Hi all,I am currently facing the question if to do a PhD or not in financial mathematics in order to have good chances to work as a quant later on. My background is the following:- German Diploma degree in business Mathematics (equivalent to MSc)- MSc in pure mathematics obtained during a year of studies in the USA- several relevant internships in banking and consulting (all dealing with quantitative modelling).Now I have the chance to immediately start working at one of Europe's leading risk management consultancies in the area of applied credit risk modeling (EAD, LGD modeling, internal ratings, portfolio models, perhaps structured products etc. are possible topics) and besides this job to do a postgraduate degree at Oxford in Mathematical Finance (would be MSc no. 3) or an CFA during the next years. Hence, I have or will have broad knowlege about numerics, programming, finance, PDE's, stochastic processes etc. but no expposure to academic research - but does this matter when I have proven that I get along well in a business environment ?However, how would my chances be when applying for a quant job in the City in, say, 4 years , with these references ? In particular in regard to those jobs requiring "PhD or MSc" or an "advanced quanitative degree" ? And what in fact do they usually mean by "advanced" ? A MSc and not just a bachlor or really a doctorate ? To summarize: Is achieving a PhD really the dominant strategy when aiming at a quant job compared to gathering relevant working experience in modeling, programming and project management ? In particular in my case who will have done a lot of challenging academic stuff (i.e. significantly more than during a standard MSc)with very good results then? Maybe some expierenced quants or people how are responsible for hiring quants can give me a hint ... thanks in advanceMarkus