Getting a professional Forex trading job

Hey guys,

I'm currently finishing up my Freshman year in college and I've decided to go into Finance. If I have to, I will settle for the typical 100+ hour per week I-banking position, but my real passion is definitely in forex.

So therefore, does anyone know what the typical qualifications are for the average professional forex trader (by professional, i mean the ones that trade for large banks)? I would imagine that trading prowess is required, but what certifications, skills, etc? How would I be able to actually get my foot in the door of the Forex industry? There are loads and loads of recruiters for Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley on campus looking for I-bankers, but I have yet to hear about a recruiter for a forex trader.

If it helps, I'm currently an Econ major at Stanford University.

THanks for any help!

Here are some of the key requirements recruiters are looking for:

- Age. Must be below 24 for Bachelor Degree holders and below 28 for MBA holders.

- Quantitative background. Investment banks look for quantitative guys possibly with a computer programming minor.

- High GPA.

- Prestige of University


These above are only a few requirements that may help you get an interview. Then it comes down to how good you are at interviews.

I've tried many times to get a foot in the door but I never made it. It was back in 2001-2002 when markets were right in the middle of a selloff. The general excuse I would get was that many traders were being laid off and all hirings had been frozen at the moment.

Nevertheless, I am now happy things worked out a different way for me. I am a happy private trader and I made it by myself.

Lots of those requirements are pure crap in my honest opinion. Most of the best quantitative and IT programming students I've come across were kind of dorky and very emotional people. That is not good for trading.

Having a high GPA doesn't help either. Of course it's not a bad thing, but when you are trading against the best traders in the world, is your GPA from school going to help your position? Who cares anyway.

I am also wondering why psychology major graduates aren't as welcome as quant people. Go figure.

I guess many students are attracted to trading because of the "easy" money and the good publicity around investment banks. The movie "Wall Street" might have something to do here as well...lol

Unfortunately there only is a limited number of openings for each firm, so in order not to receive millions of job applications they use high requirements as filters with the belief that they get to interview the best candidates.

If you can't make it to any investment bank but you are determined enough to make trading your full time job, then you can do it. Today's technology is good enough to allow almost anyone to be a trader from home.

I recommend you get a mentor to guide you at the beginning of your path though.

Kind regards,

IS

You'll have a better chance getting a job at a bank in the IT department programming trading systems as that's where the direction is headed these days. If you look at postings of available positions, the majority of them are for system developers in the backroom and a couple of clerical positions, traders are very much off the menu it seems.

However, why not plug at it and create your own trading firm? You're young and have the spirit and time it takes to climb to the top. Keep at it and you may be dropping out of school because trading has taken up that well for you; not that I'd 100% endorse this as I think a degree is a fairly comfy safety net for one of those...jobs .

You have every chance of getting into the world of professional trading. My advice though would be to not limit yourself to forex. As you are graduating from Standford I think you would have a chance of getting into a graduate position in a front office environment that could eventually take you into the trading world. As you are aware all the major banking have graduate recruiting programs and that would be your best avenue at this stage. Definitely don't limit yourself to forex but rather show a desire to be a trader - which could end up meaning bonds, credit derivatives etc etc.

If you are not able to get into a graduate program then you can try for a trainee role in proprietary trading and learn to become what they call 'a local'. I have worked in these firms in the past and entry criteria is more about having the right attitute, some intelligence and a set of nuts.

Have a look at some of the financial careers websites - efinancialcareers is a good one - they have lots of trading roles including graduate entry positions.

Good luck.

here is a good thread on this subject....
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=7776

(im loving the new search functions at FF)

Oddly enough, I recently painted a house (I am a contractor by day....because all painters are FOREX traders, we move the EUR/NZD pair by the way. ) of a man that does this exact thing.

Only he is a trader for Rubbermaid as a way of hedging and protecting profits in S.America (mainly the Real) and Europe.

His background.......accounting. Yes, accounting. When I found out what he did for a living, that was the first question I asked.

He is not 24, nor does he have a finance degree.....unless you count counting numbers!

Before he started with Rubbermaid, he was doing same thing at Scott's the lawn fertilizer company.

The city I live in, Columbus...has several major companies here, and therefore if you are lucky enough, you meet these guys. There arent many of them. (In fact he said he knows just about all of them, all 20 or so of them.)

Scott's, Rubbermaid, and Limited Brands are the biggest.

And most of his friends did what he did to get into Forex. They just fell into it.

By the way, he doesn't trade Forex outside of the office. He trades stocks, but not Forex. He also told me that I had more guts than he did to do it.

His indicators? Price. That's it.

I was really surprised to hear this. I figured there was some kind of magic these guys had. Not at all.

His orders range from 2-100 million at a time.

Depending on size, he either uses FXSol, or direct dealings with the banks.

He also told me that a lot of times his orders are nothing more than a way to pay Brazilian workers, and have nothing to do with price. (Although they obviously try to buy the currencies on the cheap.)

But if the company needs 20 million Euros, they need it, that simple.

An eye opening experience for those of us that are trying to make a few pips, that a large part of the game is about necessary transactions, and nothing else.

Interesting story, sorry about rambling, but thought it was food for thought if nothing else.

Oh, and the point is.....try a corporate position first.....they obviously will hire outside of the normal realm.

Good luck, and when you start buying billions of Euros, an email would be nice!

I'm replying to this post because this is one of the key factors of the forex market of which I'm afraid most retail traders are completely unaware. Forex is not a speculative market. Of course, there is nothing to stop you, or anyone else, from speculating on it - but it is not, by its very nature, a speculative market.

Any market is ultimately driven by the biggest buyers and sellers. Who are the big buyers and sellers in forex? Banks and major international corporations. Why are those banks/corporations buying currency? Is it to profit from the currency market itself? No. They are buying currency primarily to 1) hedge against price fluctuations, and 2) facilitate large-scale transactions. They are buying/selling currency for utilitarian reasons. When they buy currency, sure, they would like to get the best price possible, but for the most part they don't really care what price they get - just as long as they get the currency that they need.

I believe it's imperative that forex traders understand this because it means that the price of our speculative positions is being largely driven by institutions that are not trading based on the traditional market dynamics (greed and fear). Think about that. When IBM needs to hedge itself against the rising/falling price of another country's currency in which it does business, it goes out and buys a huge amount of that country's currency. It really doesn't care about the buy price, but the net effect for IBM is 0. That's the function of a true hedge. Hedges don't make money or lose money (when they're done properly) - they just hold a given position steady.

The converse of this would be a traditional stock market. Unless you are actually trying to take over a public company, there are very few reasons to buy a stock unless you believe that the price of that stock will rise. In other words, the stock market is almost purely speculative in nature. This means that many of the market psychology dynamics that many of us may have learned while trading in stock markets don't necessarily apply to forex.

Lamdun,
Good question. I hope you get everything you work the hardest to get. (notice I wasn't neive enough to say, "I hope you get everything you want.")
If we got everything we wanted we would not appreciate it. We value most what takes the most to get.

So how do you get there (there being wherever you are going)?
You get there by immersing yourself in it totally so that it becomes an obsession.

Do you know who Reinald Messner is? He is one of the greatest mountain climbers in the world. He has climbed all 14 mountains that are over 8,000 meters in height. He was the first to climb Mt. Everest without supplemental oxygen. So how did he become the greatest mountain climber in the world?

He climbed mountains - lots of them.

So how do you become an awesome forex trader?
You eat, breathe, sleep and think and study and trade and test and analyze forex trading.

Bottom line: To succeed in forex - It doesn't matter what your major is in college, but that forex is major.

I work in a large banks treasury department and have gone for two jr/trainee trading position in the past two years (one on the banks commodities desk the others the repos desk). Each time I made it down to the last two candidates. Just missed out. Surprisenly enough, the feedback was that they went with the older candidate (I was 22 and 24 each time), wanting more 'life experience'.

Since then I have had the chance to do a surcondment on an FX sales desk and loved it. Had sat with a dealer for 4 hours on the first day then got told "ok, I think you have the hang of it, start dealing!".

I have now decided to get more experience in the investment banking side of the bank before I have another crack at the dealing room. In the meantime, I am going to build up my trading skills for myself, not my employer.

Maybe you should give this some thought..........

http://forexfactory.com/showpost.php...3&postcount=72

Anyone wants to start a trading firm?? I have around 5 yrs of exp in forex. guess there is huge talent in here and it could be done...what do u guys think??