Returning to S&T chances
Hey yall, wanted to get some thoughts and opinions on the S&T full time recruiting landscape right now for someone who's looking to get back into S&T after a couple of years in non-markets jobs.
For background, I graduated with a full time offer in rates trading, but left the job less than one year in due to unfortunate circumstances. I moved around a bit and eventually ended up in a PE middle office function. All in all, I haven't had my own bbg terminal for a couple years now, but have never stopped wanting to get back into the markets.
Does anyone know people with similar backgrounds at their firm that broke into / returned to trading, or have any insights on how to even navigate such a move? Even some color on whether firms are hiring for open seats would be much appreciated.
Following up in case anyone can help. What should I focus on doing if I want to make it back to trading? All I’ve been doing so far is just blindly applying to any relevant analyst/associate level trading roles I see on linkedin.
So not exactly the same story, but I graduated and went into IB doing M&A during COVID. Was miserable and ended up leaving after 3 months. Was outta work for about a month before I took a job in advertising and worked at that shop for a year before jumping to another ad shop. Was there for 6 months before I got the itch to pivot back to finance doing S&T, ended up landing a role doing HY credit sales. All of that is to say that it’s certainly possible, just need to tell a cohesive story for why you left and why you want to come back.
Did you get the role through applying or networking? Did you know people on the desk?
Networking. Didn’t know anybody on the desk.
Thank you, I honestly just have been pushing off networking since I didn't see much success back when I was job hunting, but will definitely start again.
How exactly were you networking? Were you looking for available jobs that you're interested in, and then reaching out to juniors on those teams? Or were you targeting certain firms no matter whether there was a job opening, and chatting just to get your name out there on their radar?
You could go to a smaller shop, tell your story and ask to be a trading assistant, tell them you will work really hard and want a shot, and you have some trade experience so you know what you're getting into. TAs come and go all the time so it's not a huge ask. Once you're in, you're back in and have access to all kinds of contacts, and then you can figure out where to go from there.
Yup I'm thinking of that route as well, and have expanded my scope beyond just trading roles and into TAs and Treasury. I know TA is more tangentially related, but does having Treasury experience (FX hedging and funding specifically) help bridge the gap into macro trading again?
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