently like, and do you have any advice for 1st year analysts in institutional sales-trading?
depends on the product...
Equity sales-trading desk within Sales and Trading
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