CV's, CV's, CV's

[Victor90]

sure, btw are you applying for a prop firm or a IB?

 

[grantx]

Victor,

"60% of the students that finish Stockholm School of Economics goes to Investment Banking" by using the cv you posted? Therefore, the 40% who also used the same cv failed to get into IB's. Not much better than 50/50 is it?

Grant.

 

[simcom]

Victor,

"60% of the students that finish Stockholm School of Economics goes to Investment Banking" by using the cv you posted? Therefore, the 40% who also used the same cv failed to get into IB's. Not much better than 50/50 is it?

Grant.

I get the feeling he meant 60% of the students full stop, although I may be wrong. And even if it was 60% of those that used that CV, that's still pretty impressive when you think of the miniscule success rate of applicants overall.

 

[simcom]

sure, btw are you applying for a prop firm or a IB?

Myself - neither yet because I'm still at uni and already have an internship. The more I experience of it the more I desire to work for myself eventually!

It was Kingwizz (thread starter) who was referring to the application process primarily.

 

[Victor90]

aha, but simcom, are you a intern at a IB? Why dont u like it? im thinking about going into IB after uni. would be great to hear your view. =)

 

[simcom]

No - I'm at a large financial firm, but it's not an investment bank. So I must warn you that I don't want to unduely put you off investment banking In fact I am still considering it as an option myself, at least just for a few years after uni.

It's not so much that I hate the type of work (I actually find it quite interesting), just that I'd rather not have the ins and outs associated with working for somebody else. But there are many people who hate the insecurity that comes with self-employment, so I know my view is by no means representative of the majority.

Are you in your final year of uni? Best of luck with your applications!

 

[Victor90]

No - I'm at a large financial firm, but it's not an investment bank. So I must warn you that I don't want to unduely put you off investment banking In fact I am still considering it as an option myself, at least just for a few years after uni.

It's not so much that I hate the type of work (I actually find it quite interesting), just that I'd rather not have the ins and outs associated with working for somebody else. But there are many people who hate the insecurity that comes with self-employment, so I know my view is by no means representative of the majority.

Are you in your final year of uni? Best of luck with your applications!

Nope, havent started uni. yet! haha =P

 

[simcom]

Well plenty of time for you yet then

 

[Victor90]

Well plenty of time for you yet then

yup

 

[Kingwizz]

I have to say a good CV does help, thanks for the links Victor. Though with the amount of independent tests these trading companies are bringing in, it halts the exaggeration factor slightly.

 

[Kingwizz]

Oh BTW I am not on a graduate scheme. After talking to a fund manager that I am going to do some work experience with in September, he seems to think that I could do a graduate scheme with him as long as I go to an appropriate university. That's really what I would like. Work up from a fund, into the high ranks (I think I am mainly focused around quantitive analytics). Then swap to a hedge fund. Trade for them & then finally finish as manager. Ahh the easy life - lol.

 

[simcom]

You're right about those tests, some of them are pretty tough. But it sounds like you are very strong quantitatively, so I'm not sure they'd be as taxing for you! Unfortunately my A-Levels were qualitative based (with the exception of Physics), so I find some of it a struggle. And with all of these independent/proprietry tests around you can't even rely on GMAT etc. training guides anymore.

Sounds like you have a potentially fruitful road ahead of you with your fund work experience. Many people I know at uni would donate a limb to get something like that! Best of luck to you, I'm sure success awaits.

 

[Kingwizz]

I have to admit that getting fund manager experience is not easy. My Dads been an IFA for a while & so goes to these fund manager conventions. I went with him to one, there were a lot less people there than I expected, only around 15-20. I talked to the bloke there, everything went ok & he gave me his contact number and the rest is history. Where are you at Uni?

 

[simcom]

Yeah, I suppose these things are all about the networking - good on you for getting in there early.

I'm at King's College London. Part of me regrets not applying for LSE/Oxbridge as I'm pretty sure I could have got in after my A-Level results and gap-year internship. I'm very happy where I am, but it's annoying to have that niggling feeling that I may been seen as 'worse' in the eyes of prospective employers for not having gone to one of the top three, if you know what I mean. Still, I have an excellent job to go to with my current employer should I want it after I graduate. Increasingly I feel that trading may have to be something I pursue on an individual level.

You mentioned that you trade on Betfair - me too. How are you finding it? I'm trying to develop automated applications that use Excel and the API but it's a long, hard journey!

 

[Kingwizz]

Yeh, Betfair means I don't need a job. Which is useful - lol. I am not going to lie, at first I lost £500. But this was because I didn't understand risk properly. I would start something, then it would go wrong & I would quit with a loss instead of playing it out. It took a lesson to understand risk properly & the way people react to losses emotionally - crazy stuff really. I trade in different ways. I don't use this autmoated software, as to me I need to see what i am doing. I use fairbot, that's all. Trading in-play, mainly horses because with research it is easy to tell who's going to do what in running.

But my personal favourite is trading on certain information. I paid a lot with some older friends for this expensive racing information. The particular tipster cost £200 a month. The tips produced around 100 points a year from a few bets a week. That's Ok but the losing runs were F***ing aweful. Then one day I realized this bloke had a huge following & that all his tips were not only majorly gambled on, but the bookmakers would cut the odds regardless. To me this was the perfect trading oppourtunity. A guaranteed trading oppourtunity. Yesterday 3:25 York, Striking Spirit. 13.2 early on betfair, 8.8 5 mins before off. £50 guaranteed. How do you trade?

 

[simcom]

True what you say about losses and risk. I think Betfair is responsible for teaching me a lot about the emotional side of trading, which was useful because I would rather be broken into it in the comparitively 'kind' environment of Betfair than the more ruthless financial markets. Having said that, I still think I have some way to go before I'm totally able to deal with losses without any negative response whatsoever - although I am quite good with my risk management now.

I used to run a fairly expensive tipping service myself, while I was still at school. It dawned on me that because of the sheer cost of the tips (which were profitable, so I could live with my conscience ) I could have traded these daily for an almost guaranteed profit (the monthly fee was a fair amount so people were inevitably placing large bets to make it worth their while). However I felt guilty about doing it using my own service, so in the end resorted to subscribing to other popular services to do it.

At the moment I use an automated application to trade based on large price movements between around 2-10mins before the off. Also do some manual in-running trading, based on the fact that there seems to be quite a price lag between offered prices and actual odds when the race is on. I find in-running to be one of the most difficult times emotionally though, because you have to make split second decisions.

 

[Kingwizz]

I have to say, there is not a lot much more volatile than betfair. You are unlikely to find stocks that move from say 8p a share, to 12p a share, then to 5p a share, then to 7p. The in-running down to 0.01p a share, then 100p a share. Or the Dow to fall 1000 points in a day for example, where-as loads of horses will at sometime half in price. Obviously you could take large margin positions, but that is not really the same. I almost forgot, I also trade the FTSE on betfair because often it seems like people fall asleep and completely misvalue the market moving up or down, though more recently staying out of this.

Financial market, to me are harder to judge, mainly because more people are doing it. You could give me £1000 & in 2 months I could make it £2000-£3000 on betfair. I couldn't to that on financials

 

[simcom]

Yeah - it seems as if many experienced traders on the financial markets won't even give Betfair a second look, because it has an image of being a glorified online bookmaker. But I think gradually enlightened traders are starting to see its benefits (regular markets with quick settlement, low transaction costs, transparant markets and high volatility). I suppose Betfair's only real weakness is its lack of liquidity when trading in huge stakes, although even this is improving on the bigger UK horseraces and the most popular sporting events.

Didn't realise the financials were liquid enough to trade on Betfair (although has been ages since I last looked admittedly). Will look into it!

 

[Kingwizz]

To be honest there isn't a huge amount of liquidity in financials on betfair. Though as long as you are not trading with over a grand everything is ok. I mainly use financials on betfair for placing straight Daily & Hourly U/D bets.

 

[simcom]

Ah yeah, I see it's much better than it used to be. Still, think I'll stick to what I know on Betfair, racing