Junior @ super target looking for some career advice
I'm a junior math and econ double major at a super target, looking for some advice for career paths. This post isn't super long but I'll include a TLDR at the bottom.
I'm honestly not really sure what I want to do after college, but I've been recruiting for quantitative analyst, sales and trading, and data analyst/science internships. My goal is to work somewhere that gives me flexibility in terms of exit opps and, ideally (but not necessary), to work in a position where I can use my math skills and programming skills (R, Python).
I'm interested in data science, but I don't really want to go to grad school (at least right away) which seems like a requirement for most roles. I am legitimately interested in following macro trends and markets, which is why I'm recruiting for S&T. Also, I've heard some S&T desks are pretty quantitative and use programs like Python.
So I'm looking for general advice but more specifically:
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Am I looking at the right stuff for my goals? What areas of finance should I be looking into that I haven't already?
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Which non-IB finance careers have the best exit opps to quant roles and PE/VC/hedge fund roles?
TL;DR: Junior Math & Econ major from a super target, exploring roles like quant analyst, S&T, and data science. Seeking advice on the bes
Thought I'd share something since the profile reminds me a bit of my background: Double majored in econ and math at a target; knew I don't want to do corp fin and ibd lines of jobs early on after trying them out; want to use my programming skill and follow macro trends but mostly looking for a good place to start out my career.
One general advice I will say tho is about exit opps: make sure you know what role you want to exit for, or it won't really be helpful. When people talk about exit opps they might be talking about the diversity of exits in a specific industry (ex. ibd to any corp fin related investing and operating jobs), and in this case jobs like S&T might have less diversity but the same amount of jobs/categories. On top of that, if you are to pursue a role outside of finance, the conversation will change again entirely (public market role to quant role/data science role/risk management role/treasury etc). For me a rule of thumb it, generally a job that involves in the fundamentals of the industry, deals with research/analysis/modeling, will give you flexibility in terms of exit opps.
To the two questions:
1. Yes. I have applied to all similar roles as mentioned and they more of less involves in what you want to do. Personally I work in commodity trading. Analyst jobs for me is the combination of forming fundamentals views based on macro trends and coding in Python/R (VBA for old models and SQL for data management and HTML for small web development). So ig check that out if you haven't already?
2. Obviosuly quant roles exit to quant roles, desk strat, desk quant and in some case developer. Not sure what role you want in PE/VC/HF but the roles dictate the entry point while PE and HF are also two worlds: for private side, if you want any deal role, non ib jobs that gives you deal experience are prob something like corp dev, and consulting job gives you operator experience for some growth equity too. For public market, trading lead to execution role or analyst role in global. other than that go for analyst role, break in as a research analyst and go from there.
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