new grad in BO not sure what to do
As title suggests, I'm a new grad in BO at a BB. I went to a decent school (not ivy but top 25) and studied math. I took a BO job and didn't realize how bad it was until it was too late. I've just started this role and I already find it boring two weeks in. I want something a little more interesting, but I still want a life outside of work. I studied math and got a minor in financial engineering so it seems possible to go into trading, but it honestly seems a bit too stressful for me based on talking to some people in the industry.
I was thinking something more MO like market risk. Would I be able to switch directly there or would I need to go to school as a pivot?
Open to any suggestions, thanks.
I'd recommend lateraling to an analytics team at a FinTech (Ex: Stripe, Chime, Plaid, LendingTree, Upstart, etc.). From my experience, the culture is a lot more laid back than at a BB, the hours are work/life balance friendly, the talent pool is strong as the majority of employees tend to be engineers/math majors from top schools, and the work is stimulating if you enjoy building algos/predictive analytic models.
Do you think it's reasonable to switch to that field straightaway or move after internally transferring to some sort of analytics team?
I'd probably give it 6 months to a year in your current role and then make the jump to the fintech. You can also try jumping internally if you want, but they aren't going to let you transfer internally after 2 weeks. I'm guessing you'd have to be in your role for at least 9-12 months. I know it's painfully boring right now, but there's still a great network to be made while you're at the bank. I'd also say that it's worth having a BB on your resume just for the sake of branding.
If it were me, I'd take the 6-12 months to network. Internally, it's easy to organize quick 15-30 minute coffee chats with analysts/associates in any line of business that you might be interested in. Externally, I'd reach out to analysts on various fintech analytics or product teams. From there you can pick their brain about the day to day, culture, hours, technical skills needed, interviewing process, etc. I'd also stay sharp/brush up on Python, R, and SQL. I'm sure you had some or all of these in school, but it's easy to get rusty if you don't keep up with something. Lastly, and probably most importantly, I'd have a conversation with your manager. Wait a month to get a better understanding of the landscape. Meet all of your team members and understand the kinds of projects they're working on. Also, talk to nearby teams and understand their general focus. Once you gather the basics, you may have a better idea where you can add value and potentially enjoy your work. In your 1:1 you can then express interest in specific projects that may help further your goals.
would you prefer to be in a FO role such as m&a or doing swe at a tech company?
To be honest, I don't think I'm really interested in either but if I had to choose one it'd be swe at a tech company.
With your background under normal circumstances you’d have no issue moving internally. I’d just focus on doing your current job lights out …. And then using the free time to network heavily. Once you’re in the bank almost anyone would be down to chat.
If lifestyle is what you’re looking for too, maybe look into Corp Banking, Relationship based but you won’t be working insane hours (for the most part) and you still get paid pretty well. It’s not perfect but checks quite a few of your boxes and you may be able to make the move internally. S&T in a more quanty role may also suffice to you with your Maths background, however, you have to be a morning person, if not then this may not be the best role for you.
2 weeks isn’t really enough to say anything about a job. Your seniors are giving you stupidly mundane tasks to see if you can handle those. As you complete those tasks well, you will get more interesting (and for better or worse) more challenging work as time progresses.
The analyst training me is two years in and he said the job is about 80% sending emails and waiting for follow ups so that's got me a bit worried
moving to market risk should be easy just start networking after you have the day to day in your job now. it may not be much more satisfying than BO though. when I went from BO to MO I never got a pay raise even
Which MO role did you switch to?
I also assumed that the pay difference would be more noticeable after analyst level
What are you doing in back office? Some back office roles could be an easy switch to market risk.
My current role is in trade settlement
From settlements, you can move to credit risk than to market risk, you can also move to product control than to market risk. Another route is counterparty risk to market risk. There are so many other routes. Stay where you are and learn as much as you can. Get certified in sql, python and vba. See if you can take the FRM certification. Network as well. In the beginning if your career, the responsibilities are not going to be that challenging because you have no experience. Unfortunately college does a poor job training us for the real world. If you want to be a quant, you will eventually have to get at least a masters degree. I hope this helps.
New grads make mistakes selecting their first role all the time. I highly recommend you figure out what it is you’d like to do and start interviewing for that immediately. When asked why just say the truth ‘I thought this would be a rigorous analytical role and it’s turning out to be not as advertised’.
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