The Job Hunt_How's It Going

[KrazyHorse]

No reason for them to pay a bunch of newbies unless they have expansion plans. Well, that and apparently most of the banks are absolutely overloaded due to cuts at the beginning of this year. The inside scoop is that the employees are pulling massive hours, but many of the banks are still under hiring freeze. Hope that thaws really, really soon.

[Japher]

KH, what's your degree in?

[KrazyHorse]

Degree? My PhD is in physics, dissertation on nonstandard higgs phenomenology at the LHC. My bachelors is "joint honours mathematics and physics".

[Japher]

So why investment banking? Is that a normal route?

[KrazyHorse]

PhD = being hired at associate level -> straight path to VP level in 3 years
Bachelor's = being hired at analyst level -> your ass is probably getting dropped on the curb in 5 years and forced to go back, do an MBA and look for a job at associate level, or if you're awesome, getting promoted straight to associate

[KrazyHorse]

So why investment banking? Is that a normal route?

Because academia sucks. And yes, physicists working in IBs and hedgies is quite normal. I'm surprised you weren't aware of that from your MBA.

EDIT: I had some of the masters in Fin. Engineering kids whine to me when I told them MS was recruiting from our dept. 9 months ago. Apparently nobody had come to see them.

I was tempted to tell them the following:

1) None of you guys speak English at any but the most basic level. This is a massive disadvantage compared to our department where even the Chinese kids have been forced through their teaching duties to learn to speak at an understandable level.

2) None of you guys can do math or use a computer for ****.

[Japher]

I haven't done much investigation into investment banking.

[KrazyHorse]

You're not going to get in as an MBA with chemical engineering/chemistry (?) and no industry experience.

Analysts are recruited from Ivy Leagues with math/physics/econ/finance bachelor's and a 3.8+ GPA. Associates are recruited from math/physics/econ/finance PhD + software people from MSc/PhD compsci/electrical engineering + businessy people with 4 years analyst experience and an MBA

[KrazyHorse]

Honestly, management consulting sounds like a good fit for you, less good for me. You can almost certainly read a balance sheet/look at fundamentals better than I can.

[Jon Miller]

I thought that had a lot of travel.

JM

[KrazyHorse]

It does, but it also pays well compared to other things BSc + MBA gets you.

[Japher]

I actually like the idea of management consulting over IB.

I'm ChemE with 10 years pharmaceutical engineering experience, not ivy league. I like what I do, I just want to do it at a management level (with direct reports). I would prefer to stay in operations or consulting to operations, as I like the human aspect of those roles. My goal is to meld science with business at a functional level, not study derivative pricing models. I'll call you when I start something and want to go public.

[Kontiki]

You're not going to get in as an MBA with chemical engineering/chemistry (?) and no industry experience.

Analysts are recruited from Ivy Leagues with math/physics/econ/finance bachelor's and a 3.8+ GPA. Associates are recruited from math/physics/econ/finance PhD + software people from MSc/PhD compsci/electrical engineering + businessy people with 4 years analyst experience and an MBA

That's not entirely true in my experience. Plenty of associates are recruited from people without analyst experience or graduate level science degrees but with an MBA from a top-level school. That was the case with alot of my classmates. Granted, that was a few years ago now, so there's a chance that may have changed.

[KrazyHorse]

MBA from top 5 will get you into a lot of places, it's true. And japher, my post was not meant to be an insult. I really do think you'd be a better MC guy than I would. You have far more experience working in an actual company, more idea how to deal with non-geek types in a work setting etc.

EDIT: back to Kontiki, there is a huge difference between today and 4 years ago. I think I could have sleepwalked into an associate position back then. Might get loose again in the next couple of years, but there was a hell of a bloodletting 9 months ago. Like 20%.

[Japher]

And japher, my post was not meant to be an insult. I really do think you'd be a better MC guy than I would. You have far more experience working in an actual company, more idea how to deal with non-geek types in a work setting etc.

Wasn't taken as an insult, I'm pretty sure it's true. Though I know how to deal with the geek types as well. My benefit is to buffer the two from each other, or rather serve as an interpreter/translator.