hey, of course the area is good. It combines a nice mix of a lot of useful things. With a PhD it will be rare that you will use a lot of what you did in your PhD in your job. You have a great qualification from an Ivy league school in a nice area ... obviously not applied to finance much as stochastic pde's arent used but nevertheless. Have some confidence in yourself and go interveiw. Aslong as you have a half decent personality and do ok in interviews you will easily land a job ..... maybe as someone says, start out as quant and go with that. you will see what traders do and might like to try it and if so you can try to switch ... if not then you have a tasty background for a quant role so chin up and enjoy

Thanks, CompPDE, appreciate your encouragements.

QuoteOriginally posted by: airmenowQuoteOriginally posted by: jd1123QuoteOriginally posted by: airmenowQuoteOriginally posted by: KackToodleswow! phd in applied math with courses in stochastics! Wall Street has been waiting so long for a shining star like you!KackToodles, thanks for the encouragement, I am flattered. But are you saying a Ph.D topic intersecting PDE/Analysis, Stochastics and numerics will be a valuable background later on? For quant or for trader ?He's being sarcastic.Sorry, I am new here. But I don't see the point of being sarcastic. Does it mean the area is not good enough, or everyone is doing it now a days ?It's just the result of anonymity.

QuoteOriginally posted by: Gilli guess you should start as a quant and move to trading after few years if you like it... it's not as easy to start as a trader with your background 'cause it's not clear what you can bring to the table rite away. it's just my opinion some other people may think differentlyIf he can't bring anything to the trading table right away, why should he spend years doing something different? This view, often repeated, just does not match with how it works in the city. All a trader brings is their potential, at the beginning.There seems to be this belief that people will learn trading skills from afar while spending time training for another job.Being a quant is crappy training for being a trader. Trading is great training.

QuoteOriginally posted by: Gilli guess you should start as a quant and move to trading after few years if you like it... it's not as easy to start as a trader with your background 'cause it's not clear what you can bring to the table rite away. it's just my opinion some other people may think differentlythat's bs. I know personally PhDs that started straight away with a trading job. at the moment things are going well and provided you go by well, you might find what you need. I don't think it is harder when you start out to find a trading job than a good quant job. Admittedly my experience is very limited, but I know that quant groups are competingwith trading groups to hire people at the PhD level.

QuoteOriginally posted by: unkpathQuoteOriginally posted by: Gilli guess you should start as a quant and move to trading after few years if you like it... it's not as easy to start as a trader with your background 'cause it's not clear what you can bring to the table rite away. it's just my opinion some other people may think differentlythat's bs. I know personally PhDs that started straight away with a trading job. at the moment things are going well and provided you go by well, you might find what you need. I don't think it is harder when you start out to find a trading job than a good quant job. Admittedly my experience is very limited, but I know that quant groups are competingwith trading groups to hire people at the PhD level.This fact really opens my view of how the job market works. Personally it's a good news. But is it also a fact that a junior trader job is less stable and less compensated than a junior quant job ? Given current job market, which sections might have more opportunities ? Personally I am committed more to a trading position, that's my dream. Skill sets wise, what exactly are the things/aspects that you guys mean by bringing to the table with a background like mine ? more personality wise or knowledge wise ? Thanks a lot for the input~

QuoteOriginally posted by: NorthernJohnQuoteOriginally posted by: Gilli guess you should start as a quant and move to trading after few years if you like it... it's not as easy to start as a trader with your background 'cause it's not clear what you can bring to the table rite away. it's just my opinion some other people may think differentlyIf he can't bring anything to the trading table right away, why should he spend years doing something different? This view, often repeated, just does not match with how it works in the city. All a trader brings is their potential, at the beginning.There seems to be this belief that people will learn trading skills from afar while spending time training for another job.Being a quant is crappy training for being a trader. Trading is great training.NorthernJohn,Mathematics or techniqal wise, trading which instruments require the most ? prop, equity, bonds, interet-rate derivatives, credit derivatives, or mortgage-backed securities ?

QuoteOriginally posted by: airmenowQuoteOriginally posted by: jd1123QuoteOriginally posted by: airmenowQuoteOriginally posted by: KackToodleswow! phd in applied math with courses in stochastics! Wall Street has been waiting so long for a shining star like you!KackToodles, thanks for the encouragement, I am flattered. But are you saying a Ph.D topic intersecting PDE/Analysis, Stochastics and numerics will be a valuable background later on? For quant or for trader ?He's being sarcastic.Sorry, I am new here. But I don't see the point of being sarcastic. Does it mean the area is not good enough, or everyone is doing it now a days ?What he means is that if you look around only a tiny bit, you'd see that you're right alongside a bunch of other people with similarly impressive credentials going for the same types of jobs. Furthermore, a lot of what you asked has been gone over many, many times right on these forums. BTW which Ivy League university did you go to in New York City? CUNY Brooklyn?

jd1123, thanks for pointing that out, since i am new here, i'll try to explore more of this forum. As for the school, i think it's obvious, I am at Columbia not cuny.

btw, jd1123, i just realize you try to be sarcastic ? never mind, it's fine.

QuoteOriginally posted by: airmenowjd1123, thanks for pointing that out, since i am new here, i'll try to explore more of this forum. As for the school, i think it's obvious, I am at Columbia not cuny.

QuoteOriginally posted by: airmenowQuoteOriginally posted by: NorthernJohnQuoteOriginally posted by: Gilli guess you should start as a quant and move to trading after few years if you like it... it's not as easy to start as a trader with your background 'cause it's not clear what you can bring to the table rite away. it's just my opinion some other people may think differentlyIf he can't bring anything to the trading table right away, why should he spend years doing something different? This view, often repeated, just does not match with how it works in the city. All a trader brings is their potential, at the beginning.There seems to be this belief that people will learn trading skills from afar while spending time training for another job.Being a quant is crappy training for being a trader. Trading is great training.NorthernJohn,Mathematics or techniqal wise, trading which instruments require the most ? prop, equity, bonds, interet-rate derivatives, credit derivatives, or mortgage-backed securities ?That is a question which I don't think has any one sensible answer. It is like asking "which month is colder, february or june", without specifying a location.There are all sorts of different approaches to trading each of these products, and while I'd say that rate derivatives encompasses the greatest leve of abstraction, it also contans FRAs, which are pretty simple.Until you are in a bank, I would not get too hung up on which one will be best for you. I started as a FRA trader after the doctorate, and loved it. It was fast, aggressive (often back then the screens would list the price as "fast", rather than as a number), and taught me a huge amount about what it means to actually be a trader. I then moved up through options, into exotics, back a bit into swaps and bonds, then managed some others who traded for me before taking on an exotics business.All have been good. Each is what you make of them.In actual fact, in the long run, you are trading one very unique asset, which is you. looking back over my career, I wish I'd realised that earlier, and not got so hung up on proomotion or pay in the earlier years.

I mentioned the move to quant prior to trading as to emphasis the point that quant and trading roles are very different, probably should of emphasised this in my post. If he is used to the academic evironment which he(or maybe she is) well he/she should realise that it will be very different to leave that and start trading. A quant role will contain a bit more of the work which he/she is used to so might make the move out of academia easier and then they can reaccess and interract with traders and see if the trading role suits them. Obviously if he/she has thought about this seriously and trading is for them (as he/she has just stated) then I would not even bother going to interview for quant positions but solely concentrate on trader roles.

NorthernJohn,Why not have airmenow in for an interview? His credentials are impressive enough.

QuoteOriginally posted by: MartingaleBusterNorthernJohn,Why not have airmenow in for an interview? His credentials are impressive enough.A couple of reasons. For one, I am not looking to increase the numbers in the team right now. We are still absorbing the most recent members, and bringing in new elements now could harm this.And, secondly, his credentials are actually not yet good enough (and I emphasise the "yet"). They are not bad, but his academics are not really exceptional compared to the people already there.