- Joined
- 2/5/13
- Messages
- 12
- Points
- 11
See you at Cornell :]
I truly agree with you on that what matters most is our own ability. Besides, as far as I know, Cornell enjoys a nice placement mainly because the Director Victoria tries to put the students in risk-related departments in Citi-Bank. Pay attention, risk-related departments not S & T or hedge funds! So if you are interested in risk management, let's vote for Cornell. If you are interested in front office positions, I believe Columbia will have advantages due to the name, the alumni network, the location and so on. Last thing to say, don't rely too much on others like career service, focus on the improvement of your hard skills and interpersonal skills.
Glad to hear from you! Where did most people from Cornell MFE go to? Cuz personally I quite like to get a job in buy-side, like quant or trading assistant in HF or AM . Does the skill set of Cornell MFE fit this goal?
For HF you need a lot of programming skills which no FE program will give you - ideally you would have a very strong background in CS and the FE will improve your finance knowledge and open some doors for HF companies. I believe several courses (investment portfolio management, optimization modelling, statistics for FE) can be very helpful for what one would be doing at AM. Therefore, it is up to you to do the needed networking and finding a perfect job.
Last thought: networking is the easiest way to find your dream job.
I wouldn't say I am experience but I have been in a position of applying for an FE program and then looking for a jobThanks for your advice! Seems that you are an experienced guy in financial industry. I heard that the sell-side quantitative jobs are still shrinking and front office may only give return offer to their summer interns while buy-side is even harder. I should probably start my preparation since today.
This is simply not correct. The fact that the director might have helped some students find an internship at a particular company at a particular division does not mean that the program is targeted towards such places. People from my generation got trading positions in both sell side and buys side (think jane street or similar) companies.
I wouldn't say I am experience but I have been in a position of applying for an FE program and then looking for a jobJust network - I heard it many times and didn't really think it matters that much but then once I started doing it I realized how many doors it opens.
I wouldn't say I am experience but I have been in a position of applying for an FE program and then looking for a jobJust network - I heard it many times and didn't really think it matters that much but then once I started doing it I realized how many doors it opens.
I am not Asian so I can't be sure how you look at networking (I am international as well though). You can/should approach all alumni from your program and university (even people from your undergraduate schools). For example, recently a Chinese interviewing for an internship position at the place I work sent me an email asking if we can grab coffee and share my experience with him. Of course, I was more than happy to spend 20 minutes of my day to talk to him and grab a coffee and I am sure 95% of the alumni of the program and the school in general will be happy to do it as well. There are also some books on networking but I have never read one and I cant comment on them.