First Job out of Undergrad (Quant vs Banking for Later in Career)

Hi Guys,

I'm a senior at a non-target school who happened to be lucky enough to get into a well known (as in top 50) quant hedge fund as an investment analyst. However, my ultimate goal would be to work at a more fundamental investment firm later on in my career and I'm concerned this will get me stuck only in quant. Things I am considering, however, would be doing this for a few years and trying to get a top MBA (would love to hear any advice on this) or trying to go into banking. But seeing as how I'm from a non-target school I think I would end up at a low tier bank. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

So I would say my two main reasons would be satisfaction and compensation. When I interned there I felt as though I worked hard to build strategies and factors that were rolled up into a "signal" we used to decide what to trade. While this is certainly a cool and intelligent way to invest I found you were very disconnected from the markets. I spent my days looking at large data sets but didn't really get to connect with what was happening in the markets. Secondly, the compensation tends to be lower because the firms are larger (at least they were) in order to support the massive server and comp. stations needed to maintain the investment team and as an individual it is harder to distinguish yourself because you can't tie your performance to gains for the firm as easily. That was my small take on it after a few months there. But, I'm sure the grass is always greener on the other side.

 

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