I would tend to agree with the above. That having been said, I would tend to stay away from trying to seek out a "trading" position as that is not the greatest way to obtain a position at an investment bank that makes you a ton of money over time. The fact of the matter is that there are only a couple of Investment Banks out there that actually reward TRADERS and those are firms such as Deutsche Bank that have very aggressive equity derivatives desks that facilitate trading for customers. DB has had that kind of corporate culture ever since they hired the top 4 equity derivative guys away from Morgan Stanley back in the mid-90's . . . guys like Rick Goldsmith (sales), and Ralph Reynolds (trading) who spent 8 years at DB overseeing a ton of hedge-fund client money, until they both left for Blue Wave, a division of the Carlyle Group, the world's second-largest buyout firm. Just about every other firm on the Street has a most difficult time QUANTIFYING what kind of value that a trading desk adds to the firm. The Traders on a desk tend to "stick-out" when there is a "hickey" or a big loss that gathers a lot of embarrassing attention. They usually are extremely quantitative with backgrounds in Math and Statistics, and usually cut their teeth at firms like O'Connor Associates and Susquehanna before moving to an IB. My advise would be to emphasize your UC MBA, and allow it to open some doors for you . . . DO NOT "pigeon-hole" yourself into a trading position. You might wish to seek out a "Sales/Trading" position, which is essentially being an institutional broker that covers various hedge-fund and mutual fund accounts, etc. If you do have a heavy mathematical background, you could explore some sort of a "quant" position that would allow you to help manage proprietary (house account) money that is involved in stock-index arbitrage, program trading that facilitates trade for a customer ( and needs to be unwound by the trading desk ), etc. Again, let your MBA open some doors for you and then go from there . . .
Apply for GS FICC desk in Chicago. I have a few friends from UC that now work there. Also apply for a S&T program at all the BB. I was in the energy program at a BB and it helped open a lot of doors.
lol why do you wanna be a trader??? its too dam stressful... i dont get also why did you get your MBA if you wanna trade, you know they hire high school students to trade, imo stick with your corporate job less headaches imi
aknaya - Try going to some of the online job sites like careerbuilder.com etc. and do a search for "equity trader" or even "proprietary trader". They list the requirements for the position there so you can see what some of them are looking for. Most, but not all, are looking for previous trading or related experience, licenses of course, "self-starter", good with deadlines, etc. Some of the companies have training programs for recent college grads. Depending on the area you are looking in, a lot of financial companies want you to be bi-lingual english/spanish these days. Best of luck