<p>Hey guys, I want to become a hedge fund analyst after my degree.
Should I go to law school or get an MBA?</p>
<p>Neither would help you get into a hedge fund.</p>
<p>^This. Go to a bulge bracket bank in IBD and then get recruited by a head hunter.</p>
<p>Trading also gets placed into Hedge Funds… I would think more often than investment bankers though there’s funds that look specifically for IBers</p>
<p>MBA’s are sometimes viewed as a negative.</p>
<p>Guy Kawasaki (Stanford, MBA) on why MBA’s are often negative: [To</a> get an MBA or NOT - YouTube](<a href=“To get an MBA or NOT - YouTube”>To get an MBA or NOT - YouTube)
Warren Buffett’s 1.8hr MBA speech/Q&A: [Warren</a> Buffett MBA Talk - Part 1 - YouTube](<a href=“Warren Buffett MBA Talk - Part 1 - YouTube”>Warren Buffett MBA Talk - Part 1 - YouTube)</p>
<p>Law school is not a common route, even though your potential pal Jim Cramer came from HLS, his grades sucked and his career at Goldman was his own making.</p>
<p>If you want a Wall Street/Finance job, especially a HF job in New York/London/Greenwich/Palm Beech/Boca Raton, the best thing to do (IMO) is TRADE. Get your hands dirty and make a winning portfolio, even if it means 10 hours a day and paying hundreds of dollars a month for high end newsletters such as realmoneypro.thestreet.com. Even if you’re recruited, you’ll surly be interviewed by a Goldman type in your lifetime - Google around for Rickhover or Goldman interviews, or pick up Cramer’s “Confessions of a Street Addict” to get an idea of how intense they can be. They’re going to ask you off the cuff details all the way down to NXT’s 52 week high and what to do when in a battle with HFT firms on the floor…</p>
<p>Traders get placed into Hedge Funds more than Bankers, easily. The work at Hedge Funds and the work done at the trading desk are very similar/the same. The skills you pick up as a banker are basically useless for most departments at a Hedge Fund. Bankers usually move to PE as the work there is pretty similar to banking. Anyways, if you can get into a bank, try your best to transfer over as a trader. Hopefully you can then get into a HF but it’s not easy. If you can get a reputable MBA(like an m7), I’m sure the HF doors won’t shut on you, but I’m not saying it will get you a job.</p>
<p>^ This isn’t true. I’m not sure where you heard this.
Please stop posting here. Your comments indicate you have never worked in the industry.</p>
<p>^ What part is wrong? Maybe the last 3lines are out of context but the rest is spot on, I’m sure of it.</p>
<p>@Megafund -IB exit opps are both PE and HF. HFs look for top second and third year analyst to work as financial analyst. You will most likely be recruited by a head hunter. The skills you learn in IB do indeed carry over, especially Excel. Of course this also depends on the type of HF. I interned at a global-macro and most of the analyst team was comprised of former IB analyst - and one lone ex-consultant who must have had some connections. </p>
<p>To the OP: If you do end up trading, you should have a very good track record geared to positive gains to back that up when interviewing at a HF.</p>
<p>Don’t waste money on law school because what you really want to be doing is finance. And don’t get an MBA unless you have solid work experience. If you do get an MBA and don’t have experience, you will be over-qualified for the entry level jobs and not qualified for the next level up.</p>
<p>@megafund</p>
<p>What’s wrong with your post?</p>
<p>Traders do not get placed into hedge funds more than bankers.
The work done at hedge funds is not the same as hedge funds.
The modeling skills bankers learn is exactly what hedge funds are looking for.</p>
<p>Where do you get your info angryelf?</p>
<p>Former colleagues who are now at hedge funds as well as recruiters at hedge funds.</p>
<p>If it matters to you, ask @ mergers&inquisitions or wallstreetoasis (ignore anyone who doesn’t have a star next to their name). </p>
<p>I’m sure people go to hedge funds from Equity Research and Sales & Trading as well, no idea as to how many/how hard it is though. Part of it depends on what you want to do there.</p>
<p>I dunno… I still think that traders have better placement into HFs than bankers even though some HFs look specifically for bankers. I’ve read WSO a lot and that seems to be the general consensus.</p>
<p>Hedge Funds definitely seem like they have more in common with trading than banking.</p>
<p>^
What type of hedge fund are you looking for/hoping to join?</p>
<p>You can’t just group them all into one category or generalize them. The type of fund it is dictates the average background.
Long/Short funds look for completely different people than Quant Funds, which will be completely different from Global Macro funds.</p>
<p>Also, I have no idea, but it would seem like restructuring funds would actually look for lawyers? It would be a terrible idea to go to law school just for the fleeting chance at that, but if you already have a law degree, might be an option.</p>
<p>Credit hedge funds and distressed buyout funds hire mainly restructuring bankers (these bankers usually come from the more widely known boutiques because BB’s do not have very active restructuring practices).</p>
<p>“You can’t just group them all into one category or generalize them. The type of fund it is dictates the average background.”</p>
<p>Dude, you’re the one who said that traders get placed into hedge funds more than traders… excel spreadsheets are not what hedge funds are looking for… I think you’re thinking of private equity.</p>
<p>@scottj19x89 - Have you ever worked/interned with a hedgefund before? If not, then you won’t be able to back up your arguments. You can’t base them off Wall Street Oasis or M&I, because working there and reading about it are two different things.</p>
<p>You do INDEED use excel in hedgefunds. Managers want to make sure that whatever they are investing in is viable. This can not be done but simply having a trader look over data. Especially when you are dealing with funds that have strategies such as risk arbitrage, opportunistic funds and aggressive growth funds. Excel must still be used to make sure that companies are performing where they need to be performing.</p>
<p>Traders will mostly get placed into long/short funds, funds that trade futures and macro funds (although the volatility is high, and you still need to do due diligence on companies.)</p>
<p>However, since traders do not often have the skill-set to analyze a company on the level that is needed, hedgefunds will look to ex-analyst for banks to perform these duties.</p>
<p>My argument back-up: Have interned at a global-macro and a risk arbitrage hedge fund, and did most of the excel work because that they like making interns do grunt work :/</p>
<p>@scottj19x89 Once you at least make an effort to find out what roles are available in hedge funds and what type of hedge funds are out there, we can discuss this further.
Until then, it’s pointless.
The majority of employees at hedge funds don’t actually trade…</p>
<p>So unlike investment banking, you absolutely can’t make blanket statements about hfs. When most people think about hedge funds they think about activist funds like pershing square that invest based on fundamentals - digging through sec filings, doing due diligence, of course modeling to test scenarios (but usually not ib style modeling, hf models are often much simpler and to the point). They DO employ traders to execute strategy but the traders are not the drivers of the strategy. Now there are other funds -ltcm is probably the most notorious- where the focus is much more on trading strategies like arbitrage, high frequency trading, etc. traders are higher profile at this kind of fund.</p>