Ronin, I think you are still living in the past. Fully backed trading jobs that include a salary and training barely exist. Even large banks are shutting down their prop desks. To get a job at a hedge fund you need a PhD from an Ivy League school. I don't think anyone would ever tell someone to not chase their goals. But encouraging someone to move to NY and trick the receptionist to obtain an unscheduled meeting is absurd. Maybe it works in the movies....but not in real life. Like Evo pointed out, the OP was asking for prop firms that offer a salary and training...and no programming experience (so basically you are saying you have no programming skills...a highly sought after skill to have in quant trading). Those positions don't exist for 99.99% of us. We are not qualified to even get an interview. Look at the requirements from the two lonely firms that were posted in this thread. Now I will give you some good advice: Network!! That is how people get jobs!! You went to a good college. Check Linkedin for alumni that might be in the trading industry. Join your alumni association. Contact placement services. You might find someone who will sit down with you and help guide you. You would be surprised that many will help and allow you to pick their brains. It doesn't hurt to dream....but you also need to be realistic and have a real plan if you want to pursue a career as a trader. TD
It worked for Bud Fox. Isn't that how he got his meeting with Gordon Gecko? He tricked the secretary and bought Gecko some Cuban cigars. LOL. Oh wait, that was just a movie.
There are trading jobs that will give you a salary. Generally they are execution trader roles. If you go to Susq you'll probably be on their market making desk executing the axes that are being sent to you via their quants/senior PMs. You'll learn how the business works (how to execute trades, how to manage delta risk, how options work, etc.) but they won't let you go and buy 100,000 of vega because you think the vol is too cheap. And other posters are right - they don't easily translate to running a retail style book (of even a few million dollars).
You can't walk into SIG. You will get arrested. With a criminal record, you will have a hard time getting "your dream job".
Most firms that will train you use their own internal strategy that is unique and a combination of clearing/customer/software setup. The problem is that most of these types of firms will train you with a strategy you can't use much outside of that firm. This is what happened to scalpers. Now, only 1 firm is left for scalpers and they have no choice but to go there because of their trading style. My point is it's not as clear cut as you make it to be. The best experience is participating in the markets first hand, not watching from the sidelines. I'm not trying to disappoint anyone, I'm just giving you my opinion after coming out of an ivy with a BS and a top MBA program. It doesn't make much sense for any firm to train you with a style that you can leave with and be profitable. That's the main-issue. You may get a salary, but you have to trade the institutional float, you can't just go off and make profits as you wish. There is usually a particular market that the firm practices arbitrage in. Bigger firms ' strategies are not something you can downscale. They are often structured that way because of the economies of scale. diseconomies of scale ruin profitability of those strategies. For this reason, the scalping model pretty much dies off to all but one broker-dealer in the US and the reason is, you can't go off and do it on your own. It would cost too much. One last point to take into consideration is what happens when you leave those firms? can you easily get a similar position? These are things you have to take into consideration for yourself. By no means am I advising you to go risk capital. If you have capital to risk and enjoy trading, by all means do it. If you need a job, stop looking to trading. The best chance you have of raising capital in the market is proven returns, not what firm is on your resume. If you want a banking job, stay in school and get high grades. There's no guarantee you can land a gig on the desk and if you did, it's usually extremely supervised and you're responsible for handling a certain flow in a very particular way. By your argument, no university should exist, since they charge for training. This is a big problem with the educational system in the US as general. It's viewed as paying a piece of paper required for a job, and not paying for to develop a skill or set thereof. Everyone should do their due diligence but my advice is that many of you have more realistic expectations. Imagine approaching a hiring manager at a firm and asking "do you offer a salary with free training for someone without any experience or the technical skill that is standard in the industry?" Be a bit more realistic. The industry works in a profit/lose function. That's why GS is charging Don 20% of the profits from every account. GS has institutional traders, but it's people like Bob & Don Bright who have risked their capital and their careers to create a more realistic structure with lower barriers to entry. I usually don't write posts this long but I think it's very important for new traders to understand this. If the capital requirements of being an independent prop trader are not available, you should not be looking to trade. You should be trying to find something that can provide you consistent income. Once you have a steady stream of income and risk capital available, you can risk it in the market. If you can't, then you should be seeking employment at a bank or something else. Use your school's employment office. It's not realistic for someone to pay you to train you to trade. They will pay you to complete a task/function but you can't expect that training to be applicable anywhere else. if you want a JOB at a trading firm, there are sales positions, risk management, etc. you can work your way up. Even for these positions, you'll have to email hundreds of resumes and you might get lucky. It's totally a matter of chance. You can't have your cake & eat it too. You have to expect to pay your dues. Nothing is going to be handed to you and you have to be willing to take huge risks. I'm sorry but that's the nature of the industry. I know many interns who worked a year straight without making a cent just waiting for something to open up and to be brought up. I wish you all the best of luck in your search
Often you don't even know what the strategy is: you are the financials trader and the system tells you to buy regional banks. It's your job to source those stocks as cheaply and effectively as possible. You don't know why the system wants to buy the banks. It could be a hedge, a pair trade, or a view based on some model.
That's actually an excellent point. I know one of the biggest option firms here in Chicago that hires kids out of college. It's mostly algorithmic. I had a buddy that worked there and he basically sat there and watched the system trade. There were several guys executing different parts of the system. I tried to ask him what they were doing and he really didn't even know why the system was doing what it was doing. He was just there to put out fires if a trade was missed. Now could he take that knowledge and ever go out on his own and trade? Of course not. I think a lot of guys don't understand that. He said it was the most boring job in the world. Oh and that job, they had 1000 resumes and hired two guys.
I was talking mostly about a firm with a minimal survival bonus (or nothing at all) but with full backing options. Not about the Top Jobs, where your main income is the salary and some bonus % of the profits . And I wasnt encouraging OP to move to NY, but to go there for a couple of days and try himself (only moving if he found a position). So OP, dont get it wrong please, I dont want a guy staring in the streets blaming me for that LOL. The networking is essential, but you cannot just start adding people on LI and spamming them, it will not help you a lot. About the secretary thing, I got my current job misleading the receptionist because the person wouldn´t see any resume until a couple of months. And there were a couple of other opportunities when that worked too lol. One have to break some rules from time to time to get what he wants, WHEN he wants, not waiting 45645 hours until someone will accept to have business with you. And I´ve seen the requirements, they´re not a great deal of stuff. Would like to see your face looking for the requirements needed to work as a head of any department of some reputable firm, those are requirements, some ones really expensive to get. Evo, I agree with your statements, but as I wrote before, not everyone would want to leave an office where the strategy works. The law of adaptation works everywhere, and if you cannot find a new strategy being on your own, then it´s only up to you to change that if one decided to become a "one trick pony" and after that leaving the firm that teached you the trick. And what have Universities to do with trading? It´s a complete different structure created for completely different needs. (And by the way, you can get it for free if you have a head). I totally agree that the papper itself is useful, I´ve been preaching that all my life, the same for the MBA, etc. Anyone can get that paper, it doesn´t guarantees the firm that you are in some way "exceptional", fgs, I have a cousin that have a currency exchange firm with a BIG cashflow, and he never received a college degree, but you ask him to multiply 54645*64534445, and in 10 seconds you´ll receive the correct answer. Tell me how can an HR guy even see that in his resume?. I do not know what are the talents of the OP (or if he has any potential at all), i´m only saying that if he "thinks" that he have it, he can try. And again, the JOB as a trader i´m referring to is one only based in profit split, no salary or only a minimal survival one to pay transport expenses during the training. GS and Bright have their agreements, other firms have their own, with a totally different business models.
Most of what you're saying makes sense to me. I have to consider my exit opportunities. I have to consider that there's a good chance I won't be able to learn a certain style of trading at a company and apply it elsewhere. I don't really want to start a debate, because you are helping me out a lot here. However, I must note that there are significant differences between universities and prop trading firms and I think you're generalizing a little too much there. This post is still very informative. Thanks.
Cart before the horse? The networking bit is good advice - isn't the guy from SMB a Uconn guy? Maybe try reaching out to him. http://www.smbtraining.com/blog/bellas-blog