Building a Quant resume

[VienD]

I am aspired to become a quant. I am planning on applying for a good quant program in the next two years. Though it's a bit early, I think I should start preparing now. After reading the resumes of a few successful candidates, I do not think I will make it to a decent school. I would really appreciate any advise on what I can do to better prepare myself. Here's a brief look at my current qualifications:

BS Mechanical Engineering '09 (3.45/4.0) (Mostly As for Maths/ Stats classes)
Currently a working engineer.
GRE: 790Q, 360V
MBA '12 (3.7/4.0)
I'm working on my Sig Sixma also, but I think it's rather irrelevant in this case.
I know C++ and a bit of Java, just enough to do engineering work.

I'm looking at some good quant programs or PhD in operations research.
Thanks in advance for your help!
VD

 

[VienD]

Off the top of my head:
1. Better verbal score. MFEs don't judge them as harshly, but a score of 360 almost indicates a chronic inability to communicate, a professional death sentence...
2. Get an 800 on your math section.
3. Relevant work experience helps. Some programs more than others. Relevant meaning exposed to financials.
4. Attend pre-MFE preparatory courses, such as the ones offered at Baruch. Should you gain admission to these (and from what I have heard, a very large number of applicants to even these courses gets rejected...), you will a) much better be able to evaluate if you have it in you to be in a quant type role and b) gain potentially positive (if you do good...) exposure to the program, increasing your admission probability. Obviously, attending such courses at your "target school" would be more beneficial than attending them elsewhere.

Alexie,
Thanks for your prompt reply. I know my verbal score is shameful. I will need to practice more and retake the GRE, aiming for 800Q and 5-600V. In term of relevant experience, I work in engineering, it's hard to get exposed to the financial side of the business. I'm hoping my MBA degree will help compensate for that.
The prep-courses one is a hard one. I work full-time at a location where prep-courses are virtually not existed and it's plain impossible to take that much time off to go for prep courses at my target schools.

Is there anything else I can work on? Do you think my maths skill with the BSME and ~790-800Q is adequate?

 

[DominiConnor]

I have to confess to an ill-informed cynicism on how finance schools pick potential students, but looking at employment issues:

Firstly, you need to evaluate objectively your core talent at maths, sure you can improve your score, but talent is the factor that stays constant no matter how much you practice.

I don't even employ anyone whose job involves not caring about verbal GRE. You do need to be articulate, and frankly the correlation between formal qualifications and that is poor. Can you explain hard things to smart people ? That's the only thing that matters, spelling isn't relevant in an age of spill chickers, grammar can be solved by writing short sentences, but being able to express yourself is critical.

Thus my tips aren't warm or fuzzy, fact is they rarely are:

1: Buy the Primer in Financial Mathamtics by Dan Stefanica.
The less it teaches you the better your life will be.
If any significant % of the maths in that book are out of your league, then my strong counsel is to stay on the road you are on now.
It will teach you some stuff, and possibly point to some weaknesses, given that this is a primer for this level, all such holes must be seriously plugged.

Then attack more advanced maths like PDEs, and given that you are an engineer, econometrics and stats in general are probably under-represented in your education.
Classes might be good, but frankly if you've got what it takes to make it in this line of work, you should be able to make progress with just books. That's hard work of course.
You might want to do a distance learning course like the Certificate in Mathematical Methods, but that depends upon what you don't yet know. Again if too much of that is new, this is not a good idea. There's other distance learning courses out there.

Fixing your English should be quite cheap, and you just need to hire a tutor that will gentily but firmly debug your English, there are plenty of such people everywhere.

 

[VienD]

Domini,
Thank you very much for your advise.
This is exactly what I need. Since I have time, I want to take the steps and prepare myself for this move. I personally think I can do good at math. I will take your advise and review the Primer to see where I'm at. My engineering background did not provide much statistics training. However, since I started working and attending MBA school, I've received more training in statistics. I've been using quite a bit of statistics in my daily work. I think I'm capable of using stats and I like stats.
That verbal score was almost amusing given the time I've spent in the US. I hope it was just a one of those days thing since I really was just focusing on the quantitative side of the test (I was applying for the MSME, but that failed through due to my work schedule) I'm planning to retake the test sometimes this year and hopefully that will be improved.

Given my profile, what school do you think I can realistically aim for? I think top tiers are out of the question. What about PhD in Operations research? Will it give me better career options?
Thanks again!
VD

 

[Lana]

Dear All,

I am fascinated by the quants, quant world! May I ask you about an advice how to proceed to be a junior quant? I would like to switch my career. I am a physicist with 8 years after my Ph.D and significant experience in research. I have M.S. in Physics and Engineering, Ph.D. in Physics and Math. from Russian Academy of Sciences. I am pretty good in differentials, math, know Monte-Carlo simulation (but for scientific applications), a bit of C++, Python, Matlab. I have begun preparing myself to be ready for interview, reading books. Took some courses from Stanford/Princeton in Model thinking, statistics, probability, etc. to remind myself about it. But the prob;em is - nobody wants the worker without an experience in that particular (finance) environment! That does not matter where to apply the math rules - in basic research or in financial industry. Math is Math What do you think about my chances to become a quant? Any advice would be appreciated!
Thank you!!! Lana

 

[Jayanthan]

Dear All,

I am fascinated by the quants, quant world! May I ask you about an advice how to proceed to be a junior quant? I would like to switch my career. I am a physicist with 8 years after my Ph.D and significant experience in research. I have M.S. in Physics and Engineering, Ph.D. in Physics and Math. from Russian Academy of Sciences. I am pretty good in differentials, math, know Monte-Carlo simulation (but for scientific applications), a bit of C++, Python, Matlab. I have begun preparing myself to be ready for interview, reading books. Took some courses from Stanford/Princeton in Model thinking, statistics, probability, etc. to remind myself about it. But the prob;em is - nobody wants the worker without an experience in that particular (finance) environment! That does not matter where to apply the math rules - in basic research or in financial industry. Math is Math What do you think about my chances to become a quant? Any advice would be appreciated!
Thank you!!! Lana

seems like, you post the same message in different threads

 

[Lana]

that was my idea

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Hi Lana
It would be hard to navigate in this new land without some basic idea of what the landscape looks like. This should be your starting point.
https://www.quantnet.com/forum/thre...uants-mfe-financial-engineering-students.535/

When you have a better idea of what you want to do, it is easier for people to give advice. This look is particularly useful to figure it out
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071468293

 

[Lana]

Hi Andy, It is very useful! Thank you very much! Lana