Quote:
Originally Posted by foobar  Hi Rajat,
You seem to have taken a trajectory that many people like us wish to follow. Would you please like to share your experience/learnings regarding what all did you have to do to launch yourself with that sort of background , the hurdles and absolutely from anything to everything about it. Would really help a lot of people.  |
In the West all major Investment Banks run Analyst programs where they recruit Undergraduates from top colleges to work for 2-3 years before they embark for their MBA .This helps you to cut your teeth in the industry and realize which field you want to specialize in.Unfortunately in India with the deluge of Fresh MBA grads I Banks/Financial Services companies simply take on MBAs as Analysts making it virtually impossible for a non MBA to break in.
I stared getting interested in Finance in my 3rd year at IIT by which time I had heard about the big pay packages in the field form my seniors who were in the IIMs .Initially it was these pay packages which attracted me to the field.IITB had an Incubation center to seed new startup's and one of the startup's was working in the field of pricing derivatives .I started doing part time work with them and started learning about the subject ,we also had the flexibility to take up a subject of our choice every semester in any department of IIT ,I made maximum use of this and did 3-4 courses in Finance from SJMSOM.
When the placements started (2006) there were no I Banks /Financial services companies except Lehman Brothers where I did not get through.
I got a job as a Business Analyst in a Analytics company .Not satisfied with this I started applying off campus posting my resume on all the job sites .To bolster my credentials I did courses like NCFM and listed my internship at the startup and all the Finance related projects I could think of .My first aim was to get shortlisted and then talk my way out in the interview.
There was no response for 2-3 months as most companies recruiting off campus would ideally want ppl to join in 1-2 months as my graduation approached I started getting some interview calls but got rejected due to lack of work ex or because I was not a MBA.
Then I got interview from a Financial Services KPO ,they had previously recruited only MBA/CAs and were experimenting this year.They made offers to 3 IITians that year for their Derivatives team and I was one of them.
Although not exactly what I wanted but at least I had managed to break into the field ,later on I made it through several rounds at Morgan Stanley but was finally rejected because they found experienced people.
Anyways I was happy since I had got the kind of profile I wanted coupled with a great salary .In my company every single person was doing some or the other level of the CFA exam so I also got enrolled for the Dec exam.At the same time I started working with Equity Derivatives team of a big Bulge investment Bank in London ,i soon realized that to really learn the business you have to be part of the company and not a 3rd party outsourcer as you will never get access to the proprietary pricing tools etc which are the most sensitive parts of the business .Also I realized that the Analysts in London were no more smarter than me and I could have just as easily been doing their jobs.I decided to make a switch once I gave my CFA exams in Dec.
This time the situation was completely different with just a 6 months work ex on my resume I was inundated with calls from headhunters .Just goes on to show how much Indians are taken in with appearances .Either they will hire an MBA or someone already in the industry because if he has been working (never mind if it has only been for 6 months )then it wouldn't be such a risk to hire him.
By February I had 2 offers from Investment Banks but I had not got such +ve reviews about them from friends working there as most of the banks were ramping up too quickly ,hence quality of work suffered .I wanted to work in a smaller company where I would be able to take on more responsibilities.
By end of February my choice boiled down between 2 offers ,one with a Private Equity firm in Delhi (where my would be boss was a HBS grad) and a French Asset Management Company which was a Foreign Institutional Investor (FII) located in Mumbai .I chose the latter because i preferred Mumbai and the six months since have been fantastic.If you love what you do you actually get excited about going to the office ,my boss in Paris does this job not for the money ( he has already made enough to pass his life away comfortably) but because he loves doing his job .For me this is now the single biggest attraction to this field ,if at the age of 50 you still relish the thought of going to the office everyday there can be no better career path than this .On top of if you like the field and are good at it you end up making a ton of money.
In the end as you would have realized without a conventional qualification MBA/CA tough to break in ,but once you are it there are no limits to where you can end up.For people trying to break in esp software engineers a good way would be to leverage your coding skill complemented with your Finance knowledge .This would allow yo to maybe get in as a Business Analyst for some company making Financial Softwares.Still not a true analyst you can at least pick up work ex and maybe clear 2 levels of CFA /FRM and then switch .This time round there would be no shortage of opportunities.
When you are making your resume you have to keep in mind that there are thousands of resumes that are uploaded daily on the job sites so you have to make sure you get as many as keywords in your resume like CFA,Derivatives etc to make sure that at least you show up in a search .So try to do any course NSE/BSE to at least write something related to the field in your resume .If you are actually passionate about the filed it will show in the interview but to do that you have to first get shortlisted.
Keep in mind that employers will only hire you once you are able to show what kind of transferable skills you are able to bring to the table.For ppl wit an Engineering background the most obvious answers would be their Quant and programming skills which if combined with a decent knowledge of Finance can help you to make the cut.
Re: Switching to Finance for any non finance professional (IT professsional lets say) -
04-07-2008, 02:14 PM
how to get shorlisted by recruiters??????/
Linear Mode
