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FE program in HEC Montreal

thegreatone

Joined
4/3/09
Messages
8
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I am actually bilingual and was thinking of doing this program. How is it? Is it well-respected in the industry?

And what about the job market in Montreal for an FE? I'm aware that it probably sucks right now, but I was wondering about projections and how it was pre-recession...
 
Hi, here's a post I made in the Global Derivatives forum, it doesn't answers your question directly but I copied and pasted here anyway:

"- I'm currently in Fin Eng @ HEC mtl, oh and by the way I did my undergrad at McGill as you did I assume

My guesses, really depends how you compare to others

- entry salary: 50k to 85k, approx. normal distribution

- 5-years on: 60k to 250k, positively skewed distn

There's definitely more high-paying jobs in Toronto and NYC, however be aware that HEC's reputation, no matter how great it is in Montreal, is inexistent elsewhere. I'm not saying at all it's impossible for an HEC alumni to get a job there, some did, just that there's a big chance your interviewer will have no idea of what school you've been to, so you already lost the prestige school tag to those competing for the job.

For example, I did my undergrad at McGill and I'm doing my MFE at HEC, and I can safely say that HEC's product is way better in terms of quality than McGill's Desautel. With this in mind, where does all the big banks from Toronto do their recruitment sessions? McGill and not HEC.

Thus if your aim is Bay street or Wall street, you may want to consider schools better known in the english world (and finance is an english world btw) than HEC. But if your aim is to stay in Mtl, then HEC is a really good option because it has a great reputation here and tuition is quite affordable.

Pay-wise and placement-wise it's hard to say because financial engineering has been quite shaken in 2008-09, so predictions can't be made by extrapolating past and present job markets into the future."

Best luck
 
You will not get the same top end of roles in Canada for MFE degrees than the US or elsewhere. I'm from Toronto and most of the MFE roles are in risk managment. Depending on what you want to get into, you wont see as much of high frequency trading, alpha generation, stat-arb etc. there just isnt the same volume or critical mass.

Depends on what you want, it's definitely not as lucrative up north, but maybe this is just my opinion from my own research. The UofT MMF website doesn't even really hype up the career path, they don't provide any employment stats either. I don't think the market is as mature.

These reasons among others is why I am going to school in New York, it's just not the same market, IMO
 
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