As the title says, I receive 2 job offers and would like to get some help and advice on which one to go with. To give you a little bit of background, I have a bachelors in Actuarial Science and I’m currently enrolled in a Graduate Diploma in Financial Risk Management. I’m also enrolled in the FRM program(Registered for level 1 in May). My career goal is to get a position in financial risk management or in trading. The 2 offers that I got :
-First offer is: Compliance specialist in a brokerage firm : Basically my main 2 tasks are to supervise transactions made by investment advisors on behalf of their clients and make sure that they’re not risky in relation to the clients portfolio objectives and make sure all transactions are compliant with regulations from the industry regulators. Its a medium sized firm only present Canada, salary offered is 48k and working hours are 37.5h/week and no overtime at all.
-Second offer is: Fixed income clearing analyst in the operations department of one of the largest banks in the world. Basically I’ll be working in the back office. Main task is to settle and clear transactions made by the fixed income traders. Salary offered is 60k, approx 50-60 hours per week.
Any opinion and advice would be greatly appreciated. Thx in advance!
No to be a downer, but I don’t think either of those have much chance of converting to the role you want. Gun to your head, take the second one. If you can afford to keep looking, I would do that instead although the jobs you seek are extremely hard to get, and harder still with no experience.
Agree, but man those salaries are low, particularly given COL in Canada. The per hour pay is actually higher on job 1 vs job 2 (assuming a midpoint of 55 hrs/wk in job 2 vs. 37.5 in job 1) but it seems like more of a dead end.
^ Saw an ad at the local Romanian bakery (long story). Counter person was $21/hr or about as much as either of those pays. The first salaries is low for Canada, unless he is outside of a major centre My hacksaw school had an average grad salary of $62k last year for comparison. That’s an average biz school grad starting wage in the cities I mentioned above. So the second is in line for someone with zero experience.
Thx for replies everyone. I forgot to mention that I currently work in an online brokerage firm. Basically I assist clients over the phone with their self managed brokerage accounts and I execute trades for clients over the phone sometimes (Few people make trades over the phone nowadays). I would say that my tasks are 80% customer service and 20% trade related. Salary is 40k for 40hours/week. I was mainly looking to move for a higer salary+more finance related work. I feel that the big proportion of customer service in current job is killing me specially since im more of a quantative guy. However, do you guys think its worth it to stay in my current job as its as close as I can get to trading right now??? Im in Montreal btw
Thx for replies everyone. I forgot to mention that I currently work in an online brokerage firm. Basically I assist clients over the phone with their self managed brokerage accounts and I execute trades for clients over the phone sometimes (Few people make trades over the phone nowadays). I would say that my tasks are 80% customer service and 20% trade related. Salary is 40k for 40hours/week. I was mainly looking to move for a higer salary+more finance related work. I feel that the big proportion of customer service in current job is killing me specially since im more of a quantative guy. However, do you guys think its worth it to stay in my current job as its as close as I can get to trading right now??? Im in Montreal btw
If he wants a job in FRM (as he said in the OP), he’d be better served taking a job as an acturary than as a back office compliance paper pusher. His salary would be substantially higher and would have stronger exit opps. Acturaries are respected pros. Paper pushers less so. And… everyone young says they want to be a trader. Everyone wants to trade. But I’m guessing 10 years out, the FRM guy is way happier. Our FRM folks here trade a ton anyway, but don’t have the crap that full on trading comes with. Just my two cents.
Toronto compliance folks are making sub $48k? No wonder there is a convoy west. How can they afford one of those leaky glass condos on the lake with that pay?
they don’t, they borrow from mom + dad. anything BO in Toronto is going to pay $40k-$80k with the higher end the result of experience and potential designations. you could probably move up to $60k in this role with some experience. job market is gonna get tight in Canada with the exodus from the West and resultant job cuts in the Centre and East as a result. take the higher paying job as it might get more competitive in the next 3-6 months and the higher salary provides you with more bargaining power when a better job comes around.
None of the universities in Montreal had COOP for their actuarial programs. I wasnt able to get an internship while I was at UNI as it was super competitive (only 10% of the students would actually get an internship according to the UNI’s stats). I passed the first 3 actuarial exam but apparently the last 2 years have been very tough for young actuaries and it isnt like 6-7 years ago. On another note, do you think I should stick to my current position because technically I’m doing some trading (even thought its just executing orders for clients, look at my above posts for job description) but im just making 40k and alot of customer service. Im really in a dilemma… Thx again for ur replies guys