worried about my future

[concerned_quant]

Hello everyone. I have been trying my best to secure employment in the quant finance industry. My areas of interest are statistics, machine learning, pricing, optimization, trading/market microstructure, predictive modeling, econometrics. I have recently picked up a book on simulation and am reading and implementing most of the subject in python on my own. I am also planning on taking an optimization course offered at columbia online soon(optimization methods in finance). I am located in new york at the moment.

I have taken graduate courses in timeSeries, Statistical Inference, intro to machine learning to build my statistical toolset. I self studied regression on my own.

In my spare time, after reading books, i carry out my own projects and put it in my resume. Some take a month to implement, some as long as 3 months (only because I don't spend every hour on it. I make time to do this on weekends).

In the last 6 months, I have tried very hard to apply through linkedin and going to various company websites and have applied for jobs over there. I never get a call back. So far, I have applied to 620 jobs (as per my linkedin notification) and got 0 calls for interviews. Hows that even possible?

If i were failing interviews, that would be another matter. But not even getting one?

I was informed by close friends to forget those subjects and try to apply for documentation roles. But i feel that provides 0 career opportunities and I don't want to just get any job, I want to build my career. Im not interested in risk unless it involves some type of quantitative modeling, just out of my own self-respect I have for myself.

As per the list of top financial engineering programs as posted in this website, I graduated from the top 3 programs.

I don't want to mention the name because i feel my identity would be compromised. I do receive emails from the program on a frequent basis about job postings thats available through the program I graduated from. I have sent my resume numerous times and still haven't gotten a call back. My only guess would be that somehow, the program doesn't want to be involved in placing me or perhaps people have a very bad perception about me that few of my friends would gladly disagree with.

I don't know what else to do at this point except maybe apply to another masters in financial engineering program with the hope that there is no bias against me. I have spent countless hours feeling depressed at my current situation. Im not Chinese, but somehow I feel by not being one, I am at a huge disadvantage.

At this point, I am in my mid 30s and deciding to pursue another masters would mean giving up the next 2-3 years and landing (hopefully) an associate or entry level position in quantitative finance.

Its a small world out there. Even through my networking, eventually, i feel people would reach out to the program to hear opinions about me and somehow, I am being singled out. I don't know if I am being paranoid. Should i delete the program from my resume completely?

I have two kids and a wife. At this point i have turned to uber as a source of revenue and not sure what to do now.

Thank you for your advise, and please don't ask me the name of the program or attack my character here. I am already down as it is.

 

[Baijw]

After receiving my rejection and reading your thread, I feel heart-breaking and am almost crying. Fingers crossed.

 

[admitted]

I think there is great possibility that I have been rejected by the Columbia MFE which is my dream school. After reading your thread, I feel worse.

 

[Aaron_Niu]

"So far, I have applied to 620 jobs (as per my linkedin notification) and got 0 calls for interviews. Hows that even possible?
If i were failing interviews, that would be another matter. But not even getting one?"
-----

I had faced similar situations when I was trying to find my first internship (finally it was a half network-connection who helped me), or when I was attending some great competition and trying to find a partner (hard to explain the rules but finally got some luck). It turned out that at last, after I got the opportunities that I "did not deserve", I did very impressive job and was undoubtedly one of the best candidates for each scenario.

I feel it is sometimes too arrogant to completely ignore a person's personality and potential while instead just focusing on his or her hard profile. In most professional or academic situations, a lot of applicants should at least get a chance for interview (and I am sure that some of them can show that they are actually strong candidates during interview).

However,

The world is not designed by you or me or other people. The world runs as it is. Recruiters will still always do their jobs very quickly and spend only 20 seconds on each applicant's profile. Sometimes we have to be smart and to adapt to the reality first. We may have to do something that we do not like at first (even though I still don't have enough professional experience and this is just something like a claim), and then turn to a better place. It does look unfair that our hard work are not valued enough by others, but as long as we do not give up our dreams, keep confident, work hard consistently, and smile to the relatively unsatisfactory outcomes we got by today, live will finally become better and become the way that we dreamed before. Best wishes to you and please do not give up your dream!

 

[IntoDarkness]

i feel so many things are wrong in this post...

 

[Kevin Ramlal]

I don't understand what "perception" you are referring to and how all 620 companies would know whatever bad reputation you think is holding you down.

I'm truly sorry for your struggles man, its tough out there. Perhaps you need a change of strategy, I mean if you've applied to that many jobs and still not have received any responses, perhaps invest some money into getting a professional rewrite your cover letter and resume.

Best of luck, but like IntoDarkness said, something seems a little off with your post

 

[Philip_Mitterrand]

620/0 score indicate that you are fishing in the wrong pond or severely overplaying your hand. It doesn't matter how skilled/technically strong you feel about yourself rather the perception of the gatekeepers about your skills and what value you can bring matters more. I would find some solid quant around your area buy him few lunches and rework the whole self promotion drill.

Definition of Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein

Hello everyone. I have been trying my best to secure employment in the quant finance industry. My areas of interest are statistics, machine learning, pricing, optimization, trading/market microstructure, predictive modeling, econometrics. I have recently picked up a book on simulation and am reading and implementing most of the subject in python on my own. I am also planning on taking an optimization course offered at columbia online soon(optimization methods in finance). I am located in new york at the moment.

I have taken graduate courses in timeSeries, Statistical Inference, intro to machine learning to build my statistical toolset. I self studied regression on my own.

In my spare time, after reading books, i carry out my own projects and put it in my resume. Some take a month to implement, some as long as 3 months (only because I don't spend every hour on it. I make time to do this on weekends).

In the last 6 months, I have tried very hard to apply through linkedin and going to various company websites and have applied for jobs over there. I never get a call back. So far, I have applied to 620 jobs (as per my linkedin notification) and got 0 calls for interviews. Hows that even possible?

If i were failing interviews, that would be another matter. But not even getting one?

I was informed by close friends to forget those subjects and try to apply for documentation roles. But i feel that provides 0 career opportunities and I don't want to just get any job, I want to build my career. Im not interested in risk unless it involves some type of quantitative modeling, just out of my own self-respect I have for myself.

As per the list of top financial engineering programs as posted in this website, I graduated from the top 3 programs.

I don't want to mention the name because i feel my identity would be compromised. I do receive emails from the program on a frequent basis about job postings thats available through the program I graduated from. I have sent my resume numerous times and still haven't gotten a call back. My only guess would be that somehow, the program doesn't want to be involved in placing me or perhaps people have a very bad perception about me that few of my friends would gladly disagree with.

I don't know what else to do at this point except maybe apply to another masters in financial engineering program with the hope that there is no bias against me. I have spent countless hours feeling depressed at my current situation. Im not Chinese, but somehow I feel by not being one, I am at a huge disadvantage.

At this point, I am in my mid 30s and deciding to pursue another masters would mean giving up the next 2-3 years and landing (hopefully) an associate or entry level position in quantitative finance.

Its a small world out there. Even through my networking, eventually, i feel people would reach out to the program to hear opinions about me and somehow, I am being singled out. I don't know if I am being paranoid. Should i delete the program from my resume completely?

I have two kids and a wife. At this point i have turned to uber as a source of revenue and not sure what to do now.

Thank you for your advise, and please don't ask me the name of the program or attack my character here. I am already down as it is.

 

[Butanjin]

I feel your pain man.
Have you tried Networking? Headhunters? Most of the time applying via the company website is like sending ur resume directly into the recycle bin, no one even sees it. I've always felt that the filters they use on these company job portals are broken and rather than being inclusive they just filter every1 out. Then ofcourse there's the HR person who might not have enough time, and finally there's the hiring manager who may totally ignore what finally comes through, and instead rely on their network and referrals. In short, that process is broken, so don't beat yourself up when you don't get any response from this path.

Sometimes it's better to take a job u don't want and then using it to launch urself towards ur dream job. When applying for a job it's better if you are already employed vis a vie being unemployed.

Good luck man, hope something works out.

 

[angelina]

1. Any work experiences before your MFE program?
2. Any professor that taught you at the MFE program that you can schedule a face to face talk with? They are mostly likely willing to connect you to companies. And if the "bad rep" is false, you get a chance to clarify.
It just seems very unlikely that 100% of the faculty would think something about you... and unwilling to hear from you. Many of those teachers have full time jobs, where they teach because they love teaching. I don't think they would be shutting students out like that.

 

[Liam]

In terms of your reputation it's just paranoia - academic referees would only get contacted if you got a job offer and it's merely to confirm you went to that uni.

With all due respect, your friends sound like they don't know what they're talking about and are probably just basing their recommendations on the number of applications you made and probably can't swallow their pride enough to admit that they understand nothing about the quant hiring process. 620 applications is till a lot though and it sounds like you're badly hamming the resume and cover letters. Plus I would question if they are all quant roles you applied for - I know NY is big but is there really 620 financial firms that hire quants, considering there's probably only 15-20 IBs maximum in any given city, even NY?

For starters networking and HHs get people jobs in this game, as this gets your resume in front of quant managers, so I'd network with teachers in your program, quants and quant HHs. Firstly this is to get feedback on your approach and secondly to get interviews.

Post your resume here and people should be able to see where you're going wrong. If you're still paranoid about revealing your name just hide identifying details on the copy (known in my business as 'anonymisation of data').

The main thing with resume writing is to express your value in business terms value added, profits increase and cost reduction, not a 'news report' of jobs and education. Remember you're applying to be an analyst not to be a 'letter-box that crunches a few numbers' and not to be a 'coder'. Also if it's a career change resume then you will have to really focus on your quant stuff at the start in terms of describing your value (as opposed to education) and put the work experience into later pages, so that employers don't see irrelevant non-quant jobs in their first glance.

And remember that as a newbie some firms will just plain old ignore your profile. It's harsh but you will have to hustle a bit - the above points on the resume are important and still ring true even if you go for an unpaid internship, but you can't get too purist. A documentation role would probably never lead to a quant role but risk could, as you will be using tools quants build (a valuable insight) and I have known people to make that leap after 1 year in risk.

Also with regards to 'self respect' bit, please snap out of it. It comes across as 'Sheldon Cooper tries being a quant' and just makes you sound like a twat.