What positions in finance offer decent salaries for fewer hours than IB? (3 Viewers)

[redruM]

Yeah, but they are asking for an elite graduate. But the salary they offer isn't as spectacular, imo.

 

[turtleface]

i was reading the age the other day and they had an ad for a graduate accountant for $57,000. That was the highest I've ever seen for Accounting but it was for a commercial entity, not a firm.

 

[CrashOveride]

On the topic of IB hours and salary...what do people think about the impact on an individual's health? Surely being regularly sleep deprived for 2 or 2.5 years? (analyst) can't be good for the body. I suspect it only gets a little better at associate level. And before i hear "but people are out there doing it now", i am pointing to longer term effects (for which i have only read recently that studies have confirmed poor sleep leads to health problems long term).

 

[pikachufkr]

I've thought about this too!

Most of the bankers that I have met haven't looked that healthy at all. Plenty have been fat/scrawny. You get your odd IBer who looks like they just stepped off a football field though (dunno how they do it).

I don't know what is going to happen to my perfectly sculpted guns once I start proprietary trading...

 

[Omnidragon]

Yea I think it's more for people who aren't too rich and want to get into, say, a mil region quickly.

I think the rich kids out there opt less for IB... they might go there to impress ppl, but a few I've met don't seem to have the right mindset and they move out into other depts such as research quite quickly... even though they belong in the smarter and hard-working end of the populus.

 

[Bobness]

then masters must be actually meaningful at your uni and in that case i was wrong to generalise. at mine, masters is for those stupid people who talk shit in tutes and cant get a grad position.

um are you sure masters of finance is for "stupid people" at UNSW?

It doesn't appear to be top-commerce-school-in-aus style for UNSW to allow people who just talk well in their tutes to do masters...

 

[blackfriday]

if they were so smart, they would have got a job.

 

[volition]

then masters must be actually meaningful at your uni and in that case i was wrong to generalise. at mine, masters is for those stupid people who talk shit in tutes and cant get a grad position.

so how does "not being smart enough to go and get a job" differ between UNSW and other unis then?? Just curious..

 

[blackfriday]

nope, the difference is what they do after they cant get a job. some people face up and do the smart - find a job somewhere else because any work experience is better than none. but for those too incompotent to do any of that...well they just stay in uni.

 

[:: ck ::]

think ur stereotyping a lot there...

sure there are some ppl who cant get a job and do postgrad to improve their chances... but ull find theres also a lot of ppl with jobs who do the postgrad stuff too...

 

[blackfriday]

i would understand, for instance, anyone doing m.accounting at club mac because you can do it concurrently with your CA, and it wouldnt make sense not to do it. but otherwise, i really dont see the point at all.

 

[overfloat]

at UNSW a lot of people do masters of commerce straight after an engineering degree rather than a double degree because it cuts out the crap first year undergrad commerce subjects......

in my case, i didn't want to be a programmer...... i hate programming
the thought of spending even 1 year programming makes my stomach churn.. add to that the flooded job market = low salaries for veeeerrrrryyyyyy bad jobs

i just took infosys cos i hate(d) maths, while at the same time hate(d) essays

although there are some useful business modelling aspects to it

but generally..... people that take masters of commerce after doing a bachelor of commerce are as you describe......

 

[§eraphim]

In reply to the original post, other positions are trader, research analyst, structurer and quant analyst.

Minimum requirements for structurer and quant analyst is a very good pass degree, 1st class honours or a MSc or similar.

 

[sikeveo]

Trading and quant analysts sound like very interesting roles. Macq bank had some positions like that. I'd imagine high stress for traders, but good remuneration. But 1st class honours =/ Don't other skills preceed marks in those kind of roles?

 

[turtleface]

The reason they emphasise marks so much is marks give a reflection on how competent/hard working you are and how focused you are on the main objective of university. They hope people with high marks at uni translates to high achievers at work.

 

[Omnidragon]

Agreed.

A lot of things are probably important. For starters, experience in trading and being successful in generating returns would help. But it might be hard to assess you in those areas.

Or maybe it's just that the demand for grads is greater than the supply of students who would have had this trading experience and success.

 

[§eraphim]

Trading and quant analysts sound like very interesting roles. Macq bank had some positions like that. I'd imagine high stress for traders, but good remuneration. But 1st class honours =/ Don't other skills preceed marks in those kind of roles?

It depends on what you are trading in. Stuff like FX and Equities isn't as heavy on the quant side.

Many of the complex OTC transactions require quants who:

- understand the mathematics of finance inside out
- can come up with new ideas/ use existing ideas to price new products.

This basically means having done some postgrad courses in financial maths, probability, etc, as well as strong research experience, ie, can use results from journals, use code from existing libraries, run simulations, calibrate models, etc, etc, in addition to all the other usual skills, like communication skills, etc. But the selection criteria will also depend on how much time is spent with the clients for these kind of customised products.

A lot of quants used to be maths/physics lecturers (most Economics/Finance-trained Finance lecturers don't have a sufficiently rigorous background to do these kind of jobs). So if you believe you're good enough to do Honours, do further research like MSc, PhD, or you want to be a researcher (research fellow) or a lecturer, it's certainly an interesting job to consider.

 

[§eraphim]

Agreed.

A lot of things are probably important. For starters, experience in trading and being successful in generating returns would help. But it might be hard to assess you in those areas.

Or maybe it's just that the demand for grads is greater than the supply of students who would have had this trading experience and success.

It also depends on what you're trading in and the trading role you are taking on. eg. OTC markets. Also, market makers need to be tops in mental arithmetic.

 

[§eraphim]

The reason they emphasise marks so much is marks give a reflection on how competent/hard working you are and how focused you are on the main objective of university. They hope people with high marks at uni translates to high achievers at work.

As long as the job harnesses the areas where you excelled at. Which means the individual applying for the job that bests suits them, and recruiters doing the same.

 

[sikeveo]

Yeh ive been looking. One was either 1st class honours or HD degree =/ However others dont really specify although it's probably intrinsic to their selection criteria.