How to climb the ladder or have job security as a trader?
Very excited to get started in S&T in the next few weeks and have been networking with a variety of desks in Fixed Income. I work at a BB that is consistently top 3 in FI.
As I look to the future, I notice two things:
(1) I notice that there are a lot of people at my BB who have been with the bank for 10-15 years and are still Directors. In some cases, it's 15+ years. And even a fair amount of MDs in S&T are decently far down the food chain from the CEO, even after 25+ years.
(2) Obviously there's a lot of talk about the future of S&T systemically - to what extent will it exist, what product is best, how will it change, etc. A lot of this is overblown or conjecture, but there's definitely a certain degree of validity to the concerns.
With aspirations to climb the ranks, or at the very least have a long and fruitful career, I'm eager to find ways to differentiate myself. Both the above points are a little discouraging, to be honest.
That said, I'm aware MBAs are pretty rare for traders. To that end, I was wondering:
A. How would a part-time Master's in Finance / Financial Engineering / Stats from a school like NYU / Columbia enhance one's pedigree in S&T and thus enable a better career trajectory / some modicum of safety in S&T?
B. When traders go to get MBAs, I'd imagine it's typically to pivot... is this a fair assertion? Assuming the MBA is a top 10 MBA, what are the types of things traders go on to do from an MBA?
C. What are the characteristics of traders who have made it to the MD+ level? In other words, what do they have that guys who stick around as Directors or get canned don't have? What can I do to make sure I have that?
most entry levels wont make it to MD and there is nothing wrong with that. Who knows what youll want 10 years+ down the road.
In the mean while, soak up information, work on having a view of market, ADD VALUE TO YOUR CLIENTS -- that is literally your main job on sell side and gives you job security. Also, once youre managing risk, it is always helpful to be making lots of money.
1. A masters would be waste of 80k and I doubt it would pay off.
To answer your question about how to climb the ladder, there’s 1 obvious answer. It’s all about politics and making the right connections, as well as being in the right place at the right time.
A lot of this is pure luck and outside your control. If you work closely with a director who’s well liked and has connections when you’re an analyst, and he gets promoted to MD and then head of rates trading, your career is on a rocket ship and you can rise through the ranks with someone willing to pull you up.
if you’re a VP on a desk and you’re close with a director who isn’t going to make MD, and your current MD doesn’t have a good relationship with top leadership, there’s a good chance your career will stagnate and you’ll have to jump ship at some point
Truth is a lot of people just get fucked over and it’s not always about performance. Best thing you can do if you find yourself in this position is to Jump to a new role/bank and not waste a decade in the same spot
Platform development is also important nowadays. On top of your client responsibilities, you act as a champion for some change-the-bank initiative. In my bank (one of the top 3) every single markets town hall nowadays is basically 1) performance, 2) data & analytics, and 3) diversity. Get ahead of the curve to drive those data and analytics changes.
Hey, thanks for the response.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by #2 (data, analytics)? What is a value add that an analyst / associate could do to stand out in this regard?
Banks have huge amounts of data and are trying to monetize that data, via content or better decision-making or automation etc. For example, you may find that some of your clients run similar strategies and a few may be trendsetters. You think maybe you can analyze their trade flow to try to predict the behavior of other clients.
That said this is more for VP and beyond, maybe Associate at the earliest as you need a bit of clout to have people take you seriously.
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