Between Jobs

Getting lots of e-mails and calls from people who are looking for jobs these days. Some are fresh out of school but finding the current hiring environment difficult, others are veterans recently laid-off due to "cost cutting." What should you do when you're between jobs?

Well, I suppose it depends on the person. First off, a safe bet for someone straight out of school is to go find some productive job. Just make sure it's related. Financial consulting is a popular choice. Another is working for a financial research or financial software firm. Just keeping a hand in financial products helps.

Always be tracking what markets are doing and always be growing your network of people in the industry. The number one way into the industry is through connections. Don't be afraid to bug them fairly regularly (like once every 3-6 months, not once a week).

Some people help their resumes along during such periods by trading a small PA (personal account) and tracking returns or publishing a newsletter/blog regularly to anyone who will read. Such activities, while not really jobs at that point, help keep you up-to-date in the industry. They help you build some experience working some aspect of the industry and feeling the joys and pains of being right or wrong. Ultimately it also helps you attract people who are interested in people like you.

What if you've worked for a bit? That largely depends on what you did.

Traders and some salespeople might be perfectly fine trading their own acount for a while between jobs. I know plenty of people who enjoy trading their PA (Personal Account) enough to use it as a temporary job. Some of those people end up enjoying it enough to just do that forever. Depending on the risk profile of the trader he may trade a cash account or a futures/margin account. I'm a fan of the futures account. Some traders move on to sales or risk roles after their first lay-off. They find those jobs easier to find, and their experience as a risk taker gives them most respect as a salesperson or risk manager.

Some people go off to start their own firms. I know risk managers who started software companies, traders who started brokerages, and salespeople who started newsletter services. Each has its own appeal, but generally I think these people were fairly well-off and wanted the freedom of having their own shop.

Find something productive to do. Grow your skills. You'll find no new skill gained is ever wasted.

Day in the life of a Quant

A couple people have asked for something along these lines. I'm going to do two versions of this. "Quants" are an overly generalized term, so there really are multiple types of quants. There are quants that support derivatives desks, there are quants that do statistics for proprietary trading, and there are quants that build apps for use by an institution. I really only know anything about the first two.

Exotic Derivatives Quant:

5:45am - get up, shower

6:30am - be on train

7:00am - get to office

7:10am - deal with first trader complaint. A pricing module for knockout options on fx broke.

7:30am - morning call with traders, quants and sales people

7:45am - work on forward discount curve for dollar denominated assets.

8:20am - first trade of the day comes in. A European bank wants to price a equity index basket option. You start on the code immediately (VBA or C++, depending on the difficulty of the basket/option being priced and also depending on the bank from what I've heard).

9:00am - finished writing and debugging code. Go to your validating quant to check work. (Usually two quants will work on a given model at the same time. If both models get to the same answer within a certian tolerance, then the code is considered good).

9:20am - your code and validation code match up, code is sent to the model validation quants (usually yet another group that compares the model used to several other models). You go check your work for a while and then go back to the project you were working on before the trade came in.

11:30am - lunch at the desk

12:30pm - new trade comes in, a hedge fund wants to do a reverse repo on a stock.

12:35pm - trader whines about his sheet freezing up while pricing the particular stock repo vs the counterparty. you tell him it's because he has too much stuff open and running.

12:40pm - trade is priced and your desk wins the trade.

12:45pm - trader complains that the hedge ratio on the repo can't be right. You wonder why he thinks there's a ratio on the repo. . .

1:30pm - model validation comes back with the 'go-ahead' on the basket option trade (sometimes they come back within the day, for more complicated stuff it can take days).

1:40pm - the counterparty is notified of the trade price, but you know they won't get back to you till the next day.

2:00pm - another equity repo trade

3:00pm - bond markets close. This is important to you because some of the exotics you price can cross fx, fixed income, equity and credit all at once.

4:00pm - equity market closes

4:10pm - make sure all the marks are correct in the derivatives book and double check hedge assumptions

4:45pm - work on correlation matrix for one of the trades in the book

5:30pm - you're an equity guy, time to go home.
note: this is probably a fairly easy day as far as leaving at 5:30, but generally speaking the trade volume tends to be pretty light. There's an occasional "truly" exotic trade that takes a couple days to price. Lots of repo type deals or total return swaps with hedge funds. Technically as the quant you're not reponsible for the risk, but you are responsible for giving good fast prices.


Stats Quant:

6:30am - get up, shower

7:00am - get to the office, log onto relevant machines

7:10am - Check overnight diagnostics on machine trading algorithms being run overnight. Since you didn't get a phone-call waking you up (automated, of course) and telling you of an error, you don't expect to see anything abnormal. You don't need to check overnight pnl because it was e-mailed to you at 6am.

7:30am - open project being worked on. Usually a program in C++ or some research in R/S-plus. Begin programming.

8:20am - fixed income markets open, make sure machine run trading systems are not failing. You really don't have to do much here because you're supposed to get an e-mail and some bells/whistles go off when stuff breaks. Not to mention the electronic systems were running overnight. Some of the trading algorithms only run during liquid hours though.

8:30am - go back to your programming.

9:30am - equity markets open, you do the same drill you did with the fixed income markets.

9:40am - back to programming

10:20am - one of the trading systems throws an error. It froze itself, but you need to manually take it out of it's risk. You delve into the code to see what happened.

10:50am - you found the bug and fixed it. You would test it on the test servers, but the bug happens so infrequently that it wouldn't matter. You did test it internally. You plug it back in and go back to your original project.

11:20am - you go out to grab lunch with a couple colleagues. You decide to stay out for lunch today as opposed to bringing it back to the desk.

12:10pm - you return to your desk and return to coding.

2:50pm - the daily manual trading algorithms produce their results. You and your colleagues discuss the results and start making phone calls to put on the trades given by the daily algorithms. These often involve OTC derivatives, so you actually need to place the phone call to trade.

3:20pm - trades finalized.

3:30pm - daily quant round-table meeting. You and the other quants discuss any issues you've had with coding, any ideas you have for new trading ideas and papers you read overnight. The discussion flows like a classroom. The meeting ends with the new trading ideas that seem worth following being moved forward for a full write-up. Those that have already been written up and fully discussed today move into development phase and are assigned programmers. A paper is handed out for reading overnight.

5:00pm - after the meeting you and a colleague decide to play a quick game of chess.

5:20pm - you lost, again. . . that guy used to be a championship player.

5:30pm - you go back to your workstation to save everything down and make sure things are running.

6:00pm - the fixed income electronic markets open back up (they are 23 hour markets) to check that all the diagnostics are running. You go home as soon as everything checks out.

note: as a prop-side quant your day is somewhat less structured. That means you really need to be driven to do your research and develop new ideas on your own. It's like being a really well paid academic. You don't have others pushing you to do something right as much as you do on a sell-side desk. Typically you need more background for this sort of work too. Usually you see PhDs who did their dissertations in a relevant or exotic fields (exotic because they tend to bring ideas that are unique and methods that are different from the usual tools known to the finance world). You probably will need to be able to program your own stuff (most PhDs in technical fields learn sufficient programming).

Hope this helped. Feel free to e-mail with more questions.

Stay Aggressive

More than anything, you'll find this industry is about being aggressive. Maybe it's the same in every industry, but I think it is especially true in this one. It is up to you to step up and take what could/should be yours. Responsibilities don't just get handed out. They're usually given to the first person who steps up and says "I'll do that." In fact, even if it is outside of your current description, the guy who steps up and takes ownership will be th person who gets the assignment. There can be downside in being too aggressive--being labeled as a cut-throat bastard, being seen as not knowing your place, being labeled as immature, etc. But in the cases I have seen, senior people are willing to give you a shot on most things. If you can prove you can do something, then it's yours.

The skys the limits if you can convince people that you can handle the responsibilities that are available. Once you have responsibilities, you can ask for the commensurate promotion, more pay, etc with impunity.

Tracking Markets

I was recently asked how to track markets when you are not yet a market participant.  Those of us connected to the markets pay tens of thousands of dollars a month for up-to-date news and user-friendly interfaces.  If you can't spend a few hundred thousand dollars a year for data feeds, are you toast?  Well, yes, if you're actually trying to day trade off that crap data then you're screwed.  If you're a student just trying to track markets and maybe doing a bit of personal trading on a day-over-day basis, then there are lots of good free sources.

My personal favorite datasource when I was a student was yahoo finance (finance.yahoo.com).  They actually have a very good database of historical prices, historical financials, current financials and slightly delayed prices.  You can track all sorts of market from here.  Their news may not be the most timely, but there are better places to find news.  There are lots of free stock tickers out there you can download to set up a personal set of tickers to track daily.  Beyond whatever equities you decide to track, I would suggest tracking the following on a day to day basis:

• 2y notes
• 10y notes
• S&P 500
• FTSE
• Nikkei
• 30y mortgage rates
• 3m libor
• fed funds rate
• EUR
• JPY
• GBP

This should be enough to get you started.  There are some more obscure things to track, but these will give you a general idea of how the US markets are moving and a peripheral view of the rest of the world.  

For news I'd use www.cnn.com, www.bloomberg.com and www.wsj.com.  The most timely of these sources may be cnn and bloomberg, but if you're checking once a day the wsj actually does a great job of synthesizing the important parts.  Generally speaking, you really don't start caring about the daily specific moves of securities until you have some skin in the game (i.e. you're actually involved in the market and are dependent upon it for your livelihood).  One way to get involved is to have a small (SMALL) speculative account to keep yourself in the game.  You can do this as a stock portfolio or as a futures portfolio (I tend to like the latter, but that's because I'm a derivatives guy who does this stuff professionally--don't do this unless you really understand futures.  Taking delivery by mistake can be a bitch).  For most people I'd recommend just having some stocks in a small spec account (couple thousand) and tracking them daily.  I would tell anyone who isn't a professional trader NOT to be day trading and NOT to be leaving limit orders in the market.  

As a student, I tried to get myself involved in markets, and I think it helped a bit.  One of the old-fashioned things I used to do (and still do in a modified form) is writing down the closing levels of the various indicies and securities I tracked every day.  Then you have a personal record that you are forced to look at daily.  The physical act of writing them down makes you reflect on them.  You start to notice patterns and you notice trends in the market as well as stories that the market reacted to.  

Good luck.

Whitespace

Various people have always complained about how unfair it may be to ask a fresh college grad not to have whitespace on their resume. I'm not sure if this is necessarily an unfair thing to ask. Many college grads have full resumes filled with competitions, clubs, sports and jobs they participated in (yes, they're participating in jobs, quit bitching) during college. I don't think it's unfair to ask a student to have participated in two reasonable commitments during college. I think two is enough to fill up a resume. People are often in fraternities/sororities, sports teams, maybe a part-time job, maybe an internship, and a competition here or there. The key is to put the right amount of detail into your resume. Don't rehash the same thing over and over again (as some people I've seen have done) and don't write down meaningless bullet points like "assured continuity of business as usual" (yes, I've seen that as a bullet point).

So what sort of detail should you give? Remember in grade school when they told you that the key to a good expository is to give the "who, what, when, where and why?" That's pretty much it. In particular, "who, what, where" are usually the most important. You should make sure you always discuss the "who" in each line you state. Were you addressing clients? Management? New hires? Students? The what should be detailed. Was it a $10M account or a $10Bn account? Was the PnL +25M or -15M? Was the audience 8 people or 500 people? Were you serving 10 customers a day or 1000? As to where, did you do this at your firm? Did you travel at all? Were you at an off-site? When and why can be a bit redundant. Most of us won't care why. And the answer to why is often "because my boss told me." If you took the initiative to do it yourself, you should probably mention that. Initiative is often associated with risk--taking initiative means you're willing to take some career risk, which is good. As for when, it's usually during business hours, so no one cares. You might mention the when if it's past normal hours or something, but don't get too cocky with this. No one likes the asshole who stays late just to stay late. One thing not mentioned above is HOW. You can include HOW you did things to strengthen a resume. So you were a waitress? HOW did you make customers happy? HOW did you gain more tips? HOW did you decrease the wait time at the restaurant?

The details you include in your resume are important and can show a lot about how you dealt with various trials. In particular they can show how you are different from someone else who may have taken the same task, and that is the key. You need to differentiate yourself in the particular role you may have had. If the next guy would have done your job just as well, then you're basically a commodity. If you added special value in that role, then you're a valuable asset.

Good luck.

Stupid Interviewees

Learn my example. Here's what not to do:

Interviewer: Tell me an example about a time when you had to perceive where you had to assess the risks in a situation and communicate the risks to others.
Interviewee: I play online poker. So I am familiar with having to take risks.
(Silence)
Interviewer: Can you explain to me how this relates to my question?
Interviewee: You said give an example about a time when I had to assess risk.

Moral: Listen carefully to the question and don't give stupid canned responses.

Interviewer: Let's say a duck is sitting in the middle of a circular pond with radius R. The duck can swim velocity V. There's a wolf on the circumfrence of the pond that can run velocity 3V. The wolf can't leave the circumfrence of the pond. Can the duck escape?
Interviewee (immediately): No.
Interviewer: Do you want to explain your thought process?
(silence)
Interviewer: What makes you think the duck can't escape?
(silence)
Interviewer: How far does the duck have to travel?
Interviewee: I don't know.

Moral: Okay so this one was just an idiot. Generally speaking though, when giving a brain-teaser they're more interested in your thought process than your answer. Brain-teasers are inherently slightly unfair, so we look for people who think methodically/systematically and creatively.

Interveiwer: Why didn't you stay with (some firm on their resume).
Interviewee: I didn't really get along with my boss or my coworkers. I also found my job really boring. You wouldn't believe what a slob he was when he was eating at the desk. He farted a lot too. In fact, I don't know why I went there in the first place. Then I got fired.
Interviewer: That was candid. . .

Moral: Never talk shit about former employers. In this industry there's a good chance they know your old boss. Also it reflects poorly on you to say bad things about others. It's even worse if you elaborate and spread gossip. Never say "I got fired" if you can't give good reason for it (market downturn, scapegoat, etc). Try to spin your last job in a positive light and highlight what you learned from the experience.

Interviewer: What makes you think you're right for this job?
Interviewee: Well, I am extremely interested in finance. I've taken managerial accounting, corporate finance and introduction to private equity at the business school.
Interviewer: But this is a trading position. You understand what foreign exchange traders don't really look at corporations.
Interviewee: I feel like it's all the same.
Interviewer: Uh. . . no. . .

Moral: College kids love to give their canned responses and talk about what they've done. You really need to pay attention to each job description and not give canned responses. The more creative and personal a given response the better. We can tell when you're being genuine or just spouting shit (even when it's not this obvious). I hate it when kids spew crap about playing poker showing how they're not risk averse in a trading interview. Everyone fucking plays poker these days. Just because you play your $5 game with your buddies doesn't make you a risk taker. Maybe if you were playing $500 games while a student that'd be a different story. . .

Interviewer: What other positions are you interviewing for?
Interviewee: I am also looking at investment banking jobs at (firm A, B and C). I am looking at private wealth management at (firm D and E). I am considering consulting at (firm F, J and K).
Interviewer: That's quite a lot of different areas. Why would you want to do sales and trading over any of those?
Interviewee: I'm not sure yet. I am trying to keep my options open. Actually I'm currently leaning toward consulting.

Moral: Always sell yourself as most interested in the role you're currently interviewing for. Yes, you need to LIE. The current role is always the shit. Even if you're also entertaining the idea of being a prop guy at Goldman, when you're interviewing for consulting at some bumble-fuck nowhere company that's your dream job. You give some bullshit answer like "I don't think trading is for me. I'd much rather analyze individual companies and help managers make specific decisions. Big companies aren't really for me either. I feel like we get much more personal attention and responsibility at a smaller firm." Practice these before your interview.

That's all I have time for right now. Good luck folks.

Stupid Interviewers and Stupid Interviewees

I hate seeing stupid interviewers as much as I hate seeing stupid interviewees. Stupid interviewers turn away excellent candidates and ask completely irrelevant questions. Stupid interviewees just waste my time. At least the latter doesn't hurt my firm.



You can tell an interviewer is stupid if he obviously has some canned questions to ask you. The obvious ones are that stupid light-bulb problem (brain-teaser having to do with figuring out how three light bulbs relate to three light switches in another room, it's a stupid problem because you either get it or you don't and you usually get very little about how they think from the problem) or "how do you value a call option?" A good interviewer will focus on your resume and be able to pick out details that seem interesting that they can quiz you about. When it comes down to it, an interviewer for a junior position should be looking for aptitude not knowledge or experience. We should be looking for the smartest people who can pick the most up in the shortest period of time, not the kid who happened to have an internship last year. Some of the best people I've met have had no background in finance (art major anyone?) but rocked the brain teasers and critical thinking problems. Granted you should still be able to do some good math, even if you're an art history major. No dice if you're mathematically illiterate. Most of the moron I see interviewing are just looking for finance knowledge. Those guys are clearly going to get mediocre talent who already had internships or studied finance in school. Not necessarily the best and the brightest.



I'll do another post one day for interviewing tips, but for the most part you can't help a stupid interviewee. It's like asking a snail to contemplate calculus.

Resume Pet Peeves

There are some really stupid things people put on resumes. I know some of the things I'll list here are sometime touted by career counselors. They're stupid. Here's the list:

1) Objectives. Your objective with your resume is to land the specific job for which the resume holder is hiring. Nothing else. Stop putting that touchy feely shit on your resume. It just makes it more generic. Technically your resume should be changed for each job you apply. That way it's customized for the role. Objectives are stupid. There is only one objective the recruiter cares about.

2) High school. Unless you went to some elite prep school, no one care what high school you went to or what you achieved in high school. Elite prep schools are those big shot ones in NYC and the boarding schools famous for churning out preppies (Phillips Andover Academy and Choate Rosemary Hall come to mind).

3) Hobbies. While hobbies make for great conversation fodder when I'm not interested in the candidate any more, they certainly won't get you hired. Maybe they'll get you a date (if you're female, hot and have a cool hobby). If you're looking for people to join you in your hobby, go post a personal on yahoo. If you're looking for a job, don't waste precious real estate.

4) 14 point font / white space. As mentioned above, the real estate on your resume is precious. It's probably confined to one page, maybe two. Don't waste it with huge font, superfluous white space (both on the margins and in between lines). It should look nice and legible, but it should not have lots of white space like the menu to a nice french restaurant.

5) Stupid mistakes. Don't be a moron. If you can't get a fucking resume right, why would I trust you with my money?

It also annoys me when the GPA isn't listed (probably means it was low). It also annoys me when relevant classwork is listed, but I don't mind that as much (it instantly gives me something to grill you on). Note that everything on your resume needs to be known cold. If I were your interviewer, I'd take specifics on your resume and delve deep into the details. If you can't explain it thoroughly then you're toast. "I forgot because it was a long time ago" is a lame idiot's excuse. I had a guy tell me he couldn't do some chemistry problem I gave him because it was over two years ago. It was a lot longer than that for me, bud, and I haven't touched chemistry since. To me that says you didn't learn it completely the first time. You're out.

Resume Drop!

It's that time of year again when eager youngsters are dropping their resumes into these anonymous black-holes (actually, I think most are posting their resumes online, but everyone knows these might as well be black-holes too). Then people like me get a mass of papers (or more likely a giant pdf file) to sort through and pick out who sucks and who doesn't. I might be a bit late in this because I assume most people have already dropped their resumes if I'm already receiving them, but perhaps it will help next time.

First hint, it's more about who sucks than who's good. Don't spell words incorrectly. Don't forget pieces of information (e-mail address, phone number, address, etc). Don't have shitty formatting of your resume. Don't have too much white-space. Don't have it be more than one page (unless you hold a PhD or you've worked for several years full-time--hell, I've seen lots of good PhD and experienced folks with great one-page resumes too).

Second hint, while experience is important, a few summers is going to mean nothing a year from now. Having an internship doesn't necessarily mean you are the most gifted in the crowd. It does, however, often mean that the person had the drive to land an internship last year. That drive matters. So even if you didn't have an internship, what did you do last summer? Did you do something that showed drive, determination and a passion for something? Or did you take the summer to be a beach-bum?

Third hint, don't close any doors. It doesn't matter whether you want to be in private wealth, trading, banking, a big firm or a small firm. It doesn't hurt to apply and act as if you really want the job. A lot of people will disagree with this because they would rather you not waste their time, but from your perspective it's every man (or woman) for himself. If you get a job you don't want, great. Now you have the option (and satisfaction) of turning them down. The worst situation to be in is the unemployed schmuck after graduation. You might as well be doing something and gaining some experience as you work toward that dream job (and having cash makes life a lot nicer too).

Good luck.

Market Timing the Job Market

For anyone following the industry, it is clear that Wall Street has had some tough times. Unfortunately for those looking for jobs right now, it may be the worst time ever to be looking for that new job. A lot of layoffs are occurring in the structured credit and mortgage markets. Even some investment banking / M&A areas are slowing their hiring in anticipation of a downturn. That means less hiring in equity capital markets as well. So what are you to do if you find yourself in the unfortunate position of looking for a job now?

I think it would be tougher than usual, but all the same tricks apply. Find a good headhunter, leverage connections and be persistent. All the same, you may find a lot of places have hiring freezes on right now. What do you do then? Get relevant experience. If it's an option, go get a masters degree for a year or something (I'm sure the job market will pick back up soon enough, it always does). Get work experience at a smaller boutique firm. Try working for an analytics company or even a consulting company. There are lots of options if you are willing to use a detour as a way of keeping your career moving forward.

Have patience. Even if things look bleak now, the bonus cycle comes up in 3-6 months. There's always a frenzy at that time. After that the summer comes again for new hires. For those without the luxury of just waiting, get a job in a somewhat relevant field. In your future interviews you can always state that you found your job because Wall Street was in the credit debacle of 2007 when you were first looking. Once the cycle reverses, you can find a job and seem like you were at least keeping with the times in the market, despite the fact that your unfortunate timing kept you from getting that first analyst or associate gig.

Good luck.

The Next Job

Very few people stay in finance their entire life. Those that do very rarely stay at the same firm their entire life. The days of firm loyalty are sadly long gone, and even more distant a memory are the days when firms strongly valued their longtime employees. So what do we make of the rough and tumble, "hardly civil" world of today? The best safety net you will ever have is your network.

As much as your skills matter, your skills don't do anything for landing you an interview. In fact, your skills might have little to do with landing you a job at all. Your skills will be what you use to prove your worth after you find that job. Until then, it's the network you have to lean on.

Who make the best nodes of your network? Find the guys (and girls) who like to mentor people. These people tend to enjoy helping others develop their career and try to connect good opportunities with good people they know. They also make for great people to go to for advice when the time to find a job comes. Keep track of the people you find to be helpful and keep track of your friends who start moving around. You'll want to contact them eventually.

Why is the network your best safety net? Well, it turns out that a lot of jobs available are never posted or farmed out to headhunters. When a job opening appears, it's often the internal referral that gets it. Even more compelling, with a good reference some people are even willing to create a spot. You get the best of both world via this entry point.

You know you won't be in one spot forever. Start building that network because when people start shuffling around, you want to be on top of the game and in the know.

Location, Location, Location

There was a comment I had not responded to for a while. I figured I should give it a proper post because I think the question lingers on many people's minds. The question was: "I am interested in your insight of New York versus London versus Asia. If given the opportunity to join a desk in any of those markets, which would you choose (and what desk)?"

There isn't really a clear distinction between NY, London and Asia markets. I assure you if you start in any of the above, you will eventually get the opportunity to go to the others if you are good. In fact, most top guys I know have traded in at least two of the three markets. While the London and Asia markets may seem particularly hot right now, these things are cyclical. In the long run it all evens out.

The desk also does not matter too much. Trading is trading, sales is sales, banking is banking. No matter what the underlying product is, the skill set learned is what is important. Be it risk management skill, sales and patience, cash flow modeling/forecasting or the art of the deal; it is that skill set that will be portable from job to job. I assure you none of the products are really all that complicated despite what people may try to tell you (and I've traded and modeled a lot of products).

Getting a Foot in the Door

One of the most common e-mail questions I get is of the following type:
"Hi my name is XXXXX. I go to a no name college, so I find it difficult to make my way into a bulge bracket firm. How would you suggest I approach my job search to maximize my chances of landing a job at a bulge bracket?"

I figured I'd address this question because it is, indeed, a difficult one. Bulge brackets recruit heavily at top schools. The banking and s&t analyst/associate programs are like a who's who in the Ivies. So how do others make it on the street? A lot of big shots on the street are from (forgive my wording) "lesser" schools.

Unfortunately I can't help on the i-banking side too much. One good thought is going to a boutique firm first. A lot of boutique firms pay more than bulge brackets anyway (Jeffries comes to mind). In addition, a lot of boutique guys end up in bulge brackets (that move is what we call a buy-out). There is a good reason as to why i-banking is much harder to get into for people who did not go to an Ivy league school. A big part of i-banking is relationships, and it's just fact that people at Ivy league schools are better connected. Better connected people eventually bring in the bigger deals (if you go to Harvard, how many CEOs do you think you'll know in 25 years as opposed to the guy who went to podunk university?).

On the s&t side it's more about your risk taking skill and intelligence. Granted it's still heavily Ivy league weighted, but there's more of an "equal-opportunity" ground here. As a few of my bosses have said, "the market is the great equalizer. You can think whatever you want, but your PnL tells all. The markets are very humbling."

A whole lot of people who are top sales/trading folks are not from Ivies. I think it's because they are often hungrier. They've got something to prove. The hungriest, I've found, are those who come from humble beginning and fought their way into an Ivy and onto the Street. Those guys are fierce. But anyway, I diverge. How do these guys get onto the desk? A whole lot of them started in middle office or risk, actually. That's where you learn how the guys take risk or make sales. It's where you learn the ropes, get a "street" education and figure out how to work the system.

Don't be afraid to take a middle office or risk position for a few years if you're interested in sales and trading. It's a great breeding ground, and the best always make it onto a desk. You just need to want it that much, have the patience necessary of a good front office guy and be aggressive in your climb to the top.