What Qualifications?

Bluebird1927 said:

I'm taking a 15 month Gap between ungergraduate and a masters and planning to attempt to get an industry qualification in this period. I was originally thinking CFA level 1 as my degree has already covered a lot of the syllabus but I'm still not a 100% sure what role I'm looking for in finance. CFA seems pretty broad am I right? Is this the Best qualification? what are the other options?

Also Planning to work abroad for a 4/5 month to learn a language. I'm swayed towards Russian at the moment, as I figure it would be the most useful in London, and I'm interesed in the culture. I already have tourist Spanish under my belt but feel that it won't really help in the city, am I right? My logic is that I should learn a language from a BRIC.
Any idea what languages are in demand in the city, more importantly what will be in demand in 2 years time?

Thanks

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Magos said:

I will try to keep it as brief as possible:

If I was you:

(1) Take CFA level 1
(2) Do French or Russian
(3) Join a gym in the City
(4) Linkedin and start connecting (networking)
(5) Become a annual sub. to the Economist/FT
(6) Create a layout of a covering letter
(7) Update your CV Goldman's style
(8) Go to all the job event from your Uni


And when you finaly get a job. You owe me a pint

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GammaJammer said:

Not sure about (4) myself. Networking's fine, and a natural part of city life, but it's not something you can necessarily approach like a school project and expect results the way you want them. And linkedin isn't necessarily just the business equivalent of facebook. Yet. I'm sure they'd like it to be. But if I started getting loads of contact requests and 'friend' type requests via it I'm not sure if I'd be all that impressed. Just having someone's contact details doesn't make them a 'contact'. Networking is, when done well (and I am not always fantastic at it I have to say), more of an artform than that. If it's forced it just looks desperate.

Plus it's basically a two way street - to be a useful contact for someone you need to bring something to the party yourself. No-one wants a little black book full of desperate grads with no experience, in any field. No offence - not your fault at all, you're just starting out, and that's the way it is.....

Rest of the points are pretty solid though. Languages wise might make sense to have some idea of what you want to do, but Russian certainly won't hurt I'd have thought. The Russian speaking financial community in London is actually a pretty decent network in and of itself (I know a couple of them, but don't speak the language myself) and this is the sort of thing where an opportunity can present itself out of the blue.

Just my $0.02

GJ

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Magos said:

$0.02 you must be very high leveraged if you want to buy me a pint but if 1:100 therefore $2.00 you might be able to buy me a beer if I drink only 1 percent, therefore we can trade the movement of your dollar lol

Anyway not bad comments but I would disagree thought about point (4) .

Linkedin is a great way to upgrade your status and network due to its international nature

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GammaJammer said:

I think you seriously missed my point mate, but hey ho - no matter. Not going to get into a p*ssing contest with you about it. I happily stand by what I said - it just all looks a bit gauche to me. There - I'm criticising it in French. International enough for you?

GJ

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Magos said:

The french is not bad! if you want to do a bit of business in Monte but then again the city is still runned by Essex boys!

I am not sure if this will continue when trading will be going a bit more to the quant side! but maybe is just me watching alot of starwar's movies!

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gooseman said:

magos-i have asked this before but do you work in a bank?

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GammaJammer said:

Surely you've had time to come up with a decent answer by now.....

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