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What, exactly, is wrong with my CV (2)?

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You did an Operations internship, started an Operations grad scheme, and through luck ended up briefly in Trading.  Read all comments »

I lost my job a few months ago and am struggling to find a new one. I've got three years' front office trading in the money markets under my belt and have applied for about 100 jobs and had no response so far. I think I'm being rejected for middle office roles as they think I will leave as soon as I find something better and I'm getting no responses from trading firms. Can anyone give me any advice?

EDUCATION

2002-2005 University of London, Imperial College of Science College and Technology

BEng Computer Science – Grade 2:1 Honours

1995-2002 Grammar School

A Level: Computing (A), Economics (A), Mathematics (A)

AS Level: Physics (A), General Studies (A)

G.C.S.E: Business Studies (A*), Chemistry (A*) Electronics (A*), History (A*), Information Technology (A*), Mathematics (A*), Biology (A), English (A), English Language (A), German (A), Physics (A)

CAREER HISTORY

April 2006 – January 2009 Major US investment bank

Officer, Trader I

International Treasury

· Assigned as money market trader on the USD and GBP book covering Eurodollar deposit market and Interbank market

· Responsibilities involved balance sheet management, funding the bank and its business partners, and discretionary positioning through interest rate mismatch.

· Took part in meetings with the Bank of England to discuss funding problems and solutions

· Active on the desk in cash deposits, foreign exchange and various off balance sheet products

· Off balance sheet trading includes overnight index swaps (OIS), Forward Rate agreements (FRA’s) and interest rate swaps.

· Main responsibility as cash deposit trader from o/n to 1 year to fund the USD book, setting daily LIBORS as part of BBA panel and squaring the daily overnight balances by using the broker market, Reuters dealing, ECP and Bloomberg.

· Proprietary trading book given with remit to trade USD OIS, GBP SONIA’s, EUR EONIA’s, FRA/OIS spreads, and all STIRT futures and options (Eurodollars, Euribor, Short Sterling, 1Month USD Libor contract, Fed Fund contracts) with main trading in arbitraging difference in USD OIS to Fed Fund contracts.

· Cash deposit trading with external clients, interbank market, corporates, internal sales team and all internal trading desk’s funding needs

· Synthetic cash/implied arbitrage positions created by the use of FX swaps and forwards out to 1 year to swap cash positions from other international and EMEA currencies into USD by trading with the FX STIRT desk.

· Experience gained in trading AUD, CAD, GBP, JPY, NZD, THB, SGD, HKD and MXN cash markets by regularly covering other traders.

· Part of 2 man project team to create and refine the proprietary online deposit system running now for 2 years.

· In charge of hedging the entire banks international currency hedging book on all capital and transactional exposure present within all EMEA and Asia bank entities worldwide, executed by trading with internal FX/NDF desks within Europe and Asia.

· Trade CLS positions daily for the bank, to clear overall FX positions.

September 2005 – April 2006, Major US investment bank [same as above]

Global Operations Analyst Program,

Exotic Rates Derivatives Middle Office (Product Development Trading)

· Trained within Global Operations Leadership Development graduate program with classroom training in London

· Placement within Exotic Rates Derivatives Middle Office

· Trained to learn all types of structured interest rate products which enable me to book all types of structures by logical analysis into specialised PDT system breaking each trade into component vanilla parts.

· Consistent handling of all cash flow queries involving calculations of coupons on complex structures and liaising with funding MO to fund FX trades balanced with responsibility of booking majority of trades

· Close integration with Middle Office P&L function to explain day on day trade amendments and market moves

· Strong daily use of computing background to write VBA to efficiently download rates, retrieve ledger data and to build cash flow calculators for different exotic products.

July 2005 – September 2005, Major US investment bank [same as above]

Summer Internship, Global Operations Leadership Program

FX Trading & Rates Derivatives Middle Office

· Completed 10-week internship with time on the Foreign Exchange Spot desk and Exotic Rates middle office.

· Part of FX on boarding team to open new accounts and counterparties on online FX trading platform

· Projects included reconciliation of the whole exotics book to find inconsistent hedges with the use of VBA and Excel to query 8000 trades in total on the exotic rates system, which resulted in correction of P&L.

·

SKILLS

· IT Skills Microsoft Office, Excel, Access, Powerpoint, Visual Basic, VBA, Java, SQL, HTML

· FINANCE SKILLS Enrolled for CFA Level I exam

· Languages English (Native)

· Hobbies Long Distance Running, Snowboarding, Football, Charity work (Setpoint school program, orphanage work in Puerto Vallerta, Mexico)

· Awards

London Marathon 2008 medal, raised £2000 for charity

· Essex County FA Fair Play Award, Under 18 Barking & District League Football

· Bank of England/The Times Interest Rate Challenge 2001 Regional Runner Up

CAREER

· Initially gained knowledge of financial markets on 3 month internship within Global Operations and gained a place on the graduate program. The graduate program gave me training of all debt products and derivatives to a high level within the exotic rates middle office with large exposure to trading room and traders with experience of booking highly complex structured trades (Callable Range Accruals, Snowballs, Barrier FX swaps, etc) into the bank’s system.

· Applied for internal position as money market trader on International Treasury desk which gave me career progression by looking at management of cash books and positions created by funding issues and trading.

· Position on USD money market desk has given great insight into the credit crisis since August when the crisis started within our markets, directly involved in managing the bank’s balance sheet during these difficult times.

· Knowledge of the LIBOR market (FRA fixings and daily setting) and credit spread widening allowed me to start trading FRA/OIS spreads at a time when market was small, now much bigger and more mainstream.

· Quote IRS (3’s1’s and 1y1’s), USD OIS (o/n out to 1 year) and FRA’s (short dated) for customers occasionally, majority of positions discretionary in nature trading on the bank’s account.

· Trading short date USD OIS in size against Fed Fund contracts to obtain pure arbitrage.

· Managing the bank’s funding gap by taking cash position on the yield curve shape out to 1 year, finding term cash in illiquid markets by using direct contacts at Central Banks, Government Sovereign Funds and direct interbank relationships over Reuters Dealing 3000.

· Ability to square overnight/tomnext/spotnext balances in most currencies traded on the desk

· Overseas experience gained, assigned to Singapore in May 2008 to cover USD and SGD books in bank’s local branch there

If you want to get in touch with/offer a job to the owner of this CV, please contact him/her at specassoc@hotmail.com

Note from the editor: If you want your CV to be reviewed too, please email us at Editor@eFinancialCareers.com.

COMMENTS

ABC, FX & Money Markets,  Thu 12 Mar 09

the problem is that the markets have crashed. it is time to turn off your autopilot and start thinking where you can add value

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Paul, HR & Recruitment,  Thu 12 Mar 09

The London Marathon medal isn't exactly an indicator of excellence.

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Poor Analysts, Hedge Funds,  Thu 12 Mar 09

I'm thinking too little experience is the main problem. Given the number of experienced traders out there also looking for jobs, I think you're way down the pecking order. Sorry its not much help but I can't see how you can possibly compete even with a good education.

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Wills, Derivatives,  Thu 12 Mar 09

Agreed. I know a Money Market trader with 10 years experience who lost his job in the JPM / Bear merger and he is looking for a job. For him though, it's a slightly different situation, he is confident enough to set up his own trading operation if he can't find something suitable.

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Poor Analysts, Hedge Funds,  Thu 12 Mar 09

Agree with Paul. I think the awards section should be removed along with the 'enrolled for CFA 1'. Anyone can be enrolled for CFA 1 so it doesn't mean anything and looks pretty desperate. I think enrollment should only be mentioned if its level 3.

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Poor Analysts, Hedge Funds,  Thu 12 Mar 09

Sorry to post in drips and drabs but it also looks far far too long. That's gotta be more than 2 pages A4 even in small font. Someone reading this including me would get bored really quickly.

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Observer, Derivatives,  Thu 12 Mar 09

I think your CV is too long and covers too much specific stuff with too little strategic focus. For example, telling people "Active on the desk in cash deposits, foreign exchange and various off balance sheet products" for example is not very useful. I prefer to know what exactly you did (e.g. prop, market making), and what sort of P&L etc. Also, who needs to know "Strong daily use of computing background to write VBA to efficiently download rates, retrieve ledger data and to build cash flow calculators for different exotic products". I just expect that you can get the data you need. I can't really be bothered to read the CV in its entirety.

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Recruiter, HR & Recruitment,  Thu 12 Mar 09

Hi,

You are in the worst possible place for trying to get another job. You are a 2005 grad, therefore I assume about 24-25 years old. You have 3-4 years experience. Which means you're in that Associate bracket of people who are relatively expensive (£60k base, low 6 fig bonus expectation) given you are not making anywhere near the profit of a VP. Laid off grads from 2005-06 have no hope in this market when banks can get 2000-03/4 grads with twice the experience for not much more cash. There was a bottleneck of Associates who are now being rid of with no hope of coming back.

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Realist, FX & Money Markets,  Thu 12 Mar 09

Dude,

You did an Operations internship, started an Operations grad scheme, and through luck ended up briefly in Trading. You are only really an Operations calibre person to have not got into front office in the first place. You have OK chance of getting an Operations job were any to be available but ZERO chance of getting back into trading.

Add your comment »

Tahir, Global Custody,  Thu 12 Mar 09

"Languages English (Native)"

Congratulations. Can't believe you wrote that!!

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