Hi all, I've been lurking for a while and figured i should post as the need or me to find a job approaches. I am in the last 1-1.5 years of finishing up a PhD in mechanical engineering in a good program (department is pretty much always 1-3 on lists, if that matters). My masters was in energy systems, and my research focus now is in a branch of practical engine development for aerospace/defence. However, over the course of the last 3-4 years I have developed a strong interest in finance. To that end, I've completed a "PhD minor" in Mgmt science and engineering focusing on classes relating to finance like investment science, stochastic modeling and calculus, portfolio mgmt, and now I'm auditing a class on credit risk.
The problem is that all of my experience is in engineering, and I can't do internships since my advisor expects his students to work year round in his lab. This means that I haven't had any good opportunities to figure out where my skillset might be a good match in the finance industry. What I'm looking for here is some advice on where to look and what I might do to find the right path forward.
Thanks.
I don't know much, so I'll simply reiterate what others have said on this site: consulting, ER, VC, S&T, and quant-related work for hedge fund/asset manager/etc...
Yeah I know what all those job areas are, I guess what I don't know is what people in those roles actually do.
It's probably also worth mentioning that while I have taken some quant-like classes I really am not looking to go down that path as my formal math skills are probably not up to scratch. I think I'd be much more suited to portfolio analysis/modeling/optimization perhaps, not so much stochastic vol models or the like...
I think having a PhD is going to work against you (the PhD is not even remotely related to Finance). Most firms are looking to hire analysts right out of undergraduate and associates out of MBA. You really need to craft a good story on "why finance"; right now, people are most likely to label you as the technical guy (PhD guy, Engineering guy) instead of the people guy (banker type). And without having relevant experience, your story is going to be a hard sell.
I'd say, potentially look at (actual) trading if your math is 'not up to scratch', but still strong, I assume you'd have some programming skills, so you could 'future-proof' any doom and gloom about algo's taking over 'human jobs', whilst your proficiency with math would allow you to get through interviews with some decent prop shops.
Only job you can aim is Strat
I think there are lots of opportunities for PhDs...
1) Venture Capital: Probably more people in VC with PhDs than there are ex-bankers. Not necessary to have prior finance experience as they hire you for your knowledge of a particular industry (i.e. energy / aerospace in your case).
2) Corporate: tons of PhDs in corporate settings -- credit, risk management, strategy etc. They hire you for your technical know-how, not prior finance experience. Capital One is a company that comes to mind that hires a lot of engineering majors in finance/strategy-related roles. I'm sure the same is true for many other financial services companies & banks.
3) Trading: I'll let someone else speak to that b/c my knowledge is limited, but I know a lot of PhD go into trading.
4) Consulting: Not much to say here, but you'd have a great shot with a phd from a top engineering school.
Honestly, in my opinion, there's a lot that you can do with a phd. It might be tougher to enter the analyst class of IBD, but given your background, I doubt you'd want to go that route anyways. When you figure out what type of finance interests you the most, you surely won't be turned away because you have a phd. You'll just have to be a bit more targeted in your search (ie you must network) due to the limited on-campus/non-existant recruiting.
Sound advice here. I'd add financial research, both buy and sell-side. But regardless of what you decide to do, pick one or two areas and really learn them: employers will want to test your dedication to pursuing a career in finance and the more you know the better prepared you will be to answer those questions.
non-finance PhD here with non-traditional path to finance. Happy to speak specifics by PM.
I know a lot of people who have gone into top tier consulting firms on post-PhD associate programs, depending on your school there may be OCR and these are pretty standard programs. see: http://www.mckinsey.com/Careers/Your_background/Advanced_professional_d…
Other paths will depend on your interests, skill set and ability to network.
On the last point have you leveraged your schools alumni network?
you're gonna have no problems as long as you have people skills. engineering is THE ticket. MBA has nothing on an engineering phd. an engineering phd operates intellectually on a whole other plane from most harvard MBA's. i've seen it, its almost uncomfortable watching people realize who the smartest person in the room is and the phd realizes how much s/he's got to slow themselves down for everyone else. get a job, bang out the cfa and your golden. most engineers do very well in trading.
Oh man, I just wrote up a long reply and then lost the comment when I went to log in. I'll try to go back and rewrite as best I can. I think all the ideas and the main talking points are summarized in Poff's comment, so I'll follow his order.
1) VC is definitely an option, and I actually have a couple friends that work at well-known tech. VC firms in the valley. It also might be the best fit in terms of technical fit, however I wonder if green-energy and/or aerospace have a very large footprint anywhere. My past research has uncovered only very small firms with small AUM values.
2) I assume that when you say corporate, you mean some financial services companies other than traditional products and services offered by investment banks. Something like strategy or risk management sounds interesting, but a little vague and opaque. Could anyone point to some reading material that might enlighten me? I have already read a short book by the CFA institute on risk management, but strategy remains unclear.
3) I actually think trading at a HF/asset manager might be a good fit. I have enough financial knowledge to have in-depth discussions on (some) markets. I also think my analytical and problem solving skills are fairly strong. Note when I said I don't have strong enough math skills for quant work what I meant was that I am not formally trained in real analysis or high-level statistics, thus concepts such as Stieltjes integration are lost on me, but I can do optimization/PDEs/Fourier analysis and the rest of the general bag of tricks most engineers rely upon.
4) Consulting is the one path here where there is some precedent. One student from my group took a job at BCG last year, and several more in the past have taken jobs at firms better known for technical consulting (eg. Exponent). Given this precedent, I will almost certainly pursue consulting jobs to some degree. They also tend to do OCR targeting engineers with advanced degrees. Thanks for the McKinsey link, btw.
Lastly, I have yet to leverage the extensive alumni network that my school offers. Perhaps I should start doing that this summer to set up some informational interviews as I try to get a handle on where I should be headed?
Sorry for the long reply, but I think this really helped me straighten out many of my thoughts on the matter. Thanks to everyone for your comments.
I would definitely spend the time to find out what campus career services can offer (names of people recently placed, companies with OCR and schedule, prep materials, etc.) check the alumni directory for people in firms/sectors you'd be interested to learn about and start networking. especially if you're at a top tier university.
look into trading firms and jobs for quants
Banks aren't usually open-minded enough to take PhDs based on what I've heard, but you have a shot at the strats department. On the buy-side, what really matters is how many ideas you can generate, or how much $$$ you can make for the firm.
Career Advice for Engineering PhD (Originally Posted: 04/03/2015)
Recently, I read this article about 2sigma on the WSJ (How Computers Trawl a Sea of Data for Stock Picks). I was like "Dang, that is exactly what I've been looking for!". Not only does it sound like a lot of smart people work there, but they are doing interesting machine learning work and computation. Plus, they are much closer to the money/value proposition than any engineer in the valley. Also, they have
Your reference to Google being the Walmart of search is ironic.
With your credentials, I wouldn't think 32 would be too old at all. The hedge fund space tends to be a lot less structured than other industries, so it's all a matter of finding a shop that fits your niche and is willing to give you a shot.
Assuming you land a gig and do well, yes. Don't think you'll be making millions right away (or ever) but if you and your fund perform well you'll get paid. One more time, this is going to be variable.
Hours are going to vary place to place. This goes back to that whole variability.
Probably a combination of the two, more of the latter at first and more of the former as you rise in seniority.
Like I said before, hedge funds are looking for people who fit their investment strategy. If you're good, and your manager is good, you'll make money.
Have you heard of Renaissance Technologies?
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