Um, in terms of prop shops, I've been out of that world for a few years now so maybe someone else that's either trading in one or has done recently can help you but I guess, optiver, tibra, ..... i'm sure there's a thread on here listing prop-shops and arcades.
Did you just speak to HR or the people on the desk? If on the desk then always worth seeing what's going on now anyway, if you only spoke to HR then definitely speak to the desk bods as if they tell HR they want to hire you then HR will obey their command!
Unless you work on an exotics desk or a pretty quanty (which these days is most...) prop desk then you won't be making pointless graphs all day, you'll be trading all day! The flow desks particularly in some areas such as fixed income, credit etc are not at all boring. There is an idea that you just make client deals and that is it but as the recent dodd-frank discussions have highlighted, it is a little more complex than that, you need to anticipate a) where you think the market is going and b) which way you want your book to be as a result. Therefore, most desks end up running fairly sizeable prop positions. Plus when my friend went to work for a bank after just a year of prop-shop trading, his boss said, so you used to trade futures, which futures? Ok we'll give you some limits on them as well!! Things have changed a bit with the much closer scrutiny but trust me, if you can get onto a bank desk, dont question it, do it!! If you don't like it, you can always go into a prop house afterwards.
In regards to education, don't sweat it if you're not at a redbrick, if you are on for good grades and can make the right connections, you'll still be able to get in. Even if you don't, you can still make it! If i had space to tell you my path, you'd not believe that i've managed to work my way into a hedge fund and am one of the best performing traders. It can be done but you have to keep pressing on. I remember at some points, my friends and colleagues would say that I should just be happy with what I had but I refused to give up, went and sorted out my academic credentials (they were really bad previously) and now whilst I'm in a good place, i'm not finished and I still have more ambitions to be filled. Definitely network, definitely do everything you can think of (things like getting your IMC or SI exams under your belt) and definitely definitely apply to as many jobs as possible, in my mba year I sent out maybe 100 applications, went to numerous interviews but in the end, the position i got came through previous contact i'd had with the company 2 years prior! It's weird the way things work out but my point is that some of the things you do now whilst not appearing as a success may lay the first step for you to later get to where you want.
ps lol, the graphs may be boring, the grand prixs, footie mathces, track days, clubs and so forth that your brokers take you to are not quite so boring 😛
