Background: I am currently a quant at a BB working under SnT dep and I'm trying to get a seat in actual trading. I have some years of enlisted military experience under my belt and it took me years/luck/effort to become a quant as I am now. I am in my early 30s. I am a non-white male and I do not have visa sponsor issues like most of my colleagues do.
I have been preparing/interviewing for almost a year now trying to switch to trader(buyside and sellside) and found it to be extremely difficult. I always thought my quant backgroud(or maybe military backgound? it can be a disadvantage) would be an edge for me among other candidates, but my experience in recruiting tells me otherwise. For buyside prop firms, I would get most of my technical right but get rejected after superday for the reason of "not considered to be a good fit", or the interviewer will ask me a very practical trading question(stuff that you only learn from the job) which I have zero exposure to for a junior trader role and expect me to answer it perfectly, or in a even worse case, the interviewer asks me what my parents do for living, how did they come to this country and get rejected after this behavior round. Sellside BBs simply ignore my application and I cant even get an interview with them.
But on the forum some of you guys make it look like a walk in the park to get a seat in trading, and I notice that younger guys(mostly white male) with almost zero market knowledge and not stem would get BB SnT offers easily(even from non target) This makes me to question myself if there really is a age/race/school preference in the trading business. Should I keep pursing in this direction?
so you're asian
Sure, do you think there is any bias against Asians in this particular field of industry?
Hate to say it - but you need to become more Americanized bro type vs. fobby
Know sports stuff, talk trash / joke with coworkers, etc
I agree, and I played contact team sports back in HS but never experienced bro couture for undergrad(I accelerated my undergrad years after enlistment and pretty much stayed in library all day and was working on math/coding/trading competitions). There is also a vibe difference between veteran and "bros", like I would instantly click with older white interviewers and even joked with them during interviews, but some of the younger yt interviewers would just show indifference to me or question everything I say about myself (like wtf). The trader positions I applied are mostly quant traders, I also felt that I couldn't fit myself into the nerd crowd either. I'm literally a piece of puzzle that's leftout and couldn't fit anywhere
bump
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