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@Dominic & DEfanPlease have a look at the recent placements of Finance PhDs from LSE:http://www2.lse.ac.uk/finance/prospecti ... bheading3I doubt there is any other school in Europe with equally good academic placements of Finance PhD students.

@bearishyou indeed raise a very interesting point here... Where is the one with the pre-doc placement?Can one get a visiting assistant professor position without having a permanent one?@EconPhDTradingFor me LSE has quite a lot non academic placements (look for example academic year 2009/2010). Of course the placements are overall good, but for me at first glance they do not seem much better than the ones from the programmes I mentioned. Also LBS has at least an equivalent placement record..

The "pre-doc" was Natalia Ivanova -- University of Vienna.I think the rules on visiting faculty may vary from school to school, but I have definitely seen examples of "homeless" visitors, including fresh PhD candidates.

What would you think if they place someone at the same university where he/she finished the phd? Could this mean they couldnt place the student anywhere else or is it more likely that he/she is so good they want to keep the student?I dont know now the vienna placements seem kind of strange ... I also cant find any information about the one they claim to have placed at MIT...

Letting PhDs from a school join their faculty immediately is generally frowned upon in the US, although I think it has been relatively common in other parts of the world. I have seen cases of departments hiring their own graduating PhDs on a temporary basis to "help them out", but it is usually not a great sign. In the case of Ms Ivanova, it actually looks quite legit in that VGSF seems to be a separate institution and faculty from the University of Vienna finance department. The other fellow, according to an MIT web site, "is a postdoctoral associate of the Engineering Systems Division".

QuoteOriginally posted by: PDEfanWhat would you think if they place someone at the same university where he/she finished the phd? Could this mean they couldnt place the student anywhere else or is it more likely that he/she is so good they want to keep the student?Many of the top ranked schools like to hire their own PhD graduates. The key is that after you get your PhD, you have to first spend 7 years at another top-ranked school. Then you have to get tenure at the other top-ranked school, which means that you have proven yourself as a top researcher. Then, you have to leave a tenured position at another top-ranked school and join the school where you got your PhD from. They normally grant you tenure after 2 years after you rejoin the school.

Forget about Vienna, if you seriously plan to stay in academia. SFI could be actually worth considering - definitely on the rise, and I heard people are generally happy there, not sure about the placement though. To traderjoe1976: if you look at the top schools you mentioned, their recentp lacements are going down the slope. To the extent I wouldn't call any of them anymore as consistently placing in decent US schools.To LSE fan: didn't see anything stellar in their placements. Few successes possibly are due to a larger size of the PhD program => more pronounced tail. I also hear a few years back, that support for their PhD students was really terrible, in all aspects. Wonder if that improved now.To summarize, I don't see the point of doing PhD in finance in Europe now, if you are targeting an academic career. If you have no other choice, just try to make it to the best place you can.

Why would you forget about Vienna?

The same reason you wouldn't want to start your banking career at a place like Unicredit.Would just make it harder to move somewhere decent, keeping constant your talent and efforts.First, visiting faculty are not going to help you much, because they are less commited and temporary. Even with permanent faculties there are often issues, and things may go wrong, so you better be sure the faculty is generally solid, so that you will have a choice if needed. It's very dangerous to rely on one-two stars. And reputation is very important as well. Look at the publications of permanent faculty, academic placements and you should pretty much have an idea (if not, maybe it's worth getting more insight of what life in academia is like first. The jokes of being able to go to MIT finance from Vienna can be dangerous if you take them seriously). The danger of not having reputation (apart from difficult placement) is the place would simply stop being operational if financing is frozen/withdrawn.

I would like to know when I can expect the websites of the programmes to show the placement of this years job market candidates? I hope the decision gets easier with a bigger sample