Recent Graduate....want to work as a trader

Quote from OTCkrak:

coming from someone with +5000 posts, 10 per day
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yes. number of posts has been proven to correlate with success. Therefore all one has to do, is to post perhaps only once a day and make money. Seriously, you need a logic class.

Perhaps you would care to refute my post, rather than to demonstrate mental simplicity.
 
NeedaUserName


Registered: Jan 2010
Posts: 8


01-26-10 04:32 PM

I recently graduated college in December with a BS in mathematics and physics and a MS in mathematics. My school is ranked in the 100-125 range. My gpa is around a 3.8.

I have applied to various junior trader jobs at companies like Optiver, IMC, SIG, Marquette Partners etc. So far I haven't gotten any responses.

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions as to where I should apply, and if there were any things I could do to make myself more marketable. Also, any general advice would be appreciated.



You have the right degree for trading, keep applying and you will eventually get in, as long as you interview half way descent.
 
Quote from nokomisjeff:

Could you cite the proof of correlation? That I'd like to see and would appreciate it:)
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lol, I think he was being faceitious there, bud.
 
Quote from OTCkrak:

the hairy, smelly, prick "chicago/wall st type" would pass a brick if they heard this..

they don't care... if you didnt come from a top 10-12.5 school, youre obviously an unsophisticated, state school redneck with a low standard of living. what could you possibly want to do with money from trading, buy a double wide?

im sure youre a smart guy but they dont take kindly to youre kind around them streets. they cant trust someone from your cloth managing large sums of money. they might have you estimate the volume on the exchange by taking a sq foot sample of the tickets on the floor by the bathroom.

if you want to succeed in the business you have to think like a douchebag and i feel you might be naive. read books on technical analysis and start to try coding some systems. after many years and hours in front of charts and data mining you might become profitable.

my advice is to work some bullshit monkey job and save up 50-100k(probably take you half a lifetime), the more the better. keep studying independently and learning to trade with a fractional fx account. dont waste your young adulthoop being a degenerate prop trader on a 5k account.. there are alot of loser prop traders that have been sucking for years just getting by on a mickey mouse account. if your gonna win in this business you need to start right with lots of equity.

companies like Optiver/ Shoenfeld/ Jane St/ will just throw your resume away. why hire you when they can hire a 3.8GPA MIT, Penn, Columbia, NYU, Berkeley, Chicago grad???
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This is quite possibly one of the most ignorant and most uninformed statements that I have read on ET. That is saying A LOT. OTCkrak, I hope that your commentary is made simply out of your own angst and frustration rather than your observations because you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. Trading IS a meritocracy. Schooling is a factor, and while where you went to school is weighted, what you studied is weighted more heavily. I have seen Harvard and Princeton grads hired and suck while guys who can't even spell or punctuate a sentence make millions. You make a lot of bold claims and express staunch opinions in your posts. Maybe it is time to start looking internally at those opinions and see how well they have served you in your own career search rather than joining the embittered fray of never-was-but-wanted-to-be-has-beens that think the world just hasn't yet recognized their own brilliance. I'm not knocking you, but your comments are offensively ignorant and misinformed.
 
Quote from tradetard:

This is quite possibly one of the most ignorant and most uninformed statements that I have read on ET. That is saying A LOT. OTCkrak, I hope that your commentary is made simply out of your own angst and frustration rather than your observations because you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. Trading IS a meritocracy. Schooling is a factor, and while where you went to school is weighted, what you studied is weighted more heavily. I have seen Harvard and Princeton grads hired and suck while guys who can't even spell or punctuate a sentence make millions. You make a lot of bold claims and express staunch opinions in your posts. Maybe it is time to start looking internally at those opinions and see how well they have served you in your own career search rather than joining the embittered fray of never-was-but-wanted-to-be-has-beens that think the world just hasn't yet recognized their own brilliance. I'm not knocking you, but your comments are offensively ignorant and misinformed.
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im glad that my comment solicited exactly this type of response in addition to another member that saw the hilarity. there are more than enough tongue in cheek quotes in my post to realize it would have to be exaggerated satire. understand that it is difficult to express sarcasm in an internet forum.

with that said, i have seen first hand the bias and double standard regarding various organizational behavior policies. i went to a top tier school and its no secret the air of elitism around campus. quote on quote - "new york city IS the center of the world". the bottom line is that if you are smart, ambitious, and determined you will be successful and potentially rich regardless of educational background or formal training. im sure the wealthiest people in the world are either high school or college dropouts.

furthermore, there is a difference between a 3.8gpa from Berkeley and a 3.8gpa student from random state school. if you can agree that SAT score can be used as a proxy for IQ, the grading curve at MIT is significantly more difficult than anywhere else. obviously, calculus textbooks are the same at MIT and at every community college. Im sure the questions and applications on an exam a very different. i would question why a supposed genius regardless of socioeconomic background did not find the motivation to attend a top tier public college out of high school. (Michigan, Berkeley, UCLA)
 
Quote from OTCkrak:

im glad that my comment solicited exactly this type of response in addition to another member that saw the hilarity. there are more than enough tongue in cheek quotes in my post to realize it would have to be exaggerated satire. understand that it is difficult to express sarcasm in an internet forum.

with that said, i have seen first hand the bias and double standard regarding various organizational behavior policies. i went to a top tier school and its no secret the air of elitism around campus. quote on quote - "new york city IS the center of the world". the bottom line is that if you are smart, ambitious, and determined you will be successful and potentially rich regardless of educational background or formal training. im sure the wealthiest people in the world are either high school or college dropouts.

furthermore, there is a difference between a 3.8gpa from Berkeley and a 3.8gpa student from random state school. if you can agree that SAT score can be used as a proxy for IQ, the grading curve at MIT is significantly more difficult than anywhere else. obviously, calculus textbooks are the same at MIT and at every community college. Im sure the questions and applications on an exam a very different. i would question why a supposed genius regardless of socioeconomic background did not find the motivation to attend a top tier public college out of high school. (Michigan, Berkeley, UCLA)
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Wow, you're being pretty ignorant. I never got that feeling when I was interviewing at top prop trading/market making firms. Also just to get an interview you don't need to be that smart. There's no reason OP can't at least get an interview at a couple of those firms. If not, then there's prob something wrong with his resume.

Also a note, just cause a person graduated from Wharton or another top school with a 3.8+ doesn't mean he'd be smarter or a better trader compared to a state school grad with a comparable GPA. I work with quite a mix of both and you'd be surprised how some of the guys that went to a top school don't know nearly as much regarding certain fundamentals or overall trading strategy.
 
Quote from The Tripster:

Wow, you're being pretty ignorant. I never got that feeling when I was interviewing at top prop trading/market making firms. Also just to get an interview you don't need to be that smart. There's no reason OP can't at least get an interview at a couple of those firms. If not, then there's prob something wrong with his resume.

Also a note, just cause a person graduated from Wharton or another top school with a 3.8+ doesn't mean he'd be smarter or a better trader compared to a state school grad with a comparable GPA. I work with quite a mix of both and you'd be surprised how some of the guys that went to a top school don't know nearly as much regarding certain fundamentals or overall trading strategy.
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Seriously, some of the best traders I've ever run into came from farm backgrounds, had Ag majors from Iowa and Kansas, and beat the Ivy guys into the ground. Ex-Bookies, backgammon and chess players also have a better chance of making it profitable. Poker players.......everyone claims to be a poker player................
 
Undergrad institution matters a lot if you just want plain old Sales and Trading at an investment bank. 100-125 is too low of a ranking for undergrad if you want to work on the street-it's a boy's club and you're not in it.

Even at the best schools, getting recruited out of UG or even a masters program as a quant is rare. Now, if you went and got into a top PhD program you could potentially work as a quant down the line and yer undergrad would not matter.


As far as trading being a meritocracy-um, at the retail or prop shop level, sure. You want to work for Goldman Sachs, you better have the pedigree. There is no on campus recruiting at non-elite schools and networking your way in is incredibly rare these days unless you have highly connected parents.
 
When I send them a cover letter is it important to address it to the hiring manager? Are there any good ways of finding this information out? I have searched their websites and the web, and have rarely been able to find that information. Also, most firms do not have a number that I can call.

Is a dear madame or sir ok for these types of jobs, or is it necessary to address it to a particular person.
 
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