I see that many of the aspiring quants are in their mid to late 20's. I'm about to turn 33 and although I have had 6 years of equity markets experience in sales, trading, and research, relocating to the west coast has forced me to take jobs the last four years in regular industry working as a corporate finance analyst with stuff like budgets, forecasting p&l's, treasury, accounting, variance analysis, etc. Basically stuff you don't need an MFE, but better suited for people with CPA's and MBA's. In fact, I feel in this line of work you need more soft skills to move up rather than hard skills because frankly, to work as a controller or a finance manager, you need strong leadership skills, schmoozing, and deadline/priority management as opposed to stuff that is really intellectually stimulating. It's a boring line of work.
If you move up to manager, VP of finance, controller, etc, you might have the chance to make 150K or above, but that's if you make it through the layers of bureaucracy and win the approval of your team and upper management.
This being said, reflecting my current situation, because I find this line of work rather blase, I would like to be a quant and get back in the markets which is my true passion.
However, since I plan to do an MFE on a part-time basis by the time I will graduate I will be close to 37 years of age.
Would 37 be too old to enter the quant world on a desk in an IBank as an associate? Would my age be a limiting factor not only as I try to progress through the ranks once I enter, and ultimately, might I become a victim of ageism?
The only other alternative I have is to do a complete 180 degree about face from this aspiration and just work with the path of least resistance and just get an MBA and a CPA leveraging my recent experience ( which I know that to acquire both would be a much simpler undertaking than to get the MFE)
I have also thought about it and if you basically go to any city, there are hundreds of job posting for finance analyst/manager/controller, whereas for the quants, although pay seems to be good, the listings are sparse. I dare say this would even be the case for the financial capitals like NYC.
Any thoughts? (putting on my hearing aid to listen carefully) :D
If you move up to manager, VP of finance, controller, etc, you might have the chance to make 150K or above, but that's if you make it through the layers of bureaucracy and win the approval of your team and upper management.
This being said, reflecting my current situation, because I find this line of work rather blase, I would like to be a quant and get back in the markets which is my true passion.
However, since I plan to do an MFE on a part-time basis by the time I will graduate I will be close to 37 years of age.
Would 37 be too old to enter the quant world on a desk in an IBank as an associate? Would my age be a limiting factor not only as I try to progress through the ranks once I enter, and ultimately, might I become a victim of ageism?
The only other alternative I have is to do a complete 180 degree about face from this aspiration and just work with the path of least resistance and just get an MBA and a CPA leveraging my recent experience ( which I know that to acquire both would be a much simpler undertaking than to get the MFE)
I have also thought about it and if you basically go to any city, there are hundreds of job posting for finance analyst/manager/controller, whereas for the quants, although pay seems to be good, the listings are sparse. I dare say this would even be the case for the financial capitals like NYC.
Any thoughts? (putting on my hearing aid to listen carefully) :D
