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I was wondering if someone might be able to help me out. I just graduated from a first tier MBA program and will be starting off as an Associates on a FI Sales desk for a bank in NYC. While I am happy with my anticipated role, I'd ultimately like to get into Fixed Income Strategy down the road, but I'm unsure of how to position my career in order to make the change. In addition to my MBA I have an undergrad degree in Finance, excellent working knowledge of Excel and have started teaching myself VBA (geared mostly towards financial modelling in VBA). I specialized in Quantitative Finance during my MBA studies, but I am far from your prototypical Quant. Is there anything else I can be doing to prepare myself and to make my credentials more appealing for when I look to make the change (which would probably be after a few years of learning a specific product)?Thanks in advance. I appreciate the help.

I'm curious to know why you think being a strategist is better than being in sales. The hours are a lot worse, that's for sure.

Sales people come in at 6AM and leave at 6PM, strategists come in at 8 and leave at 8 (maybe earlier too). Why do you say the hours are bad?That said I havnt seen many people make the move, primarily because the skillsets are fairly different. In general a strategist is a mix of a quant and a trader- very good quant skills, excellenet analytical skills and good understanding of markets.

QuoteOriginally posted by: marc1838I was wondering if someone might be able to help me out. I just graduated from a first tier MBA program and will be starting off as an Associates on a FI Sales desk for a bank in NYC. While I am happy with my anticipated role, I'd ultimately like to get into Fixed Income Strategy down the road, but I'm unsure of how to position my career in order to make the change. In addition to my MBA I have an undergrad degree in Finance, excellent working knowledge of Excel and have started teaching myself VBA (geared mostly towards financial modelling in VBA). I specialized in Quantitative Finance during my MBA studies, but I am far from your prototypical Quant. Is there anything else I can be doing to prepare myself and to make my credentials more appealing for when I look to make the change (which would probably be after a few years of learning a specific product)?Thanks in advance. I appreciate the help.You are doing everything right, including thinking ahead in your career. There is no better place to start a strategy role (maybe even a trading role) than in sales, especially in Fixed Income. What you need to to is read every strategy piece your bank produces, both the general strategy and the quantitative pieces, especially the ones that trade sample portfolios. Between that and seeing client flow, witnessing how clients respond to changing market conditions, and reading FI books, you will very quckly understand what's going on. Then start pitching some ideas to clients, not even your own at first but your bank's, and listen VERY carefully to why the client trades or doesn't (this is the one time you can really get feedback from clients). And don't just look at hedge fund clients - they are the most sophisticated but other clients are just as important.In my opinion, and others here may disagree, you don't really need to be a master quant to do a great sales/strategy/trading job. VBA is great for building your own sheets, and a good understanding of stochastic vol or correlation will make you a very desirable sales guy, but understanding the dynamics of swap spreads or something like that requires very little quant knowledge.