Where are all the NYC entry level / junior positions?

[nouuata]

Unemployment is improving, market is going well, banks are not hiring.

Let's cut this in short - is there any chance that the banks will start hiring soon?

I am currently under my OPT and I have been looking for a job for several months already. I am a recent math PhD graduate, great in C++, and my resume is not bad at all (I usually get the recruiter's attention), yet I had only a few interviews for the past months. It seems to me impossible to get currently into the financial sector in US. I received an offer in my home country (in Europe) and I am considering to accept it (and maybe in a few years try to get a job in London.)

Is this the right thing to do? How is the situation in London at the moment?

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Did you try to network? Do you have friends who already working in finance? Try to get them to submit your resume through their firm internal referral network. If you got hired, they got some money. (at least that's how it worked up to a few years ago).
Go to finance conference (with discount rate for students), meet people, see if anyone is doing anything interesting, offer to help them while your skill set (C++).

I receive emails for job leads monthly from my contacts so I don't think there is no jobs out there. You probably don't have the right network to tap into.

 

[nouuata]

I tried networking, but all my contacts are not working in NYC. I have been watching basically any major job website, any major bank, financial group, etc and there were very few entry level positions in the past months. It seems that I am not having the right network indeed, but I don't have the time to start going to conferences now. I need a job asap. Thanks for the advice!

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Have you tried Bloomberg? They hire programmers all year long.
Have you tried the firms from our list http://www.quantnet.com/quant-internships-graduate-recruitment-list-firms/
From my experience, entry level quant jobs aren't advertised. I got my first job without applying because someone I know referred me to the hiring manager.

 

[nouuata]

I applied at Bloomberg, but they prefer people with experience, so I didn't get invited to take an online test as opposed to my friend with six years of professional experience. I applied at most (if not all) of the companies in the list - some of them do have entry level positions offered. It is ridiculous that I get rejected for the entry level positions, but I get invited for the experienced once. I actually got into the final round for an experienced position at a major bank, but unfortunately they preferred another candidate.

 

[latency]

try the prop trading firms in chicago or nyc, although the hiring season is past, they are not averse to hiring off season..

 

[jondan]

international students do have more difficulty in getting an entry level job, especially when there are so many jobless American kids out of school these days. Most banks do not want to hire someone for entry level that need their sponsorship for a visa. Experienced candidates are a different story, it is easy to be a subject of blame in media for a US company to hire foreigners for entry level jobs while US citizens fresh graduates are also vying for those

 

[nouuata]

latency: when is/was the hiring season?

jondan: I don't ask for a sponsorship in my applications. I don't want an H1B visa now as it won't make any difference for me and I don't plan to apply for a green card in the future. My OPT is good for two years and a half and it is too early to make that decision now. Also, there is rarely a question about the applicant's status. At the same time, there are many foreigners who get green cards while in their home countries and come to US. I doubt that there is discrimination based on name origin or that someone checks the applicant's status (at least in the preliminary state).

 

[jondan]

Unless you apply for 2 years or shorter contract jobs, a 2.5 years OPT does not mean you can stay and work on a permanent position forever without sponsorship, most positions are not temporary and I am sure employers may not want to take the risk of employing someone that cannot stay due to visa issue etc, sponsorship is also a costly and time consuming process and in some case they may not be able to do so, for example in 2009 Bank of America had to retract some job offers to international MBA candidates due to their inability to sponsor them for the H1B visa, I am sure these MBA graduates have 2 years OPT too

 

[latency]

the hiring season is usually fall when they go to schools to recruit for full time positions. some firms have days when they bring in a whole bunch of preselected candidates and interview them..i am not sure what school you are in, but they typically visit top schools. in the midwest, they do end up going to mid tier schools like purdue and uiuc.

 

[financeguy]

banks across the board right now are looking to decrease head count, and it's affecting junior positions as well as senior ones as much as we'd all like to believe it would be most effective cutting out senior people first.. on the sales and trading side across asset classes, customer interest is extremely lackluster and markets are forever stalling ahead of some form of a clearer picture of the world.. this has severely impacted trading revenues at all the major banks as spreads have become thinner, there are fewer decently profitable deals trading, and directional positions are stagnating (just take a look at hedge fund returns last year for an idea of how people are doing with position taking).. further, the general deleveraging processes the banks have gone through since '08 will make it next to impossible to replicate the sort of return on equity the banks enjoyed pre crisis once they do start making money again, at least for the next few years.. capital charges have already increased / become significant for longer dated trades.. and there's going to be a round of regulations coming into play in the next year or two that is going to really meaningfully impact the way business is done - this will affect some asset classes more than others, but all will be touched.. why aggressively grow a business right now when the whole game is going to change in 2013?

anyway the point of all that is - don't expect banks' new recruitment head count numbers to recover alongside the rest of the economy.. if you're just graduating and don't land one of the few seats available at an i-bank during recruitment season, i urge you not to hold out for one and bypass other opportunities - you are playing a game of musical chairs with the odds severely stacked against you

 

[jondan]

I work in back office in bank and I feel the heat everyday, when profit and prospect of future earning are dropping every quarter, the only thing that is in management mind right now is how to cut the cost and trim down the liabilities. Last Fall they don't even go to campus for promotion of the graduate programs like before and in fact the graduate and entry level training programs have also been revised or even cut. Only a handful of very lucky interns got the offer to stay back, no more mass recruiting from colleges or headhunting of talented students even before they graduated like before. I agree that fresh grad should seriously consider any opportunity that come along, long was the days when college students can choose and pick the jobs they like, financial jobs are not the money generating machine any more.