Quote from Maverick74:
It's the same here in terms of competitiveness. Only now with Dodd Frank, banks can no longer have internal hedge funds. And on top of that, most of our banks here got rid of their prop desks entirely.
Having said that, I lived in NY for two years and worked for what most people thought at the time was a bucket shop at 110 Wall Street. That was because the guys with the real resumes were at Goldman and JP Morgan. What those guys didn't know, was the people sitting around me were taking home 3 to 5 million a year. And those bankers sitting on a desk trading were making 150k base plus maybe 250k to 500k bonus. They also worked 80 hours a week, the guys at my firm worked about 50. The bank guys had 2 weeks vacation a year. The guys at my firm would take off the entire summer to bum around Europe. Trust me, the the bank is not the way to go.
I have no doubts, banks are not interested in good grounded common sense or experience, they are interested in how many letters you have after your name. Then again they have clients that are expecting some "quantifiable professionalism". When I worked for a big bank, I could not believe how such smart guys could come up with so poor results at building a fund of hedge funds. I have no idea what planet they lived on but it didnt make any sense...