PhD to Banking

Hey all. I'm graduating with a PhD in politics from a top school soon. Studied Economics (but not Finance) as an undergrad at a large, non-elite public school. Excellent grades, including in quant courses, in both undergrad and grad. Many academic and research awards in both as well. Jumped from undergrad to grad, so no standard postgrad, full-time work experience, but have held lots of part-time jobs and internships in policy, research, and teaching (nothing to do with finance or banking again). Want to transition to a career in banking, and am considering applying to analyst or associate programs at the major banks that recruit at my school.

Wondering if, given my background:
(1) such a transition is possible without a further degree in related areas (MBA, MS Finance, etc.);
(2) I should apply to associate positions (as an advanced degree candidate) or to analyst positions (as a candidate with limited work experience in the traditional sense); and
(3) I should apply to associate positions leaving the PhD out of the education section of my resume and presenting it as research work experience instead.

Any thoughts are highly appreciated. Thanks a million.

 

Several reasons, but the main one is that I'm interested to work at the intersection of policy and business, and banking/finance has been at the center of regulatory and policy changes in recent years. I'm finishing up my thesis and am ready to transition now.

Now: any thoughts on my original questions above? 0:-)

 
Best Response

Bump thread for my wife, a PhD candidate in finance as well.

M&A Bankers do not care about M&A research, as most of it says that M&A is value destructive, and besides they get paid off fees not performance. Dissertations on asset pricing can be used to leverage jobs in trading HFT etc., but a PhD in investment banking is very rare. As a PhD you are over-qualified to be an analyst and under-qualified as an associate. Besides, most people do IB to get to the sell side and Hedge Fund opportunities are already available to you (but perhaps not Private Equity)

just my .02 interested in learning more PhD career paths in Finance

 

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