career progress-need your help to decide

[bcheema]

Hi All,

First of all my profile

age:30
educations: undergrad in Computer engineering. MBA in Finance (Singapore). CFA Charterholder

experience: 4 years of experienc e in Tier1 US investment Bank ( in Hong Kong) in Valuations review

Now here is the problem, I am in ,honestly, middle office position wherein we review the valuation models developed by quants (in depth review and approval including the code review), review the booking & models of exotic & equity derivative trades by the equiy derivatives desk.
My quants skill are intermediate and programming skills are good due to my undergrad.
The issue is that although i am being paid abive average, I am getting increasingly frustrated by the fact that the growth is limited and i somehow just hate the fact that i am in middle office and not front office. My MBA colleagues have done much better and its their liuck that they got into front office trading, research etc kind of roles while I did not get the launching pad as of now.
I have recentlt tried a bit for internal transfer, have contacted head hunters in the region but this has not benefited much. I have a wife and kid to support.
Getting dishearted at the efforts, I came across one idea.
to get another masters (this time from a US Univ. with a "brand" and not NUS Singapore). I am confident that i can manage to get in if I need.

On this thought, please can you help me with the following two options and how would you see the pros and cons of each. Thanks a lot!! the ideal will be that I somehow get the front office job in quants, research, risk ec myself and dont have to do this. but thats not very easy to happen .

1. I leave my job, get a FT MFE from Haas, columbia or similar school. Costs 80-100k overall and i would have to take a loan. My wife and kid will have to initially go to my home country and would join me later towards the end of program. This is obviously expensive, risky (as i leave my job, split my family for time being etc). But then I will be on campus (btw i dont have any craving to be in US, if I land up a good well paying jon in asia, i would happily be in middle/far east or even London).


2. OK I have found this online CVN MSOR program in columbia. The fee and addmission criteria is the same. I will work toward getting a good GRE and then assuming that if I get a good score, do you think I can get in Columbia? This is the only online univ. which has a good brand name too. Now a few problems here. I will not be oncampus, I am not sure if just adding that degree on my resume will make it easir to get front office jobs , expecially outside US (offcourse i will try to market it)? secondly, its MSOR-finance but i plan to take all MFE elective and can write somethign like MSOR-Finance engineering on my resume , does this look ok? is this option worth the 50k us$ (that i somehow will manage to pay)? will it help me fulfill the goals? do you know people who took online columbia masters ? offcourse the interviewer will somehow come to know that I was doing onlike program (as i would be working at the same time as my program)? i plan to complete this in 2 years and assume that i will work hard, get good grades, manage it with my hectic jobs.

I am very confused and depressed these days and your input here can help me make this life changing decision. Thanks a lot!!

 

[Yos Feit]

Here is a third alternative for you:

Get a job in New York and apply to part time programs at Columbia, NYU, Brooklyn Poly (now owned by NYU), CMU extension, Baruch.

This way, you stay employed, avoid debt, and keep your family. Most quality employers will pay all or part of your tuition.

In my opinion, you need to assess the strength of the job placement services when deciding on a program. A degree alone may not get much traction in today's job market.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Many MFE grads end up with a job profile exactly the one you are doing so before you set out to add 100K to your debt, get the facts straight and the expectation lower.
What exactly the ideal job profile to you? Front office what? Many people think they are in FO because they sit next to trading desks while in fact their salary/bonus belongs to MO IT group.

Would you pull all your hair out if two years later, you end up with a similar job after doing the MFE?

And I said avoid any online degree like plague unless your company pays all expense.

Doing PT at some programs is worse than doing nothing at all. They expect you to pay same tuition but no job assistance to you. NYU is one of them.

Many programs are FT only. They are UCB, Columbia MFE.

There are no program alike so you really need to do careful research. I always advise people to have 2 years window to prepare before they apply.

 

[bcheema]

Thanks all for the input.

Getting a job in NYC, again moving to a similar job that I am doing , just to get an MS degree is also not very easy to do but this is something I can try to.

for the online degree, do you think they should be avoided as noone will give any credit to them for employment? people would think they are useless or do they lack the knowldge one can get?

my ideal role is trading, investment management, capital markets (fid, equities products) researc, equity (corporate finance) research, quants,.........

so what do you think I should do then? 1. just keep on trying to move without getting another degree? 2. quit and come get a FT MFE (leave job, arrange $$ somehow, split family for timebeing etc etc), 3. go for online option? would the potential employers know it was online? (the job i do here will go on, while i say i did MS for Columbia US)? do you think they see in that much detail?

Leaving the job , arranging the money and spilitting family for timebeing are major hurdles I would have to face. missing out the 1 years work experience (not that i truly vaua what i am doing) is also somewhat painful. .emoptionally and psychologically I also want online but i will be devastated if I spend 50k (trust me I dont even have that much savongs yet ) and then later it turns out that in this region people just dont care about columbia much or turn me down still I will have 6-7 years of back office experience or will be 32 years old etc etc.) do you think any of these fear can materialize and how probably these are?

Please keep your comments coming, i have been quite depressed lately and really need to discuss this. (wife also gets very upset and hence i dont want to again make her feel sad as i have been trying to move for 2 years now and nothing has happened)

Thanks again, really!

 

[latency]

you shouldnt be so depressed. you are in a better position than most other people. moreover, its not like all mfe graduates have been able to find jobs. i would advise you against an online program. i am not sure they are valuable. if you get an online certificate, you might be able to put something on your resume but unless people know about that program and really value it, its going to be pretty useless.
one reason people go to full time programs is the dedicated placements offices(atleast in the good schools) and access to their services and also alumni networks. moreover, firms come to school to hire students, so its easier than say going through a recruiter outside unless you have useful experience.

Thanks all for the input.

Getting a job in NYC, again moving to a similar job that I am doing , just to get an MS degree is also not very easy to do but this is something I can try to.

for the online degree, do you think they should be avoided as noone will give any credit to them for employment? people would think they are useless or do they lack the knowldge one can get?

my ideal role is trading, investment management, capital markets (fid, equities products) researc, equity (corporate finance) research, quants,.........

so what do you think I should do then? 1. just keep on trying to move without getting another degree? 2. quit and come get a FT MFE (leave job, arrange $$ somehow, split family for timebeing etc etc), 3. go for online option? would the potential employers know it was online? (the job i do here will go on, while i say i did MS for Columbia US)? do you think they see in that much detail?

Leaving the job , arranging the money and spilitting family for timebeing are major hurdles I would have to face. missing out the 1 years work experience (not that i truly vaua what i am doing) is also somewhat painful. .emoptionally and psychologically I also want online but i will be devastated if I spend 50k (trust me I dont even have that much savongs yet ) and then later it turns out that in this region people just dont care about columbia much or turn me down still I will have 6-7 years of back office experience or will be 32 years old etc etc.) do you think any of these fear can materialize and how probably these are?

Please keep your comments coming, i have been quite depressed lately and really need to discuss this. (wife also gets very upset and hence i dont want to again make her feel sad as i have been trying to move for 2 years now and nothing has happened)

Thanks again, really!

 

[bcheema]

Hi lantency

so columbia's MSOR would'nt be know by people? atleats pople , even outside US, will know its a good univ? secondly, do you think the recruiters etc will know i did it online (if thet dig a bit on the dates)?

all, please also give your suggestions.

Thanks a lot

 

[Andy Nguyen]

You are confusing between Columbia University name as a whole entity and the specialty program that each university has carved out a name for.
If you are going to the university that is universally recognized, may as well go to Harvard, Yale or that sort.
This is a niche field and the university name value is pretty much up to the hiring managers, interviewers and their knowledge, experience with past graduates from that program.

You can see some very telling stories from the people that hired MFE grads on Wall Street in this article
How to Get a Quant Job - Advice from Wall Street Executives | Quant Network

 

[Connor]

Your ideal roles are many and broad, not limited to quant. I think you just need to change jobs, get a job as an analyst or something and move into investment management.

Like Andy said, your current job is something that MFE graduates would need up at so I don't think you gain all that much from the degree to be honest.

 

[bcheema]

thanks for all your input guys.

my added issue is tha i am not locatd in US and then the chances that the online degree turns out to be less useful (from carer point of view) are more.
people alreasdy tell me that i am overqualified with an MBA and CFA and should get experience instead of adding on MFE etc
BUT my issue is that now with 4 years of exp. in backoffice, i am finding it difficult to break the mould. even for internal moves, they always ask for experience blah blah and ask what i do currently which offcourse is not very relevant to what they need. obviously i know what I have read and hence i do get good feedback that i know my stuff. the thing is the launching pad that i need and i have been able to get that till now.i thought this onlie degree might give me a chance.......

i want to break out of this backoffice shit..ok i learn stuff., pay is so so, bonus is shitty, and work is hectic , growth is slow and people of same calibre earn much more & have great progress in FO, can anyone share his/her experience to move to the roles closer to the business from product control/back office valuation control etc.....

 

[alain]

When you mentioned people of the same caliber, what do you mean? Friends that went with you to school? colleagues? Are they part of your network? Why don't you ask them to try to get you in? You should only need an interview to prove your value, right?

BTW, bitching won't get you anywhere.

 

[bcheema]

I certainly did not intend to botch about anyone......no no, i am not jealous of the people, these are mostly my batchmates in MBA.
i only wanted to say is that entry is all I would need into those good roles as I am confident that there ar'ent many requirements or skills I cant learn or that I dont already have. well they arent at higher levels themselves to help me
I have had like a couple of interviews for internal moves and this is what I was asked

"how many reports have you written or stocks have you covered"
"does your work involve ER etc etc"

i did offer them to send a personal write up on a company but they were'nt interested, they were not even interested in what I know, and there is no way I can tell that I did ER when infact I did not do it.

 

[foobar]

Apply to MFE, good luck. Next.

 

[alain]

.. these are mostly my batchmates in MBA.

If they are batch mates, shouldn't they be able to get you an interview if an opening shows up?