Especially in NY, it’s one of the remaining professions where you are guaranteed a pension
Yeah, ask the folks in Detroit how that’s working out for them. Check back with Chicago and virtually the entire public workforce in California in 15 years.
FT, I saw a couple of excellent articles in the Globe and Mail and Macleans recently that exposed how insanely overpaid and overbenefited police and fire are in many Canadian cities and how its causing serious problems for muni budgets.
I know a fireman in Toronto who works 8 (24hr days (10hrs of standby)) a month. He runs a business on the side plus has all the benefits of being a fireman.
It is actually possible that I have my alma mater pick up the tab for a majority of my graduate studies. But since they are basically a no name school, will an MBA help at all?
Krazy - another good point, that pension is no guaranteed anymore. And I’m based in NY, which has been rumored to be headed down the same path as the D. Of course, I have no idea how much of that is based on sound reasoning and how much is conjecture.
mk17 - NYPD makes 100K in 5 years before OT and in 20 years retires with a pension of half their current salary. If NYC can afford to pay me in 20 years, seems like a good deal, especially if you have a presence on the small business side as well, as I do.
But that doesn’t change the fact that I actually want to be a stock picker for a living, but maybe a few therapy sessions can quiet that voice in my head…
A no name MBA most likely won’t help much. The general saying is top 10 MBA or don’t bother wasting your time/money.
on AF, the cutoff for hacksawing yourself is Top 2
The 2 biggest munis in Quebec (Montreal and Quebec City) have openly gone to war against the unions over pension benefits. It will get ugly. Unions are very well organized and powerful here and will do what it takes to not lose what they have. Intimidation, violent protests, illegal strikes, destroying employer property, physically threatening scabs…they will do it all.
union’s have outlived their time. like all things that start out with a purpose, the pendulum always swings too far. why are substandard workers protected by the union and given much higher pay and benefits than hard working independent workers
Itera / all -
In a nutshell the advice is find employment elsewhere, or hacksaw myself. And I respect that. In fact, I know a few people who would be willing to get me in front of heads of research at pretty significant HFs, but I know I’d be laughed out of the room, so I don’t want to even ask for the favor. The most I’ve thought of doing is, again, asking someone to take me under their wing in their spare time, but I’m still exploring that option.
So if I were to go find work somewhere, perhaps in an OPS role or some other non-FO function, make a steady paycheck and have the income from the new business venture, eventually I’ll have some excess capital to invest. Now I can buy low cost index funds and get back to Netflix, or I can try and pick some stocks. I DON’T want to invest good money based on bad research so I won’t do it in size until I’m confident in my ability. My small stock portfolio (began ~10K, now +30K) did very well since 2009 but so did the rest of the market, and I’d by lying if I told you my strategy was something other than buying big name stocks that lost half their value or more.
I want to learn how to be a smarter stock picker. Whether that translates itself into a job in research is at the moment irrelevant. Anyone care to throw a ticker at me and tell me what the first 5 important things would be for a stock picker to research on the name? And I’d love to hear from those folks that actually have a ton of experience in research already.
last time i was in nyc i learned most city construction jobs are union. i walked by a few build outs and noticed folks just chilling and not doing much. taking breaks all the time. this guy told us these workers make very good money and have sick benefits.
oh and saw a giant fuckign inflatable rat outside some building. i thought its for some ad or something but apparently its union fucks protesting if you are not using union labor.
Some people here are on a mission to make people feel like shit, don’t ever forget that. I’m not sure why they do it and what they get out of it. I mean they have top finance jobs, probably working 60 + hours / week and earn a quarter of a million a years upwards ; yet they have the time and motivation to post the same discouraging crap over and over and over…
You are only 27, for fuck’s sake, and it’s not like you’ve been flipping burgers for the last 4 years.
Of course you’ll never work at Goldman Sachs, but there are decent places where you can get in with the right game plan.
You are an idiot if some anonymous assholes on an internet forum can make you quit on getting the career you want and convince you to become a plumber.
Montreal politics is a farce. Corrupt as fuck.
Viceroy, did you live in North America before going to Germany? Sounds like you’re familiar with Canada.
Not sure how long you’ve been gone, but things are pretty hard here nowadays.
As for him flipping burgers for the past 4 years, it’s not really a stretch, he said something about running a franchaise business…
NJK, you’ve got a lot of hard questions asked here you haven’t answered yet. Work on getting some answers and maybe you can turn this thing around. I for one love a good comeback story. You can’t blame ppl around here for being skeptical, you haven’t put yourself out well at all. To make dreams come true you gotta do some hard work and demonstrate your abilities, otherwise who’s gonna give you a chance?
This.
And if you’re not willing to put in the hard work then it can’t be that important to you or enjoyable for you. In which case you should really be looking at other options.
If it is important to you and what you really want though, to quote Arnold Schwarzennger - “Work your butt off!”.
What does it take to make the transition? It takes exactly what it takes for everyone else. Check out the articles in my signature; I think you’ll find the answers to many of your questions. I have helped numerous people from S&T break into equity research (both buy-side and sell-side) and some of the very topics raised on this thread are addressed in these articles.
People need to stop looking down on trades as though its an inferior calling. I live in a nice area in an expensive-ish city and MOST of my neighbours are trades or technical workers. Lots of pick up trucks with welding rigs on the back and big trailers. The reality today is you’re much more likely to pull a great salary, have a great work-life situation and be successful in a trade type job than finance. Especially if you’re not already in it. Folks really need to stop looking down on trades. I look at the average salary thread here and most tradesmen in my area would be laughing that someone would go through 7+ years of education and long hour desk time to earn such a pittance.
^^
Absolutely nothing wrong with being a plumber. However, I find it highly hypocritical coming from people who work in finance and who ipso facto would most likely not want to work in such a field.
Cut the bullshit, is it not insulting to be told to become a plumber on AF ?
^i like this shwanson
Not really. Why would someone be insulted to be told to be rational and seek out a job with superior prospects from nearly every angle? Instead we can tell him that he’s great and has a great shot at FO success when in reality most will be working some grunt back office job for life. Yeah, maybe he is the 0.01%. But probably not. So I suggest he looks at a job with a much higher chance of achieving success. That’s not insulting. That’s telling it as it is. He should pursue his passions whatever they may be but if finance is viewed as a ticket to cash flow, then there are much better places to put your efforts.