LOL, that is simply hilarious! Anyway, why are you looking for an analyst position when you have savings & income from trading?
OTCkrak, Frankly, IMHO this letter needs major revamping. In the first paragraph, sending your resume, thinking and then saying this qualifies as full commitment is a bit disingenuous right off the bat. It should go without saying that you are committed to the job or you wouldnât have applied so there is no need to say it again. Sounds like you are trying too hard to me or just trying to say what you think I want to hear (just my opinion only). Salary requirements are an easy way to filter resumes quickly and easily on both the high and the low side so you may want to get used to it. This is especially true these days as they have the pick of the litter with so many unemployed or underemployed. But your sentence âI would hope that my candidacy not be dismissed on the basis of this salary requirementâ I wouldnât hire you for that sentence right there for two reasons. First, who are you to tell me (as the employer) what my basis for making a hiring decision is going to be? Who are you and do I care (is what they are thinking)?. Second, this sentence also says you believe you can exclude yourself from this requirement by putting in a comment about it. This would make would be employers also wonder what other rules or regulations or policies you also may decide donât apply to you. Hence, they wonât take the chance on you. The second paragraph should be deleted entirely as it just goes from bad to worse after the first sentence referenced above. Referring to any group of people, even if it is true, labels you very poorly as well. You canât alienate someone you know nothing about as they may have been in the group you are insulting or have a family member in that group and thus you are also automatically disqualified. If you have to insult people to try to get a job, how will you treat coworkers or customers over disagreements? I hope you didnât actually send this to an employer as a college grad because you should know better than this IMHO. A word of advice: Do not mention any comment about them requiring salary requirements, donât insult any group and just state your case and move on. It works both ways too. Maybe they want to pay way less than you would consider taking for a salary. If that is the case, you save your time and money by not having to interview with a company that wouldnât pay near what you require and you could focus on finding better fitting jobs for both of you. Accepted not excepted on page 2. You got it right in your Cover letter though. If you made a bad error on your resume or in a letter you had to write describing yourself, you probably would also be automatically disqualified. The whole letter says donât hire me IMHO. I have a chip on my shoulder and am disrespectful to anyone I disagree with. Just some things to think about or consider. Best of luck BM
i just grabbed that image off the net.. My savings (~20k) is my trading account, being unemployed I have found it very difficult to distinguish between savings and "risk capital". When I quit my job at $15/hr i felt 20K was enough to "make it" or at least keep the same standard of living. Frankly, im not that good of a trader. Pulling $500 a week from the market is not a life. My friends in high finance making over 150K in salary are in a much better position. I think with the CFA designation I will be a shoe-in to a top 5 mba program maybe 5-10 years down the road. I worked in back office operations for one of the top banks and realized it was dead end. Once you get branded as infrastructure you are blacklisted from ever moving to an analyst position.
They ask you for salary requirements because of the first rule of negotiation - always get the other side to show you his hand first. Plus, it's a good way to weed out morons who are dumb enough to answer that question and who overvalue their skill set. I can't imagine a scenario where a candidate whose resume shows him to be well qualified just because he doesn't fall for this old trick.
thanks for your reply. this cover letter was tongue and cheek, i created it very fast as a "smart ass" response. I use a different letter for real applications.i did not meet the requirement of having 1-2 years experience as a sell side analyst and figured I wouldn't get called back anyways. just getting discouraged with my job search. it appears they will always find something wrong with my background. my resume states i worked for "one of the better banks" as an operations associate "back office accounting". hiring managers can critique this experience in many ways.. -"why would this person leave a position at a bulge bracket IB and want to work here?" - "since "IB" had him working in back office, they must have had no value for him as an analyst, why would we want him?!" like i said before.. once i have the CFA designation all these games will be over... in the news they mention that GS bonus pool of 16B comes out to 340K per person.. what it fails to mention is that 90% of GS employees are "operations" and only get peanuts
You really should know the salary range of the job you are applying for, the low and the high. I knew the salary range of what my competitors paid for a similiar position. If someone asked for something out of the high range I'd better see some achievements, perhaps the person outgrew his position and could go no further where he was at. Maybe the same would happen at this company. If someone was at the low end, I would be looking for the amount of time on the job, maybe he didn't give it enough time or just didn't perform to deserve a raise. If your changes industries, this is a different ballgame. If an engineer made 75 k and is applying for a retail postion that may pay 40k tops, if I'm looking to hire him because he is qualified, my point may be, will he stay or is he just biding time till he gets something better? This would be part of an interview.