DEMYSTIFYING THE JOB SEARCH PROCESS IN QUANTITATIVE FINANCE: a practical guide for entry-level quants by Lin James

Author:Lin, James [Lin, James]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-01-26T16:00:00+00:00

1) By the time you start, you should already have a list of quant headhunters with whom you are going to work (Section 5.4), and now it’s time to send your resume to them. I would say it’s ok to work with 2-5 headhunters simultaneously.

Occasionally (once in a fortnight is ok) you should remind the headhunter(s) about your existence and /or supply them with an updated copy of your resume. Do put very little faith in headhunters. I wouldn’t give them more than a month before proceeding to the next step.

At the same time, start subscribing to job boards, search engines and other resources that will supply you with job postings via email or RSS (Section 5.2). Post your resume online so that it is represented on all three kinds of websites, “generic”, “quant finance” and “quantitative”. Try to prevent your resume from being harvested by “recruiting professionals” and sent somewhere without your knowledge. It is preferable to post it in PDF as opposed to Word, because headhunters need to delete one’s contact information.

The most noticeable effect of posting your resume online will be a number of phone calls from “stray” headhunters. You have to realize that a headhunter who initiates contact with you cannot be a coveted professional. Her “ties” with the quant industry are probably not stronger than yours, and the way she works is similar to what you are already doing. The difference is that when she contacts an employer, the latter knows he will have to pay her to hire you. Hence, if you cut her out of the chain, you have a better chance because the employer will be more willing to hire you “for free”. Therefore, the best course of action is to inform the headhunter that you already have one, and politely invite her into your LinkedIn network to “keep in touch in the future”.

I have to admit – that’s not what I did in the past. I would start working with 3-5 headhunters and end up with 20. It was very comforting to hope I could outsource my headache to these nice, well-spoken, encouraging individuals. It gave me a false sense of security: if so many people are busy looking for work on my behalf, how could it fail? And even if it did fail, I had plenty of scapegoats to blame. Do not repeat my mistakes: the sooner you recognize that you are on your own, the better.

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