Hi All,I am currently 31+ and I have spent seven years in capital market in different roles. I started with sales (that also Mutual fund sales) then got into ETF sales. I had a short stint as BA of treasury solution in an IT company. This way I got into product development role. I had traded with my own money and some of client's money in index option and I had been successful in that. In fact I was a derivative strategist in that point of time, and many of my strategies (both index and stock options) worked well. Currently I am in a product role and I want to get into a trading position. Unfortunately I do not have any MSc (though I am an engineer by qualification). Nor I have a formal trading experience. I am really baffled and I would like to have your opinion.

With respect intended: forget it. The world has changed. There are few roles. There are many highly experienced and specialized people trying to get whatever is left. Sorry. Not trying to be denigrating you. In fact you seem like you would be qualified. It's just that the good jobs don't exist.

Hi Orbit,Thanks for your reply..though tis little disappointing..;-((You are saying this because of my age or not having adequet qualification or experience? Anybody else, please share your inputs. Thanks!

Any reply please???

Kinda true what orbit said, quant jobs are scarce nowadays and PhD is becoming a must to enter this area. Keeping in mind that your experience is related to sales which is not very technical you might have problems in switching to quant career. But dont get disappointed, there are many other profitable areas these days...

@Martino: Many thanks for your reply. I have trading experience too, however NOT under a big umbrella (like GS, MS, Barcap etc.)What other profitable areas you are referring?Please reply. Thanks

just go trade for a prop shop. there are lots of them in just about every major financial center. a big bank is not going to hire you to take on a book so that is your best bet.

Maybe a lot of guys assume you would like to take the quant dev => quant => quant trader => trader route. Seriously, it is not the most direct path if you goal is being a trader. Given you have sales expr before, you have an edge over most of us here. What you can do is to find a sales position in a major bank. Preferably covering an area which sees a lot of trading activities (e.g selling hot potatoes to hedge fund rather than say offering FX solution to corporate treasurers, selling product to wealth individuals etc). To start with, the compensation of HF sales can be just as good as trading. Also sales that make sense (ie offering timely market info/ strategy and reacts fast) to client can earn a lot of client business. So your market sense will not get wasted. Since it is one of the area which really sees a lot of actions and works very closely with traders (and actually kind of see each other as equal in contrast to many supporting function), I could foresee a transition is easier if it is what you choose at that stage.

@PlasticSaber: Many thanks for your reply. The problem is out here in India that not many hedge funds are present. Secondly, I have left sales job 3 years back, so recruiters will reject my application for having no client base. (In fact it did happend recently, though I negotiated harder to convience them that I would quickly build up the same). I was trying to get something (related to sales / trading) in HK / Singapore, but so far no luck!!Thanks to all again.Best,

You are qualified. Make no mistake about it. It's just that there are no open spots. I don't care what the fake job ads say. There is nothing.NOTHING