Advice For a Scientist Ready to Play the Field

[sciencefinance]

Hi all,

About my background:
BS & PhD in chemical physics from Caltech/MIT, have been a postdoctoral fellow for 1 year. GPAs 3.9 (ug) and 4.0 (g) - well published, several awards/fellowships in my field.
My research has been theoretical - paper and pencil theory as well as computational - working in quantum dynamics, experience in Fortran, C++, Matlab, etc.

I would like to get into finance - my interest began when I had been contacted by a headhunter about quant positions at prop trading firms. Prior to this, I had never considered finance. I have no formal training in finance (aside from some econometrics and game theory classes in college) - but have been trying to teach myself the basics.

My questions are -

1) Do I have a shot at anything other than quant-type jobs with my background (and lack of formal finance training)?

2) Are there any firms that would particularly look favorably upon someone with my background?

3) Also, any other headhunters that people would recommend that specialize in placing PhD's? I would be especially interested in firms in Chicago over NYC, but am flexible.

4) Any other positions that I should be looking at?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

[Joe Yu]

woa! Caltech for BS and MIT for PhD in chemical physics? I don't know much about PhD's working in finance but I am sure firms would find your skill sets very useful.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I would begin with this reading list Master reading list for Quants, MFE (Financial Engineering) students - Forum | Quant Network
1) Lack of finance training isn't important. If you are quantitative type and can code, you can get many roles.
2) I would be careful with which recruiter you use. GUEST COMMENT: Do headhunters really hunt? | News | www.eFinancialCareers.co.uk
3) Todd Fahey is one of the recruiter who used to frequent here who works out of Chicago
Q/A with Todd Fahey (Quant Headhunter) - Forum | Quant Network
4) Anything that interests you and just apply.

 

[Joy Pathak]

I was interviewed a month ago by a PhD in Astrophysics from top 5 school for an internship at a hedge fund out of NYC. It is a very reputed firm.

You are definitely a great candidate for quant positions. I do not know about non-quant positions. Getting an MBA would open a lot of opportunities in non-quant positions.

I am sure others will be able to give you better guidance regarding headhunters and so on.

 

[alain]

My advice, forget about learning a lot of finance now and concentrate on landing a job. You shouldn't have a lot of problems. You will learn finance once you are in a financial firm.

contact some headhunters. Todd Fahey and Dominic Connor should be able to help you. They hang around here in QN once in a while.

With your credentials, you shouldn't have any problem landing an interview. After that, you are own your own.

Also, don't waste your time on an MBA, unless you want to be a professional student.

 

[IlyaKEightSix]

...I would so kill for your background. How the heck did you have the patience for a doctorate, and out of MIT no less? I am not worthy. :bow:

Anyhow...RenTec and DE Shaw. (And I'm sure you can find some positions at Google, too!)

Wow.

 

[Joy Pathak]

My advice, forget about learning a lot of finance now and concentrate on landing a job. You shouldn't have a lot of problems. You will learn finance once you are in a financial firm.

contact some headhunters. Todd Fahey and Dominic Connor should be able to help you. They hang around here in QN once in a while.

With your credentials, you shouldn't have any problem landing an interview. After that, you are own your own.

Also, don't waste your time on an MBA, unless you want to be a professional student.

Well he asked about..

Do I have a shot at anything other than quant-type jobs with my background (and lack of formal finance training)?

I assume if he mean't Investment Banker type positions than a top tier MBA would open a lot of opportunities. Not neccasry though, as he could try and talk to the recruiters that come to MIT and get in.

Also, Cal-tech and MIT engineering/math departments have recruiters come to them often for quant positions. Maybe talk to your career services department, they might be able to forward your resumes to some IBs also for quant positions.
A few headhunters and recruiters from Chicago firms would sometimes come to Wisconsin-Madison PhD Engineering career fairs and so on so I would assume it would be similar for MIT also.

 

[alain]

also, I have some questions

1) what is your specialty? Specific field inside Chemical Physics - Quantum dynamics is really broad nowadays.
2) what do you know really really well (to the point you can kick major ***)?
3) "experience in Fortran, C++, Matlab, etc", what is etc? what did you do in Fortran? Using somebody else's code to get your results? what do you do in C++ and Matlab?

 

[sciencefinance]

also, I have some questions

1) what is your specialty? Specific field inside Chemical Physics - Quantum dynamics is really broad nowadays.
2) what do you know really really well (to the point you can kick major ***)?
3) "experience in Fortran, C++, Matlab, etc", what is etc? what did you do in Fortran? Using somebody else's code to get your results? what do you do in C++ and Matlab?

1) Yes I was being rather broad (and imprecise as well actually!) - part of my work is in electronic transport - using Kadanoff/Baym formalism to describe open non-equilibrium quantum systems - this is both paper/pencil work followed by computational implementation. The other aspect of my work is in quantum chemistry (not dynamics at all) - local correlation theory, so lots of linear algebra, etc.
2) As far as science goes, I would say those two fields mentioned above. As far as generally applicable? linear algebra, coding, general analytic thinking?? - I know I don't have the kind of statistics/PDE background that some might desire in a quant, but I think I can pick these up.
3) Coding: I wrote my own code in Fortran90 - all kinds of different projects, but mainly using numerical libraries (BLAS/LAPACK) for the hardcore numerics. Also some experience with parallelization with MPI/openMP. In C++ - I contributed a couple thousand lines to a large (10 million line) computational package - I wouldn't call myself an expert, yet. Finally, Matlab is the default prototyping program I use when I just want to test out an idea quickly without concern for speed, before moving on to a real implementation thats not ridiculously slow.

 

[alain]

You won't have problem finding a job. Since you have great expertise in Linear Algebra, check the books on Portfolio Management by Grinold and Khan or Qian, Hua and Sorensen. Also, hit Attilio Meucci's book.

PM if you want more info.