PhD in Electrical Engineering, considering a switch to quantitative finance

[jonathanjfo]

Hi,
I am currently working on a PhD in electrical engineering. I plan on finishing my degree in about a year, but I am considering putting my skill set to work in the financial industry. My research is currently in the area of applied physics as well as statistical modeling, particularly with Matlab (which I use extensively). I am considering the switch because I am very interested in finance and the jobs that are available seem to pay pretty well.

I am wondering what would be the best way to make this transition (other than getting a MFE)? Are there post-doc positions available that would ideal for me? Or should I just talk to headhunters/recruiters?

Any input is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Depends on where you are located, I would suggest networking now. One of the advantage of being in NYC is that you can get up to speed quickly on what people are doing.
Go to a meet up, ask people what they do, offer your service for free is one of the way to get some taste of the work while you are in school.
If you are not in NYC, use quant communities like this one, LinkedIn, Stackoverflow to connect to people, participate in projects and get your name out there.

Lot of jobs are gotten through networking, not via HH.

 

[Stuart Truax]

Depends on where you are located, I would suggest networking now. One of the advantage of being in NYC is that you can get up to speed quickly on what people are doing.
Go to a meet up, ask people what they do, offer your service for free is one of the way to get some taste of the work while you are in school.
If you are not in NYC, use quant communities like this one, LinkedIn, Stackoverflow to connect to people, participate in projects and get your name out there.

Lot of jobs are gotten through networking, not via HH.

You hit a good point Andy. For people who are not in the tri-state area, would you recommend moving to the tri-state area without a job and networking until you get one?

Also, is there an online list of quant-related events in the tri-state area so people can time their visits to coincide with them?

The OP seems to represent a significant segment of QN members. Any more feedback to his question would be useful.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

It's easy for me to say "come to NYC" since I live here. It represents a lot of difficulty and risk for people to move to a new and very expensive city. But if you can't take risk, this line of work may be more volatile than most.

I'm trying to get a project off the ground where I have a master list of quant finance events, meetup for people in the area. People can subscribe to it and get email when something is posted. I'll ask for help when I get to that early next year.

I know a lot of finance people (in very senior positions) always looking for extra hand, be it a coding project, something mundane but important such as data cleaning. They may or may not pay but this is a great way for someone with no finance experience but with good technical skills to get in the door. Many of these projects result in other leads and jobs.

And you can't do this living in Ubuntuland. Telecommuting has its limit. People want to see you to trust you.

 

[goldski]

If you're a PhD in engineering from a decent school it will get you interviews. But unless you know finance well, you will get destroyed during the interviews. My friend has a Masters in EE from a Top 10-15 ranked engineering school. It got him several interviews (GS, MS , JPM, etc), but they asked lots of finance questions and he got rocked. There are too many people with the strong math/programming skills who also know a lot about finance now to compete with that solely having a PhD in EE won't help.

Now if you're going to Ren Tech then NOT having Finance experience or any knowledge of finance will be your biggest asset in addition to your PhD

 

[bigbadwolf]

And you can't do this living in Ubuntuland. Telecommuting has its limit. People want to see you to trust you.

Never was a truer word said.