Any chance for me to find a job ??

[Nguyen]

Dear alls,

I am a third year PhD student (international student) majoring in financial maths. I'm planning to graduate next year May 2013. Together with my advisor, I have written by far 5 papers : 1 accepted ( algebra maths paper) + 2 submitted + 2 reprints (will be submitted soon in the summer 2012). I have no experience in industry, no internship. My research is purely theoretical stuff( mostly about SDEs + PDEs_Brownian motion) , and I've found that it is still very far to apply what I have learned in the real life situations. I am planning to find a job next year. My school is just ranked 50th in maths. When talking to my roommate who got his PhD in Physics, did two postdocs at Chicago, Stony Brook, and two year teaching at UCLA, scares me little bit. He is now back to do another PhD in CS. The reason he wants to do another PhD is he wants to work in industry. His first PhD which is in particle physics does not help him finding a job. But the main reason ( by what he told me) is the academia is too "mean" to him. !!! (He has 85 papers of which many are on PRL, Nuclear Physics journal,... + >900 citations.)

So I am thinking to find a job outside academia next year May 2013. My question is : do I have any chance to get a job? what I should do to get ready for job hunting? Do I have to read any book to get ready for interviews? where and when I should start applying for job?

Thank you for your time and it is really fortunate for me to hear your advice on this. Thanks !!!


Nguyen

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Tenured track academia jobs are far competitive than industry jobs where you don't need a PhD as a minimum qualification.
I suggest you look into tech, Big Data industries besides finance. There are few jobs where you get to do math but plenty of jobs where you got to do programming, data analysis.
That brings me to the question how good is your technical skill?
This list of books for interviews are pretty comprehensive https://www.quantnet.com/forum/thre...uants-mfe-financial-engineering-students.535/

Another reason that many people can't get job is that they do it wrong. Have they done any professional makeover? Have they networked with the right people in the right places?

 

[Nguyen]

Thanks Andy for your answer and the link to the books !!!
I think I am good at C++, matlab, maple. I don't know any thing about data analysis software like SAS, or Strata. But I don't think they are difficult to learn.

Quoted from Andy's post :"..Another reason that many people can't get job is that they do it wrong. Have they done any professional makeover? Have they networked with the right people in the right places?

This is what I worry so much. Really I don't know many people beside my advisor, friends at my school. My network is zeros .

Andy : you mentioned about tech, Big data industries : could you please give me few names of these? Thanks

And I would love to hear the others' opinions/advice. Thanks for your time !!!

 

[Andy Nguyen]

This is what I worry so much. Really I don't know mant people beside my advisor, friends at my school. My network is zeros.

I know many of my friends got internships, jobs through their networks but they have to really work hard. But they are all in NYC so location makes a big difference.

Andy : you mentioned about tech, Big data industries : could you please give me few names of these? Thanks

IBM, Google, Facebook, tech startups (check out hacker news)
https://www.quantnet.com/forum/threads/the-age-of-big-data-need-for-data-analysts.8694/