<p>Same question applies to IB but to trading instead,</p>
<p>Hours?
Work Env?
Entry pay?
Ways to break in from Engineering at Stanford? (Current grad student, is it necessary to have a finance background or just a purely math and analytical bkgd is fine?)
Job Market? (Competitive or not?)
What to expect as an intern? </p>
<p>Thank you all for contributing.</p>
<p>Anyone? Bump…</p>
<p>Depends on many parameters.
Depends on infinite parameters.
Depends on several parameters.
Many since you are at Stanford (answer to bracketed question is – you guessed it – depends).
Yes, one exists (and yes, it’s competitive).
Watching rather than trading.</p>
<p>You are welcome.</p>
<p>@Nauru</p>
<p>This is too funny. My guess is that you were either once a Math Student or an Eng one. I’ll figure it out sooner or later.</p>
<p>I’ll humor you a little bit more</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Hours are generally 6/7 - 6/8 depending on the product. As a first year analyst you will likely be working towards the longer end since you are generally running all of the behind the scenes things such as PNL, risk, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>Depends on the firm, depends on the product, depends on the desk. No way to answer that. In general, as opposed to IBD at least, a lot more fast paced. Stressful.</p></li>
<li><p>Entry pay is generally the same as IBD, ~70k salary + bonus. Generally as an entry trader you are getting a bucketed bonus, since you aren’t actually trading (or not trading a lot). I’ve heard some get larger bonuses since there was an opening in the group that they filled and contributed significantly to PNL.</p></li>
<li><p>Math/Analytical background should be good, though a knowledge of finance and markets will only be an advantage. I don’t know specifically about Stanford. Perhaps a little harder since its west coast… I haven’t seen many where I was this summer, but it is definitely possible. Take this answer with a grain of salt, I’m honestly not sure.</p></li>
<li><p>Very competitive. There is less hiring need than IBD and tons of qualified/smart people applying. There are also less firms now and more unemployed traders with experience. While conditions have improved, I think there is still some hesitancy to hire full time, a lot of the banks are trying to use the summer class for the most part if possible.</p></li>
<li><p>Like Nauru said, you are essentially sitting behind people watching what they do for 10 weeks. It’s an odd/awkward position at first, but you get used to it. Your time is spent watching, asking questions, and trying to soak up as much information as you can. If you happen to be able to actually help the desk out with some administrative stuff than that is great. You are not going to be trading though (said with 99% certainty). I’ve had a trader put on my trade idea this summer, but that is a rare event.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Hope this helps.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Why is this the case? How many analysts/interns are hired in S&T each year on an average, and how many for IBD? Someone told me that S&T, as a department, is much larger than IBD and contributes much more to the revenue of most BBs as opposed to IBD, so how come fewer S&T analysts are hired.</p>
<p>Also, the laid of BB traders aren’t competing with college students for first year analyst spots, correct? Isn’t the first year analyst class recruited exclusively from undergraduate schools?</p>
<p>^^^ They’re not competing for first year analyst positions, but they have experience and are willing to work for little (it beats being unemployed), so there is less need, and therefore less hiring, of first years.</p>
<p>I thought that in general S&T is smaller than IBD… but in either event, the typical path in IBD is 2-3 yrs and out, so they need a constant stream of incoming analysts more so than in S&T.</p>
<p>S&T does generally contribute more to revenue of firms, but it can be a lot more volatile. </p>
<p>As for the laid off BB traders… mostly no. Some of the laid off were analysts are being picked up. In general though its not direct competition, because the lateral hires are likely not going to do the “work” that a new hire will have to do, since they have experience and actually trade. Desks are more focused on headcount than in the past, which part of it depends on how many outside hires they picked up, along with need of course.</p>
<p>can anyone post approximate numbers of IBD analysts each year, and also for S&T? I was always under the impression that S&T classes are atleast as large, if not, larger than IBD analyst classes. There were posts here in 2008 sayign that GS S&T intern classes were about 175, with 60-80 slots for FT. How accurate are these numbers?</p>
<p>actually, here is the post according to one intern in GS S&T</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well let me put it this way, for undergrad SA, my firm had 11 in FI S&T and 10 in Equity S&T… which is a ton less than IBD.</p>
<p>that’s actually pretty scary. Was it always like this or was it just this year? how does one BB have well over a 100 interns, others over 50, and some just 20? If there is such a disparity between the number of interns in S&T vs IBD at some BBs, isn’t it safe to say that, statistically speaking, it’s easier to get an SA gig for IBD than for S&T?</p>
<p>I’d say in general less people apply for S&T as opposed to IBD though, so its hard to say. It was about 30-40% of what last years S&T SA class was.</p>