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Sales Experience + MQF = Trader?

FutureTrader

Joined
8/15/10
Messages
3
Points
11
Was hoping to get some advice from anyone in the quantnet community regarding my skills and if I could leverage them at all down the road.

To give you some background I have an undergrad degree in physics and economics, but upon graduation I have been working strictly in sales (software, not finance) with start-up companies. Though I have been extremely successful I want to get back on track and get into trading. Because of this I have decided to enter into an MQF program rather than an MBA (good idea?) to get me back on course into a career in trading.

Does my previous sales experience help at all in getting a position after graduation from my MQF? Or is it strictly a matter of my quantitative ability that will help propel me into a good internship/job post-graduation?

I was hoping my sales experience might be able to help me stand out from the many new quant related graduates that are entering the market, but I could be way off.

Thanks to all who comment
 
They key question here is...

What type of trading do you want to do?

Prop?
Flow?
Market making?
Speculation?
Stat arb?

The answer to that will guide your decision.
 
Yike Lu said:
They key question here is...

What type of trading do you want to do?

Prop?
Flow?
Market making?
Speculation?
Stat arb?

The answer to that will guide your decision.
Click to expand...
Slightly Off-topic but...

Your list is very ambiguous and almost misguiding to the misinformed.

Prop - Stat Arb, Momentum, etc. Trade with your own capital.

Flow - Market Making , deals etc. May have some similar strategies, but primary job is to trade for clients.

Everything related to trading involves speculation. There is no such thing as "Speculation Trading" as far as I know.

What I posted above is very primitive also.
 
Ah if only someone would have told me that once you step foot into sales, you are always looked at as a sales guy. It's only an uphill battle from this point I suppose.

I will be honest I am not entirely sure what type of trading I would like to do. I really haven't been able to experience that much of it to start developing an opinion. I would like to say market maker but again, the more I learn the more I will start to develop an area that most interests me.
 
My point is that "trading" is a very broad term and also frequently used/misused/abused. The specifics of what type of trading you want to do will determine what path you take. If you didn't know the "terms" I listed, it behooves you to look all of them up, whether they are listed in a logical fashion or not.

I did not intend to either completely or logically categorize types of trading.
 
FutureTrader said:
Ah if only someone would have told me that once you step foot into sales, you are always looked at as a sales guy. It's only an uphill battle from this point I suppose.

I will be honest I am not entirely sure what type of trading I would like to do. I really haven't been able to experience that much of it to start developing an opinion. I would like to say market maker but again, the more I learn the more I will start to develop an area that most interests me.
Click to expand...

There are sales and marketing teams within trading as well. To give an example, MSET (Morgan Stanley Electronic Trading Strategies) sells algorithmic and DMA execution services to its clients. There are sales teams within these agency trading groups that package, market and sell these strategies to clients and deal directly with them. In fact from my experience, the sales team gets most highly rewarded as compared to development, support and quantitative teams in this area.

Then there are derivatives, fixed income... basically anything on the client facing side will have a sales team.

There are plenty of opportunities to leverage your marketing skills.
 
If you get your MQF/MFE/etc and have a solid sales background you can do a lot of things. Sales is a great field for those who are skilled at it. I would get your masters and leverage yourself into a highly technical sales/traders position.

Sell yourself and you will be fine. Brains alone are not enough to make it in finance. Consider yourself to have a leg up.
 
That is great to hear. I assumed there had to be a way to leverage any type of experience into trading.
 
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