So, I'm in a little bit of a bind at the moment. After the long, non-linear 6 years it took me to complete undergrad due to switching majors halfway through (from business to math&econ) and delaying my graduation twice to get the front office summer analyst gig I needed if I wanted a chance at full time there or elsewhere (ended up moving halfway around the world to Hong Kong for a summer to work in equity derivs structuring at a European bank; was a great experience, for both career and life), I didn't end up getting a return offer but luckily secured something locally at a different bank for a yearlong graduate direct placement (contract for the first year, then they decide if you make the cut or not) on a trading desk for the exact same things: structured products (equity-linked notes, barriers/digitals/autocallables, fund-linked strategies, and a little bit of delta one), where I work in the desk literally right next to my boss, whom all the work I do is with or for. However, two months into the job, things aren't going as smoothly as I had hoped, and the accountability rests solely on me.
Now, the thing is, this has been my dream job since freshman year (wow, who coulda guessed I'd be posting on WSO...); I'm loving it and am legitimately excited to get up to go to work every day. However, in many ways I almost don't feel cut out for the job. I still manage to make some pretty careless mistakes on tasks that I should have mastered by now (pricing, bookings, decomposing PnL, etc.), some that have costed an immaterial cut of PnL, but nonetheless, not a great spot to put myself in, as it can put my boss in the position of having to clean it up and hence creating more BS work for him. I thought that through my degree and internship experience I'd have the most of the tools I'd need, but balancing speed with accuracy is never something I've had to do as much as now (internships simply are not comparable to full time, I'm sure most of you'd know), and this is probably the easiest part of the job. The thing is, I still have a lot of time to make things right, but with all honesty, I have to make some changes QUICK. Never mind even for the sake of my own career, but out of pure respect for my boss whom I'm lucky to have the opportunity to work under as I was hired to pretty much work exclusively alongside him, who has taken on a large commitment to take me under his wing and mentor me on a desk with some of the steepest learning curves on the floor (why the grad program for this desk is a direct placement for a year, rather than a rotational program, as 4 months on it would barely teach you anything); I need to start proving my worth by making his job easier, which in turn will allow me to take on more interesting and rewarding responsibilities as time goes on.
Here are some of the things I do to keep myself on the ball and my head in the right place, but if you have any other general/specific suggestions, please, please let me know. See below:
1) Notes, lots of notes - literally everything new that I have to do even if I think I can remember, I'll write down to be safe, almost seems like a given
2) Using task scheduler to instantiate time sensitive work (automatically opening the trade blotter to book outstanding orders, opening specific excel worksheets to generate SOD and EOD emails, as well as those to decompose PnL at EOD, etc.) as well as setting reminders, etc.
3) Writing down goals/tasks for tomorrow at the end of the day and having weekly catchups with my boss to discuss this kind of stuff (hoping to use that to actually tackle harder stuff, not recapping on how NOT to screw up simple stuff like I do sometimes)
4) Using spare time to read more term sheets and understand the different payoffs better - I'd take them home and catch up on my spare time if I could, but I'm pretty sure that would be a compliance risk so no thanks
5) Also using spare time for catching up on Excel and VBA (pathetic that I'm not better at this, I know... I always thought I could do whatever I needed in Python, which for things that I build from the ground up I'll always still elect to use then export to csv, but lo and behold, half the industry still depends on Excel whether I like it or not)
Guys, I know I sound like a headless chicken running around, asking for generic advice, but please, if you could share ANYTHING that helped you when you first started trading on the sell-side, it would mean a lot to me. Even if they are lifestyle and psychological changes, I'm open to hear that too. I've worked way too hard to get here to screw it up now. Thanks in advance.
PS: Please don’t recommend anything along the lines of give up, find a different job, or I’m not a good fit, etc. I love what I do and it has been my dream since freshman year; I’m determined to do whatever possible.
Take care of your body (eat healthy, sleep enough, exercise to deal with stress). Be organized as much as possible. Having poor attention to detail is normal for a first job out of college, it will improve in time if you care about your work.
to a certain extant...there is not much you can do to become better at attention to detail and balancing speed vs accuracy...these are things that are core to your personality...some people are just naturally better than others at these types of jobs.
you would be better served getting a job where you can work at a slightly slower pace...that is more in line with your personality.
in the immediate time...you would be better served focusing on being accurate and double check your work...speed will naturally evolve as you gain more experience.
I wouldn't really say this isn't in line with my personality. The spontaneity keeps the work novel, which is an absolute MUST for me to stay interested (ENTP, for whatever those MBTI tests are worth; I would say I'm a pretty textbook description of it though). For reference, I did structuring for my summer analyst, and while I loved it and in many ways prepared me for my current job (trading for the same product), I actually considered it a bit too slow and project-based for my taste. I have no doubt I'm doing what I want to do right now, hence why I am fervently looking for more advice from everyone on how to become the best I can possibly be in this career. Furthermore, very, very few people who you'd consider successful in their careers will tell you they received absolutely no help. Mentors have always played an instrumental role in my career development, and I dare to say if there's a single thing that has helped me in it the most is knowing how to swallow my pride and reach out for help when it became obvious to myself that I needed it - hence why I'm posting here to begin with. Simply trying to get ideas and inspiration, that is all.
in that case....experience will be your best teacher. if you find certain things take you more time...then you just need more repetitions of those things
i just reread your OP, and i caught the comment about not being an excel and VBA expert....this is an absolute necessity. You should be able to write VBA code from scratch (no macro recording) and be able to read others VBA code and easily understand what they are doing. Same with auditing other peoples spreadsheets...understand all the formulas, etc...this is fundamental to your business.
The only way to learn is to do it...just reading other peoples code doesn't effectively teach your brain...you have to write code...and build spreadsheets.
Yup, that's one of my top priorities at the moment. Luckily, since I already know Python decently well, it's not too hard from what I'm seeing, and for the most part, the use of Excel/VBA to me is to inspect the code written by others - generally speaking, I prefer to start anything new in Python, as my boss gives me the flexibility to choose and it's a long term priority for us to start moving away from dependence on Excel.
This is going to seem a little out of left field but you might look into trying meditation.
My first gig out of college was as an analyst on a liquids desk at one of the big energy shops (Trafi, Vitol, Gunvor) and as you might expect the job was pretty fast paced. At first I struggled with keeping 5 balls in the air at once and I found myself getting wound up and forgetting things. I would work myself up without really realizing it and my mind would be going 100 mph.
I started to meditate though and I gained the ability to realize when I was getting like that and I could control it much better. My mind was much more clear and I gained the ability to control that sensation instead of being subjected to it. It made my work much better not to mention the overall mental health benefits outside of work.
https://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/scientists-discover-how-meditation-cha…
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2944261/
Interesting, would you practice it at your desk or like once a day at home at the end of it or morning?
At the house.
A lot of people like mornings but I prefer to do it in the evenings. The calming benefits last much longer than just the session so what time you do it isn’t really important.
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