Here's the tl;dr of my situation. I live in the Pacific Northwest in a non-major city, which is where I returned to after college upon not securing a job from OCR (May 2009 grad, bad job market). I've been working in PWM for about 3.5 years now but it has never really been my passion and more of a way to just pay the bills; initially out of school I was looking for equity research positions. I have since expanded my scope to corporate finance as well.
I've been applying out of state for years since my city is NOT a financial hub, but no dice. After a lot of internal reflection and advice from people that I look up to, I'm looking at relocating to a stronger job market like Texas and trying to re-boot my career over there. I'd be fine doing temp office work as a way to pay the rent until I lock down something more solid. I went to the very first Energy Rodeo (kind of wish I made more connections down there) and was impressed with what I saw down there.
For any of you Texan WSOers, can you give the rundown on what to expect in Houston, Austin, Dallas, or San Antonio? Specifically, what kind of jobs are in each cities? I know the stereotype is Houston is energy and Austin is tech, but could you provide some more specifics on what firms are there, if you know who may be hiring, or other relevant info?
Some background on myself: I went to a target public school (think UVA, UNC, etc). Econ major and I'm a Level III CFA Program Candidate.
I recently interviewed with a great tech firm for a finance-related role but unfortunately they've been delaying their decision. If it pulls through, I'm going to execute on that, but I am working on a Plan B which at the moment sounds like Texas. I'm looking to move on this pretty soon as in late February or early March...PM me for details if you really want but the short story on a public forum is that the culture at my current firm is pretty toxic and I'm no longer in a "get your fucking shinebox" position now that my student debt is 100% paid off, I have some savings built up, and I have a good line of credit (hopefully never need to draw it down but would rather have it just in case). On top of that, even if the culture was better, it's just not what I want to do and won't get my career where I want to be. I realize that this is a risk, but I feel that I need to take some risk now to get my career back on track; if that guy Wolfy a few years ago can move to Asia and kill it over there, I don't think I have any excuse for not being able to do well merely moving in the same country to Texas.
I'm in Houston and may be able to help out but it would help to know what you are really interested in/hoping to get into. You mentioned ER and corporate finance, but is that for any particular industry? Also it would help if you gave some more details on your roles/experience at you PWM gig.
Sure. Currently I do asset allocation work and manager due diligence and selection. I also basically lead our quarterly performance reporting process, and I also help out advisors with putting together sales presentations. I've done some work also with individual stock and bond selection. Initially my role was 100% client facing as a financial advisor focusing on bringing on board new clients, but I was able to move to a more analytical role since that's more in line with what I want to do. But, even then, wealth management just isn't quite my thing.
My long term aspiration is buy side Asset Management or private equity. I realize that my current experience may not be ideal for that, which is why I've been looking at equity research positions and also corporate finance positions to gain that in-depth modelling experience and understanding of how companies and industries operate. Industries of particular interest to me are tech, energy, and aerospace & defense.
From some old threads that I read on here, Dallas is the city to go to for asset management (even if it's not an immediate job for the reasons I mentioned earlier, being in the city for networking could be good), which is why I am focusing now more on it--but please feel free to steer me in another direction if this is off course.
Are there any good staffing agencies that I should reach out to? I ask because I may need to pick up some temp work to pay the bills; I'm going to be very active in a job Execu|Search but I realize this kind of thing often takes longer than expected.
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