Look for alums from your school who can help you. Senior people at banks and hedge funds. If your GPA is high (close to 4.0) and you have demonstrated a very strong work ethic and intensity you might find someone who will pull you in. If you played a varsity sport, even better. Wall Street loves athletes, especially if they have brains. Not having any finance/investment experience (whether it be on your own or through you university's investment club) will make it harder for you to demonstrate your intensity.
While I am not gonna argue with you as I am definitely more on your side of thinking when it comes to getting a trading job......firms that do hire recent graduates do want a complete clean slate so they can train and teach guys from scratch. They probably won't give a rats ass if someone at 20 yrs old traded a retail account while in school. I don't think prior trading experience comes into play with a 22 yr old graduating from school. That being said if I had two guys in front of me in an interview and one guy showed the initiative to trade on a simulator or a small retail account and the other never sat in front of a screen or traded....the guy who did trade in some way would have an edge. But that's me....I've been trading for a long time....I don't think like an HR person or a recruiter.
The problem is that you need to be VERY hungry to survived in trading if you have ZERO interest in the market in any way. If you at least dabbled privately a little it shows you have some interest. And at least know that it will not totally bore you. While the clean slate is one side, the job is not easy. Without some fire for it... it will break you. Imagine someone signing up to become a journalist without having any sample to show Or never written for the school newspaper. Sure, it is not the same, but - "i have no experience at all" is not really good for a prop job, showing you know what is coming.
No, you're just raw. It remains to be demonstrated whether there is any talent there. Maybe yes, maybe no, no way to tell. Not trying to be an ass, just trying to keep it real.
Thanks for the advice. The reason why I do not currently trade with real money is I feel like I'll get eaten by the sharks with my limited knowledge. I have played with Yahoo Finance, but it's not suitable for day trading as the prices are set once a day. I would be interested in practicing with a quality simulator. What's the best simulator out there?
Ideally the best way to get into the business at 22 yrs old is to get a job as a trader's assistant. Learn by watching an experienced guy for a few years. Sure you will catch some shit on the desk and be reprimanded when the cheeseburger you picked up for him at lunch has cheddar instead of American on it...but by sitting with a guy and watching what other guys do on a desk you will set you up huge for the future. In my opinion the best education for a new trader is watching someone else....being on a desk....getting screen time. Is it easy to find one of these jobs? Hell no. But they are out there. You might have to be willing to take very little pay or even treat it like an internship and work for free. When I was younger I got a list of all the firms registered with The NFA (very easy to get...can buy it from NFA directly for like 15.00) which actually had phone numbers. I called up every one on the list explaining my situation and asking if they had any interest. I had no idea if they had any needs or were hiring....and yes...most did just say send us your resume and if interested we will call you. But I did end up going to meet with some of them in person. More than I originally thought. Lastly.......these firms that say "Pay us for a trading education"? Stay the hell away from them. A majority of them have zero interest in seeing you succeed. They just want there 5-10k tuition. The ones that do actually bring people on and let them trade a portion of their tuition fee have huge turnover. None if any make it. A firm with an excellent strategy will hire guys, teach them, then back them with firm capital knowing that these guys will make great money for the firm and the trader. Two week classes are absolutely useless. It takes months/yrs to learn trading. Anyone telling you it can be taught in weeks/month is not being upfront. If they do say that I would love to see their turnover rate.
Two thumbs up. In the old days they called that "apprenticeship". That's how you create masters - living it to learn it.
I appreciate everybody's replies. A little bit more about myself: - I have a good, but not great GPA (3.64) as an undergrad, my graduate GPA is 3.85 - I am competitive, when I play something I want to win really badly. However, I was not a student athlete. - I see some companies like SIG like people who have played games. I was really big into poker for a long time. It was from studying this I learned many concepts that I think are applicable to trading: EV, variance, risk management. So why trading and not becoming a professional poker player? - There's something exciting about evaluating companies and buying or selling parts of them based on how they'll do, I get a feeling like "yeah I'm an owner". - I majored in economics, because I was interested in how the economy works, I like studying consumer-firm interaction. - I like how I face aggregate decisions. In stocks you don't have to go head to head with people. Going head to head there's a chance that a person is simply better than you and it's hard to walk away from. With stocks you just have to be better than the aggregate market. - I think there is more upside. You can only play poker up to the limits that others want to play.
You're not. I agree with you. I have to convince the firms that I have talent and I'm worth taking a risk on. It's a tough task.
Gilroy, do some coding in Multicharts. Find some data, and see if you can come up with a profitable model in less than 3 days. If that doesn't work out, give yourself a month. If you don't have a model built after a month, trading's not for you.