S&T, should I even bother applying?

Hi all, can’t tell if I’m just wasting my time applying for S&T grad jobs. If someone could dish up some realism/tell me I’m wasting my time (or not), would be appreciated.

Bit of info:

  • Always wanted to be a trader (immediate risk & reward environment, fast paced, mix of technical/sales, interesting & complex problems to solve, tbh its just a game with quite high stakes when you think about it), but this isn’t getting me a job…
  • No trading experience (coded an earnings surprise algo at 17 with decent alpha, reasonable sharpe but don’t wanna go down quant route as coding isn’t up to scratch).
  • Graduated from top 5 university (Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, MIT, Stanford) but with a 3.0 GPA/lower 2nd class.
  • Majored in Physics/Maths, but don’t think that will make up for poor results. 
  • Non-finance background, but have a reasonable understanding of equities/bonds/options etc. 
  • Student-Athlete, played 1st team in all 4 years.  

BB I think are completely out of the question, don’t have the largest network and most people I do know are all analyst 2/3 or associate 1 so too junior. Is it worth trying for lower tier banks? Don’t know if there are some that have strong trading divisions or if it’s just dominated by the usual suspects…

3 Comments
 

being that you’re from the UK, the only thing stopping you is your 2.2 but that’s it

 

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