Can I recruit for both RX banking and S&T credit/fixed income?
It seems pretty common to recruit for both RX banking and investment banking. However, as a nerd with no social skills, I don't think investment banking is for me. Is it feasible to recruit for RX banking and S&T credit/fixed income/distressed at the same time? Or are the two fields too different to realistically do this?
Recruiting for both RX banking and S&T credit/fixed income/distressed is feasible, but it requires a strategic approach due to the differences in skill sets and expectations between the two fields.
Key Considerations:
Overlapping Skill Sets:
Recruitment Process:
Cultural Fit:
Networking:
Feasibility:
Yes, it’s possible to recruit for both RX banking and S&T credit/fixed income/distressed simultaneously, but you’ll need to: - Tailor your resume and story to highlight relevant skills for each field. - Prepare for the distinct interview processes and technical requirements. - Be clear about your priorities and interests when speaking with recruiters or networking contacts.
If you’re strategic and organized, pursuing both paths can increase your chances of landing a role that aligns with your strengths and interests.
Sources: S&T Summer Analyst Lateral to IB FT?, How is A&M perceived in the industry?, CIB Credit Risk J.P. Morgan, London Advice on current situation and transition to IBD/S&T, Recruiting for RX FT after M&A virtual internship?
My two cents, as a nerd with no social skills, you probably belong in IB as a slide monkey. S&T means you actually have to sell or trade securities to your clients. And your clients aren't total bots, they are human investors for the most part.
RX and distressed are not too different. Same technical understanding of companies from the ground up, but you're doing different things to them. Just need to figure out what roles along the investment cycle you want to be a part of - Trader? Lawyer? Investor? Consultant?
Getting IB is 100% networking though. They don't expect any skills whatsoever because the technicals are a joke. So it's a social competition at its core.
With S&T there is a way to differentiate yourself through market knowledge and technical skills. And on the actual job, if you have enough knowledge about the instruments you're trading, I don't think it's that hard to work with clients. If you're not on the sales side, you just have to be able to distill and talk about technical things to a non technical audience.
Correct me if I'm wrong though.
Go move some more logos and maybe you'll understand the difference. At the junior levels you're not pulling in deals as the banker, you're just hired at the minimum amount possible (vs other opportunities) to grind out analysis for your MD.
At a junior level in trading, the relationships you build with your counterparties dictates your flow and opportunity to make PnL when you are ready for your own book of risk. Maybe being the best distressed trader on the street gets you enough cred to be an asshole and still see flow, but most products you will get mocked if you carry 0 social intelligence and can't negotiate a trade. Nor is being the best distressed trader on the street any technically easier than moving logos on a pitch deck. Why have human traders at all if everyone just relies on pricing models and thinks their market is perfect, credit trading is a social game far more than you think
Way off on the "getting IB" part. I would argue RX IB is one of the hardest finance jobs to get out of UG (esp compared to a generalist S&T program)
S&T for sure requires social skills, both in talking to clients and communicating with them, but also especially in macro trading you need to understand the political landscape of the country you trade, which is quite a human-intuition skill.
RX banking will be lots of meeting/calls with obvs other bankers but also lawyers, and if you have no social skills and can't easily talk to new people you will suffer. If anything in banking social skills are the real differentiator, there is a massively surplus of people who can do accounting/IB technicals - although probably slightly less important for RX.
So both require human skills
The other replies are confusing me. I’m in a similar situation and my understanding was that client interaction came from sales, not traders. I thought trading, even if not quant, was the more technical role. Am I mistaken?
Yeah I thought the same given the people I met so far
Because the nature of the trading desk is very much different among the products.
I'm relatively a junior person (3.5 YOE) in e-Trading space(SMM/CRB/ATS) with experience on Linear Rates and D1 Equities, and until now I never had to call with the clients (actually I'm not allowed to do that), and never have I seen my VP having client meeting/call. all of my teammates don't talk with each other at all..if I had to gauge our non-executives (AN, ASSO, VP) avg speaking time during the day I'm sure it would be 10 mins.
But for the Voice trading business in FICC(Rates Options, Structured Credit..etc), you'd get to expose urself to HF clients cuz they're the one ur trading with, so need for being quite sociable makes sense, while I still don't think it requires more social skills than IB..
I mean there are few FO jobs that don't require social skills. Being a nerd is fine, many of them both in RX and S&T, having no social skills is not fine.
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