Career in banking for an engineering grad

[Weiss]

Dear all,

I have some general queries with regards to career in the banking sector. Having just completed my PhD in engineering (major in signal processing), I was wondering what will be the prospect of me lending a banking job in areas such as investment banking. Do they take in engineering grads? And if so, how should I go about looking for such opportunities.

[Makan24-7]

Well, on Wall Street, banks recruit at analyst level graduates from all disciplines through the on-grounds recruiting process. A lot of my ex-classmates in b-school who came from the top tier banks were History, English, Political Science, Government, Pure Science, Engineering and even Art History majors at undergrad level

Recruiting into associate level is a bit harder cos traditional recruiting is through top tier MBA schools.

That said, many people get into the banks through lots of painstaking and patient networking.

I am speaking from a banking perspective in the US and UK. I know the banks in Asia follow the same process as far as recruiting from the US and UK schools but I'm not too familiar with local recruiting.

[Bonbon]

are you freshly graduated? could try the GA program (Graduate Associate ) program in the banking sectors..have a look at their websites, CSFB, UBS, DB, SCB etc...

I know SCB has a GA Program

Engineering, sorry what type of engineering ? maybe useful for financial modelling.

Good luck

[Weiss]

Thanks for the response.

Is there any difference between graduate analyst (Makan24-7) and graduate associate (Bonbon), or do they refers to the same thing?

I graduated with an electronic engineering degree.

Was checking out for information about the banking sector and came across a few banks which are interested in people that are into technology? Any idea what technology are they referring to? and how is it useful to the organisation?

[Makan24-7]

Just a difference in the hierarchy..

Associates are mostly MBAs (cos that's the core associate on-grounds/campus recruiting process) and some CFAs/MS/PhD holders..

Analysts are primarily fresh undergrads recruited through the core recruiting process. That said, I know a lot of graduate degree holders who are recruited outside of the core recruiting process (on-campus recruiting) who join as analysts.

If you are joining the Front Office, you could be placed into the Technology group. However if it's for the supporting IT functions, then it's really not banking u're getting into.