Need personal career advice.

[KennethK]

Hi guys,

*Warning long story ahead*

I have been a reader of both quantnet & physicsforums for quite a while. Basically, I got my Masters in physics here in Malaysia, and soon after aspired by twofish-quant, I was introduced into a Malaysian bank as a "quant" (sell side). Truth is quants are not really required here as our derivative market is very small, and most of them are back to back anyway. Growth in terms of technical skills are limited.

My tentative exit strategy is to make a move to Singapore, which is both close and popular when it comes to quant jobs (eg UBS/ANZ have quant team there). Issue starts because my resume is 'unimpressive' and most headhunter/HR would just throw my CV out.

I have a few wild thought I would need some response on:

1. Get a PhD (preferably in the UK). This seems obvious - but I was slightly reluctant, mainly because of time and effort required is nontrivial. But without this I'm probably stucked?

2. Stay here and move towards other non quant role - I would think my skills are useful around even in non quant role, but then I'd be using less of my math/programming skills (and probably never work as quant again).

3. Need suggestions from you guys...

Anyway I would also welcome any experienced market people to look at my Resume & suggest some steps to improve them - pls drop me a PM.

Thanks guys. I think I just need to talk my situation out loud.

 

[mhy]

1) Please don't do a PhD just to get a job afterwards. Too many people on this forum treat the PhD as if it is just a long version of an MFE. It is not.

2) What are your short-term / mid-term career goals? Moving to a non-quant role doesn't make sense if you want to do quant stuff as a career.

 

[Yike Lu]

1) Please don't do a PhD just to get a job afterwards. Too many people on this forum treat the PhD as if it is just a long version of an MFE. It is not.

This.

 

[ExSan]

1) Please don't do a PhD just to get a job afterwards. Too many people on this forum treat the PhD as if it is just a long version of an MFE. It is not.

2) What are your short-term / mid-term career goals? Moving to a non-quant role doesn't make sense if you want to do quant stuff as a career.

Please don't do a PhD! why ?

 

[KennethK]

1) Please don't do a PhD just to get a job afterwards. Too many people on this forum treat the PhD as if it is just a long version of an MFE. It is not.

2) What are your short-term / mid-term career goals? Moving to a non-quant role doesn't make sense if you want to do quant stuff as a career.

Thanks all for responding.

1) I'm well aware that PhD is not MFE - in fact that was my original plan to go ahead with PhD in Physics before I took a de-tour into quants. The issue now is most "large banks" won't even look at my resume (masters from a small uni, nothing great).

2) my mid-term career goals is really to do something technical - programming, math, finance - ideally as a quant in a "large bank". To get in is insanely tough - at some point I'll have to give up and pursue 'whatever', right?

 

[Alex KT]

If your skills are currently good enough, why not consider participating in coding / analytics / quant competitions? There are a bunch and gives you good exposure, if you're good you might end up meeting / teaming up with someone who can introduce you to someone.. Or if you're insane and win the competitions there'll be job offers waiting for you.

Or you could go the traditional route and do another degree hoping years later it lands you somewhere.. Why not take the wild route for 6-9 months and see what happens?

I dropped out of college twice (oops) but still got a pretty awesome job so I wouldn't place too much emphasis on the "pedigree". If you're good, you're good. But if you need more training, then go for it.