How to get a job in bank or any other institution

I am in a similar position as you - I have some experience in trading/investing and am seeking higher education. I am from the UK and want to study in the States for either a computer science degree or economics.

From what I have found out, the best way to get into a firm is to ask.



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I actually wrote that I don’t want to trade for fund but I just want to know how it works. So you need degree in economics but do they actually teach you how to trade or you start from begining when you get job? And I have read that you as a beginner trader don’t trade alone so what is actually your job when you are unexperienced do you just work with better traders or you do some analysis but don’t trade for company just based on that?

Not sure your question is relevant to a forum on which members are supposed to have a burning desire to trade (probably Forex). My answer gives you the benefit of a 50 year working career.

I am sure you have seen the Apprentice (either Alan Sugar’s UK version that he plagiarised from Trump or the USA version with Donald Trump). That is a good example of how it does NOT work in real life, much the same as thinking if you just “get a degree in economics” and somehow get sucked up into the trading machine by big trading houses. I am from the fortunate generation that did not have to pay for their UK university education, and could get a job by just turning up at the job centre (DSS building) and saying “I need a job. You are paid to get me a job. How can I help you to do your job properly by doing all I can do to make sure I am the one who gets the job?” With two sons in their twenties, both with five figure education debts, I can assure you that is not how it works today.

This may be the biggest financial gain you ever got in your life, so listen carefully. Do NOT believe any career advisor or worse still any member of secondary education staff. If they knew any better, they would not be doing what they do. To be fair, some have a calling but most just stay at school and grow into adults. And the university advisors? Well, they have gone from being slightly underpaid in the 1970s to ridiculously paid in the 2020s. That’s all because so many families want the best for their children and are willing to pay more for their kids’ education than for almost anything else. Had I not sent mine to private school, I could have bought each of them a two bedroom flat, and gifted them at 25 years old so they would never need a mortgage. Hindsight is a wonderful gift.

My advice includes my experience as a (charitable) chair of governors of a small private secondary school, where I learned that the entire public sector for secondary education has only one goal - to get 100% of the cohort through the system and ensure they all achieve the pass mark by the age of 18. No point in trying to match education to jobs available because the market changes about 100 times as fast as it did in the 1970s.

My recommendation? Try buying and selling stuff on eBay - or Amazon. Fail fast, recover fast and move on. That is the most rewarding education you will ever receive. Empowerment - to do what you like, when you like, and be responsible for your actions.

And education never stops. I graduated in electronic and electrical engineering in 1978, and my career took me into all walks of life. I am now unemployable, so call myself a management consultant to be kind to myself. My most recent education decision has been to watch a series of MIT lectures given by Gary Gensler on the subject of crypto-currencies. You may find such topics interesting (or not). They are certainly thought-provoking, and Mr Gensler talks about the benefits of attending his course as “critical thinking and critical reasoning”. I hope this has been helpful to you. I pay nothing, except my time, for this type of education, and in its application to my hobby of investment and trading, it is priceless.

Not sure if the link below will work. My first time in attempting to free myself from the shackles of Google, Facebook, Microsoft theft of my data. :slight_smile:

gary gensler mit lectures at DuckDuckGo

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I also have desire to trade but I just don’t want to trade for others, as i wrote 2 times before. Thank you for answering but I don’t really understand how is your answer related to my question. Also, I didn’t say that you can get a job just by getting university degree, I just assumed that you may need degree and some experience or licence. I am not sure how that people get job that was just my thought.

No, I haven’t seen apprentice or career advisor, I just wrote my vision of how it can may work. I assumed that because degree is maybe proof of some knowledge and they will maybe need something like that because when you trade forex alone from your home how can anybody know are you really good in trading or no. Maybe they can know from broker statement but you can also show someone else results as yours so that isn’t good proof, i don’t say that degree is but I can’t come up with some better idea of knowing that.

By selling stuff on eBay or Amazon you mean something like dropshipping?

Okay, I realised that you want to say that degree doesn’t mean so much for trading in institutions or maybe doesn’t mean anything but then what you need to get a job in bank or fund as a trader?

If you type “what you need to get a job in bank or fund as a trader” into a web browser like Google Chrome or Edge, you will find many answers. Sorry I have been unable to help you with this question.

If I had found that on internet I would never have asked here.

ok buddy - people are here to help don’t get snappy please

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I have a background in English and knew nothing about forex trading till the time my father started singing praises about it. That’s when I decided to give it a shot. The first lesson I learnt from him was to get the basics cleared and you don’t need any qualification or degree for it. There’s the School of Pipsology where obv they won’t spoon-feed you how to trade but yes, you basic concept about forex trading, the jargons, the tools and instruments used, currency pairs, and platforms are sorted. It’s basically through demo trading that you can practice your skills and go ahead.

I don’t ask because I want to work for someone or because I think that degree is necessary for becoming a trader. I ask because I want to know how they think, which skills they need and mostly for answering these 2 questions:

  1. Why they trade for others if they can trade from home and learn much more? ( I don’t know how much money they make but even if they make 200k per year it is small amount of money comparing to how much you can make as retail trader, ofcourse after years and decades)

  2. There are many people who said something like “Government doesn’t want you to become rich” ; “Nobody will teach you how to make money” etc. I thouht about that and I can’t say that it doesn’t make sense but I was like, hey if there is no school or university where you can learn how banks trade (and how you can trade if you know that) then how people who work for them know that stuff and how they know do you really know something or not?

I will try again, by example. When they start with the banks, they are ordinary people who are not wealthy. So they don’t have millions to trade on their own account. Even if they do, they risk the bank’s equity, not their own. For extreme examples of how much they earn, search for Greg Secker in a browser and read about his career. It is his course that I took over a decade ago in London and forked out over £2K. That was my “formal” introduction to leveraged trading, albeit Greg’s course concentrated on FTSE100 stocks, not Forex. Six months later I paid £300 for a weekend course on Forex, which added to the Secker material gave me a good grounding for my own Forex career. I am the world’s most stupid learner because it has taken me another decade to really understand what I am doing and why. I am sure others can be much faster than me, and spend a lot less than I did. But if I had my time over again, I would probably not change anything. The journey has been exciting and has held my attention for over a decade. That attention is unlikely to waver.

I said “after years and decades”. Of course that I don’t think they can made milions if they have only few thousands in their pocket, but after 20 years (for example) they could have earned much more if they started journey alone than if they work for others whole life

There is something magical about working with others. It is called team work and anyone who has never had the opportunity to do this will not know how powerful this can be. I recently worked with somebody who told me what TEAM meant. It means Together Each Achieves More. And he is dead right. Take a look at a book called Superforecasting by Philip Tetlock - it is amazing what a group can do that an individual cannot.

Man do you understand what I am talking about? I know that team matters, I know that experience matters and everything takes time to learn but my question is how they choose people who will work for them or what is criteria? You can’t just pick people from street and hope that they are talented for trading or think that everyone wants and can learn anything.

Trying again. Is this of any use?
https://www.inputyouth.co.uk/jobguides/job-investmentmerchantbanker.html

I don’t really know the difference between that jobs and degrees ( I am not from UK), but yes that is something that i wanted to know. Thank you.

Hi,

In which country do you live? I once visited Azerbaijan on business, met an old colleague there from Syria and ended up having dinner with the President of a commercial bank in Baku. Next morning, over coffee in his office, I opened a local bank account and got an international debit card. They were paying, at the time, 12% interest on USD deposits. As it happened I did not pursue that opportunity, but I doubt their hiring process was to go to Harvard and pick out the top 10 graduates. Each environment has its own solutions.

HI,

I live in Serbia (eastern Europe). I don’t know if banks here even trade or not, I haven’t heard of that. One man told me that some banks trade with smaller amount of money (not bigger than million euros), I don’t know is that the truth and if they trade but I know that there aren’t hedge funds or big investment banks here or anything like that snd I know that local universities don’t teach anything about trading. If there are some traders maybe they learned that somewhere in abroad, I really have no idea. My question was mainly focused on how it works in world in bigger banks and institutions generally. I assume that you are from UK and you probably don’t know how they pick them here ( sorry if I am wrong) but I don’t expect to hear that on baby pips because I know that people are generally from USA, UK, EU, Australia etc.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Your knowledge about economics was just from your personal research, so you didn’t go to university to learn it? I thought that degree in economics is a must for getting that job. Although you said that salary was good I assume that you could make much more if you manage your own account, then why people generally choose to trade for institutions? And could you please tell me something more about that checks that you passed through.

good luck.

You haven’t read what I wrote