Does First Job Make a Difference?

[Liam]

The point with a) is that you always get a "mulligan" with you first job. No employer is likely yo look down upon a career switch after only a year because we've all known people who simply discovered they didn't like the filed they initially chose.

In finance, data and tech this is more or less the norm and tbh I've found employers in these sectors way more human than any summer/college/stop gap jobs I've ever done. Only exception was a bar job doing accounts for a family friend.

Local culture can also be a factor - in UK and Ireland every last shit and piss you took since you started out of college is qeuried, especially pisses and shits that veered you away from your specialism(s) (especially if it's a small market like Dublin), while US employers are known to look at it in a more capability oriented way. Not sure if that applies to quant roles as I've never experienced it directly, but good people tend to network usefully if they need to so that the system wouldn't get in their way.