What do institutions look for?

Discussion in 'Professional Trading' started by Dinosaur_Supervisor, Oct 13, 2015.

  1. What do they look for when hiring traders?

    I doubt they will ask for my account statement. ;)

    Is formal education really needed?

    I don't need the job, but I'm very curious to see how the market looks from the other side. It is a personal life achievement I need to complete.
     
  2. rmorse

    rmorse Sponsor

    I t would help to know what you mean by "institutions." Are you referring to prop firms, hedge funds, market making firms or larger bank/brokers like GS?
     
  3. Banks, brokers, hedge funds. I'm interested in the work of all financial institutions, except for prop firms.
     
  4. A polished, perfect, pedigreed resume.
    'Wall Street' is a very simple, conservative, and traditional world. and connections will help too.

    ...anything short of that, you can basically kiss that world good bye.
     
  5. wrbtrader

    wrbtrader

    Not sure what type of job you're talking about at an institution but have you just consider just looking at the backgrounds of the employees at any particular firm you're curious about, how about looking at descriptions of job openings, employee listings with their backgrounds on Linkedin that work for institutional firms ???

    For example, market risk manager at Credit Suisse @ https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/91196509?trk=jserp_job_details_text

    Another example, check out the profile of David Sneddon of Credit Suisse as a Managing Director in their investment banking division in London. He also is their top dog technical analyst that dishes out instructions to other technical analysts at the firm.

    My point, just pick a company and research the company or backgrounds of employees that are listed...plug their name into something like Linkedin to see their employment background, academic background and such along with any memberships they are part of...linkedin stores a ton of information.

    Yeah, you gotta be a human and have formal education considering the type of business they're in. :D
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2015
  6. qxr1011

    qxr1011

    suckers and slaves without guts, balls and imagination
     
    lawrence-lugar likes this.
  7. Your reply reminded me of the movie Rogue Trader 1999 o_O

    '...l realised we couldn't go on running Barings like a gentlemen's club.
    We had to look beyond our traditional recruiting grounds,...the old school tie,.....to seek out a new and hungrier breed.'
     
  8. Bob Rose

    Bob Rose

    I started trading in 81 and retired a few years ago as a private trader. I traded some institutional Street money for a while. If you can make them money most will be interested. You just need to be very persistent and talk to the decision makers. Your style will need to fit with their needs of course. Good luck.