Bullshit. I close friend of mine started in ops at MER taking in wires and went on to become a trader on the Asian Pac desk after 4 years.
Be very careful what you listen to around here. Lots of people here are very informed and know what they are talking about, but some of them neither have the education or the experience to have worthwhile opinion on the matter. At any high level IB, you will join the analyst position for 2 or 3 years before either going off and getting an MBA or changing careers. Analyst positions are terrible, but it is what you have to do. It is a residency for a med student, a time where you pay your dues, learn the field, and have some career experience to get accepted into a decent business school. Whoever said that an analyst position is a dead end is so far off it is funny. An analyst position is the only thing you can do in order to get good work experience, apply to grad school, get an MBA, and come back and be an associate for a few years and make your way into the capital markets departments and trading desks. Being in the final round of interviews at a top 5 IB for an analyst position is a great accomplishment already. IB analyst jobs are very very hard to get due to the quality competition from other undergrads and the knowledge that an analyst position is where you start in an IB. No other position exists that has a better chance of moving up than an analyst. It is the analysts who get accepted into the best grad schools, who get the best MBA, who get hired by the best firms and move up the ladder. No, you are not going to be a human being for the two years you are an analyst, but you will learn a ton, make good money, and more importantly get great work experience that is attractive for top 5 grad school admission boards. If I were you I would be very pleased with myself for making it so far into the analyst interview process for any reputable IB. Good luck with your interviews.
yep, i couldn't have said it better. the most ironic element to elitetrader is that the majority of members have really no affiliation with anything "elite". These very members would probably choose to eat their pie in a ditch than eat their potato in an ivory tower. Go somewhere else like wilmott if you need this kind of information. Their members are constantly interviewing at top banks, doing the corporate thing and getting "proper" trading jobs.
"Work with external clients" usually means trying to sell things to people, at least that has been my experience. I am skeptical of these entry level junior trader positions. If you do not have to earn your way up to a trading position, chances are the job or the firm are not "elite" for a lack of a better word. The more your first couple years are like pledge semester for a fraternity, the better the jobs are in the corner offices. What are you interested in? What types of products are you interested in trading? How do you feel about the locations for each job? How well respected are each of the firms in the industry? None of us can of course tell you what you should do, it is all a matter of your perception of the company and your ability to advance positions within the firm. Do what interests you, do what you would learn the most from and have the best chance of growing into a job (or grad school) that will advance your career in the direction you want it to go. Certainly don't expect to be managing accounts overnight, the more work ad sweat you put into an entry level job the greater your chances of long term success will be. Good luck to you.
that is why you hook up with women from other floors/groups. i definitely do not recommend hooking up with women that you work with but i see nothing wrong with hooking up with others in the same company. if citigroup has like 100,000 employees, what is wrong with hooking up with 1 person out of the whole company? as long as there are no conflicts of interest, there should be no problem.
it depends on the responsbility you will be given and the reputation of the companies. most likely, you will not stay 3-5 years to become a trader because you will be tempted to leave somewhere better before then. thus, you want to make sure you will be getting the best experience possible. also, the 3-5 years estimate is just that so take it with a grain of salt. i worked with the interest rate swaps and credit derivative desk at ML and they NEVER promoted trading assistants (TA) to full time traders from what i heard. i know someone in this thread claimed they know someone who worked their way from the back office to becoming a trader at ML but that is definitely exception to the rule. i worked with a bright guy who worked as a TA for like 9 years and he never made it to trader so he finally gave up and settled for a job in the swaps finance department (middle office). you can get promoted to trader if you becomes friends with one but most traders do not associate themselves with non-traders. TA's are not considered traders. they are the trader's bitches.
Are you kidding me? Where do you think these traders come from? Do they grow them out back in the field? Of course in house analysts and associates grow into the trader positions. If you are an analyst, go to grad school, come back as an associate, in 5-10 years you are looking at vice president and then onto managing director from there. This idea that you have that analysts never move up at an IB is so far from the truth. Obviously you have not had any experience working at an IB, and it is unfortunate you would discourage a young person from being interested in the field because you think that he will never move anywhere up the ladder.
cmk- I agree. Copernicus....I JUST HATE IT....i can't stand this site anymore because of all the fucking morons running around that are so proud to not have an education. And then they speak and its just absurd. It just drives me insane to come here I really don't think I can anymore (boo fucking hoo). Why don't some of you select dumbasses just start promoting IQ tests as a replacement for normal rings of acceptance in society/jobs. Since some of these "street smart" ass clowns are so talented naturally, I find it funny that these lazy asses haven't promoted something of an inherent attributes/ability entrance exam that tests something like IQ. I swear to god I hear one more person talk about how they are proud that they went to some shitty public school or no school at all...its just mind-numbing. But then if you can have Charles running around eating people, you can certainly have a bunch of very confused, educationally deprived individuals saying things that are so distorted I think i'm living in the mist. If you run out to the dunk courts you'll see a bunch of athletically challenged monkeys running around thinking they are literally AND-1 material, when they couldn't even make those mixtapes. And those little AND-1 clowns really think they could compete professionally, which is a laugh. All while feeling superior to more skilled, more disciplined, and flat out better player in COLLEGE. Bill Gates isn't your average donut. Jordan isn't either. And yet for as many retards that you having modeling their lives/feeling better about being uneducated and trying to pull a Bill Gates fortune despite lack of educational accomplishment, you've got these little AND-1 monkeys and wannabes trying to pull a Jordan, all while feeling proud about "street ball" when many would struggle to just play college ball due to endurance. Street ball and street smarts. These are skills that are driven by a lack of accomplishment. Think about it. Its the only way it could possibly be. Would you use your "street smarts" or take academic achievement/smarts to get a job as a head quant making a 500k salary with a total comp of 1 mil? Again, street smarts are driven by a lack of accomplishment, and thats it.