Was thinking more about roles : Research, strategy, structuring for insurance companies, hedging for corporates, etc. Everyone thinks finance is trading (execution or portfolio management in a hedgefund or bank).
I mean how did you all get into where you work at now? It would be interesting to hear how others made it.. just to help us newbies out
Oh okay. Absolutely agree. "Trader" is in fact not really a role, but a collection of roles and sometime just historic legacies.
... at a good (or at least well connected school). It may sound elitest, but the reality is that a MBA from iowa state will do you little good except deplete your savings and pile on debt. Luck is the sufficient and necessary condition. Do it for the money. There's no shame in it. Always good to learn to program - open up what you can potentially do; Not sure prop firms will help with anything (except maybe the chicago kind - but then if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere...) The unpopular ET answer: I went to a good school. I got good internship experiences. I got a job, got lucky, and got a book to manage.
I can tell you a quick story... I majored in English and Philosophy and fell in love with markets about halfway through college, after realizing being an academic is not what I wanted to do with my life, and finding an alternative path via Jim Rogers' "Investment Biker." (Rogers was once one of my heroes and has since become a great disappointment, but that's another story.) At any rate, a liberal arts major at a small presbyterian college in the late 1990s doesn't exactly have a traditional shot... all I knew was that reading Market Wizards and Soros on Soros I knew that I could be one of those guys, that I WOULD be one of those guys, no matter what it took. I interned at a stock brokerage (Raymond James) for the next two summers and read hundreds of books on trading and investing. I took the series 7 and got an 89 on my first shot. This was all nice but wouldn't really get me anywhere except in terms of laying a mental foundation. I caught a small break in the opportunity to study abroad. I spent most of my final 18 months of school in three different programs - one in England, one in the Czech Republic, and one in Australia. This looked pretty sweet on a resume (especially being able to say I spent time at Oxford), but again not exactly an Ivy League door opener. During my final months in Australia (this was mid-1998) I was looking for a job. I sent out the proverbial shitloads of resumes and routinely checked my hotmail address in the uni computer center. (This was back when hotmail was relatively new and the email concept in general was an exciting new thing for college students.) Sent my resume to all the big i-banks and Wall Street houses of course. They didn't even bother to respond. I had an exchange with a guy at JP Morgan courtesy of my uncle (who is a JPM client with a +100MM net worth), but that didn't go anywhere either as the guy was not on the trading side and I had zero interest in the other side. Basically I was shut out for the sake of not having connections, which sucked. It was the Ivy League thing. I eventually realized this was a good thing... my little brother is Ivy League (as was my dad) and spent two years at a major i-bank, wound up being one of the most horrible experiences of his life. (He is now much happier at a clean energy startup.) At any rate, I wanted to be a "trader" and no one gave a shit. I didn't have the right rolodex, the right degree, the right mathematical temperament blah blah blah. I decided fuck it, I will break into this business any way possible, who cares about the obstacles or what I have to do. So I started sending resumes to commodity trading firms, figuring futures would be a better way to break into the biz than stocks (more opportunity to learn about risk control, and I was already attracted to "macro" from the very beginning). One of the ads I saw on the message boards was for a boutique commodity firm in Lake Tahoe that had hedging clients all around the world. I thought to myself "Hmm, Chicago suit and tie or Tahoe flip flops, that's a hell of a choice..." Only problem is the firm was not looking for new graduates or trainees at all. They were seeking experienced brokers and hedgers with a large established book of business who were interested in making a change. In otherwords, they wanted nothing to do with a wet-behind-the-ears soon to be college grad, let alone one who studied English and Philosophy. I said fuck it and sent the resume and cover letter anyway. I mean what's the harm right? Like talking to a pretty girl in a bar... the worst that can happen is a 10 second brush-off, so what. The proprietor of the firm liked my attitude, the fact I had read hundreds of trading books, and the fact I had studied and lived in a couple different countries. He was encouraging from a distance at first and wished me luck. When I realized I had an opening my attitude switched to fuck wishing me luck, dude, you are going to give me a job. I kept pressing it because, again, why not? I told him I'd work for peanuts and kick ass and on and on etcetera. I worked the angle. He admired my persistence (knowing what it takes to sell) and ultimately made a deal to interview me if I flew out to Tahoe on my own dime (to be reimbursed if he decided to hire me). I got hired at a salary appropriate for someone who knew nothing and less than a year later was designing trading and hedging strategies for various institutional level clients on multiple continents. My largest client was a Russian hedge fund that had gotten a big chunk of Yeltsin money in the privatization grab of the late 1990s. From there a bunch more twists and turns... long story short, though, 15 years later and still on the path, laying the tracks to be one of the great global macro traders of my generation (if I succeed in the long term, i.e. the next 25 years or so, which I firmly believe I will). Moral of the overlong story: Do you need a little bit of luck to succeed? Absolutely. Everyone needs at least a little luck, and any successful person who denies that is a liar or an asshole or both. But with that said, to a large degree you MAKE YOUR OWN LUCK, and if you are determined enough that your will is a force of nature then there is very little that can stand in your way. Our firm (Mercenary Trader) has conducted a couple interviews in the past six months. They were total busts, mainly because the interviewees came across as whiny kids with little more to offer than distinctly average levels of drive, motivation and commitment. So you are "passionate" and "really want to succeed?" Who cares, every college graduate in the history of higher education spouts platitude bullshit like that. What can you do to make yourself stand out? What can you do to show you are razor sharp and a cut above the rest? How can you demonstrate that if the doors are closed to you, you'll figure out a way to go through the fuckin' window? Trading (and finance in general) is an "alpha male" type business, where it takes an above average level of talent, drive and commitment to succeed. This makes perfect sense - the potential rewards are far higher than the average profession, and thus so is the competition. The way I see it, breaking into the business is a test of sorts. Is anyone going to tell you how to become a successful trader, in the sense of what the best methodology is for you and how to execute it? No. You have to find it. You have to find a way. And if you can do that, you can "find a way" into the business too. It's like a Rubik's Cube or an advanced strategy problem. If you deserve to get in, you will get in, because your natural talent and drive and relentless resourcefulness will give you the tools to keep thinking about and tackling the problem until you SOLVE that bitch. Figure out how to bypass the normal channels... get the right person's attention and then impress the hell out of them... find a way. Most people can't do this. But then, most people don't have what it takes to be great traders either... Just my .02
the first person who offered me a full partnership in a NYC based outfit in the financial inductry that dealt with large investment corps I met at a cocktail party in Greenwich, Conn. (It was not my fault) Later, he traced me to Switzerland after a mistake I made informing him of where I was going to be. I got phone calls and declined to meet. It was '67 and I had face recognition at UBS by then. (fourth floor tea room meetings upn arrival). I finally escaped to Bucks Co PA but then in a month was again trapped into presenting a monthly seminar to a large Brokerage firm staff in Philadelphia. I did this under duress. When I became a division head (2) at UCSC, I was automatically made an Adj Prof at Wharton. That lead to being asked to consult at EOP which put me on a first name basis with the CEO of Lehman (Commerce dept head at the time) Ugh I was back in the NYC loop again. I escaped. but then I did a TFSE and wound up as CEO of the company traded one slot below Apple on the listings. i did get up nerve to go to TradersExpo. (vegas) No name badge but I did ask Q's in a few mettings. I turned down at least 10 offers to take $ (up to 40Mil) Finally, I escaped again and now am only asked to do four day GTM stints from platform providers. A couple of weeks ago I accepted a P&L. I will pass on getting further acquainted. My homebody tasks are to get our homes lined up before the end of the year. Keeping my freedom has been tough. There are 7 letters after my name on my CV.