When it all falls down and the smoke clears
Graduated in 2008, not a great time, my dream was to work in leveraged finance and move into a PE. KKR,Blackstone,Carlye…the dream.
Reality dealt me a different hand, I managed to get an internship at a small bank and work myself to a prop trading job. Having accepted anything to get to where I am, the profits of my occupation have been average to marginal. Been there for close to 3 years and a new reality is setting in on the industry, the end of institutional prop traders.
What people don’t realize about trading is that it has no practical application beyond trading, especially the type of trading that happens at banks or HFs. You are so specialized in one product/market/style that it’s hard to adjust to anything else. You need to basically get lucky and find someone that is willing to re-train you to their system or convince them that you are better than the ex-Goldman math phd type to manage their new portfolio.
Anyway, trading grinds the soul. I have never had a losing year, but I’m no market guru either, and realizing that my lack of advanced math/programming skills is making me obsolete, it is time to move on.
GMAT books in hand and cold emails sent to leveraged finance departments, I am getting ready to recoup the route to my dream. Hoping to find a pre-mba internship, to learn some modeling before doing a 1-year mba (would do a 2-year, but I’m getting old!!!), I am studying away to get the prized+700 score. I feel like it’s my last shot at doing what I want to do, even if I fail. Hopefully, market conditions will be better, hopefully European credit markets are reopened for the bonanza; hopefully the ever present storm of stagnation and higher rates doesn’t arrive. Will IB even be hiring mba’s when I leave school? I don’t know. Sometimes, simply being in a position to succeed is enough to feel like a success…
I get a call from a large domestic bank to interview for a junior job at their trading desk… the doubt sets in. The mba debt pile load eroding all I have saved. Offset by the fear that this new job could just be another patch leading me to the same sorry conclusion in a few years’ time. The pay is average, so forget the early retirement in Thailand, but at least I may not graduate from an mba and potentially have to confront a mediocre existence in a corporate…
It is so easy to be mediocre, get fire and work as a broker. Sleepless for the past week and with "A Real Hero (feat. Electric Youth)" on repeat in my head it’s time to take my last stab, time to recover the dream!
All advice, feeback or comments are welcome
We work toward bigger goals because we are never content with what we have.
Good luck and keep grinding.
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