Target Masters in Europe for Trading Desks
I have been trying to search for some up to date info on the masters programs which are considered to be a target for trading desks in Europe, [with a preference for desks in the UK] but all the info is from about 5 years ago. Can anyone provide an insight on the current situation?
To be honest I don't think there are many at least in commodities, probably different for equities,rates etc.
You have the standard target universities in London - I've made the mistake before of hiring people who did masters targeted towards energy economics etc - they could talk the talk , way too confident in their knowledge and in the end were pretty useless.
These days I focus on quantitative degrees in general regardless of the uni as long as its a reputable place - the prestigious ones are usually no better than the average when it comes to teaching - their quality is in the research and so I only look at the Uni when its PhDs applying. If the person is from a generic engineering/math/cs course I just care about how well they seem to know their stuff, quality of projects - if I suspect they've been tailoring everything towards getting a job as a trader I tend to ignore it unless they also have a clear interest in the underlying markets/topics and not just a desire to get rich.
Also grads are rarely hired directly onto a trading desk
As someone eyeing a UK Msf + EU target (ie. HEC Paris) but not from a quant background, do I have a shot at a desk?
Without telling me what kind of desk I can't even give you the slightest hint. In my own case in power and gas I couldn't care less where you do your bachelors as long as its not some made up degree mill and someone emphasising they went to a target as if I should care is a negative - if its because your grades are fantastic and you did something noteworthy there/you study something the college is known for being good at its interesting but if you say you study meteorology or engineering there I would simply suspect you chose it because of prestige because other uni's are miles ahead in those areas. Again I don't really care about the uni especially at undergrad/masters - I care about what you did there.
In short no one without strong maths is getting on my desk - and someone without programming is going to have to learn fast in power trading to deal with the volume of data as an analyst. If you've come through a trader dev program or ops you've got a shot aswell . The more macro/equity stuff might be different but the number of traders without any quant skills at all is getting smaller and smaller
Thank you for the insightful answer! Could you also shed some light on which programmes I should look for in Continental Europe? Is there an established pathway to take in candidates for trading desks from the masters programmes of the taget unis in the UK?
I feel like you just ignored what I said - your uni doesn’t matter . Grads usually aren’t getting anywhere near trading desks unless it’s via a trader development program so no - we don’t target any program.
I target people based on their skills and what I’m looking for - ie am I looking for a meteorologist, am I looking for a data scientist etc ( I also rarely go to data science programs for that)
If you’re aiming for an IBD then yeah it may matter since they’re historically more stocked with ivys or oxbridge etc and alumni may be attracted to you but commodities space has a much more diverse pool of people and I for one don’t care where you went , whether it’s Imperial, LSE or MIT. At the undergraduate level and masters to a degree it’s of no predictive strength as to the quality of the person at least in my experience.
How do you avoid tailoring your projects to being a trader? I get not asking questions about lifestyle and bonuses, but I thought doing projects related to trading would help.
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The majority of EU trading desks will not be in commodities, so take the above poster's advice with a heavy grain of salt.
Yes, your school will matter, given you'll most likely be targeting the BB desks. While you do need the appropriate technical skills and sufficient mkt knowledge (of course they'll understand you're only a masters student and don't expect you to have a track record but knowledge of options, futures, etc will work to your favor), you can't get passed the resume screen without a good school on your CV.
That's what I thought too, the advice given above would not work for other trading desks lol. Could you point out a few programmes which are targets for desks outside of commodities?
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