Thanks for the replies, guys! So far...got another more interesting reply...this time from Citibank, but they invited me to an interview all the way to Frankfurt (which - in all honesty I have no idea what part of Germany that is...let alone that my German level is far from advanced...i guess this offer won't end well). Other than the city guys not even a street dealer seems to be interested so far - i guess they need more time to verify the applicants or circle inside the company, ponder over the things I am offering. Basically, I asked almost the same question in another forum and there i was slightly criticized for 'trying too hard' or for the liverpool university - and of course a few guys thought that i have just copy/pasted all of the skills mentioned . Anyways...I will keep looking for now and now taking some break for an hour or 2. Yeah...good luck to ya all .
To anyone that would like to learn the answer to your question I would suggest that you visit flea markets, neighborhood (many neighbors) yard sales , estate sales, church flea mkts, etc. Talk to the people. See what prices they are wanting for items you may be familiar with. I've been doing this for over 20 years to see the real economy and not the propaganda that is disclosed monthly as accurate data by governments and central banks. This way I can tell when things are turning up or down because these places are a proxy for the "canary in a coal mine". They experience it first on the down and are the last to experience it on the upside. To answer your thread question, yes things are that bad and are getting worse IMO.
With all of your knowledge and skills, why in the hell would you want to work for anyone else? Use your models to make yourself money, not others. Or don't you know how?
You should pursue it. Frankfurt is a boring city, but safe, clean, and the trading mecca of the EU next to London. I have relatives close to there. That's where Paul Rotter got his start. Go and interview as long as they pay for travel. Citi is huge I would go if I were you. Besides all Germans speak English under the age of 50.
95% of success in selling is attitude. And you are selling yourself when you apply for a job. Envisioning yourself being successful at the job will do wonders for your interview. You can always turn it down if you find you don't like the location. More importantly, it gives you experience at learning what employers want these days. It will help you modify your marketing program. Rejection and disappointment are one of the hardest things to deal with in life. You must learn how to deal with it to be successful at trading as well.
Well, today Target has a record number of employees with PHDs. I don't know why anyone is surprised. This all started long before the recession. This is what happens when corporations take over the world.
Parts of the country will get worse (Blue states) parts of the country are rebounding (Red States) and the rest of the world, same story. Some regions are doing better, some are getting worse. That's just the way it is.
I was a quant strategist for a large asset manager once (before moving to the trading desk) and I just helped hired a strategist in the last few months. Here's why your cover letter raises red flags and will probably get passed without a call back: (I don't mean to be harsh - just throwing out first impressions) You are throwing around terms used incorrectly and shows you probably don't know any of them very well. For example, no one would call sharpe ratio, sortino ratio, skewness, etc., econometrics. They are basic statistics/performance concepts. Econometrics usually refer to things like VaR model of the fed funds rate, labor growth, and inflation. If Kelly Criterion is what you know about risk management, you shouldn't even bother putting it down. Your "trading" part has so many diverse concepts (neural networks? really? are you just throwing around buzz words? - cause I can't imagine you trade both on fundamentals and also on neural networks) that it's really not credible. It sounds like you don't know any of them well. Your bit about levy distribution in option pricing is another one of those buzz words heavy concepts that don't really mean anything. We can price options using whatever distributions until the cows come home - the point is that you should do something with it; Tell it me that it is better that "prediction" suggests you aren't really grasping this stuff outside of your course work. Anyway, I'm sure you know a bit about a lot of these things. But the way you are phrasing them makes you sound like you are pretending to know more than you do. Perhaps that's the problem ? That's why I would pass on your resume.
This is 2010, the worst job market since the great depression, if you feel like pretending to know something I say put it down on your resume or cover letter, in this world anything goes. This economy is so fucked up right now it doesn't matter what one writes on their resume when 5000 are applying for 8 open positions.