From Visa-Less Foreigner in the UK to the FICC Trading Desk at a Top Bulge Bracket Bank: How to Make the Leap

It’s already tough enough to break into finance coming from any background, but what about when you’re a foreigner, you don’t have a work visa, and your school is unknown?

Oh, and you’re set on going to a bulge bracket bank.

As Aleksey Vayner might say, “Impossible is Nothing” – a bad idea for his infamous video resume, but a good idea for our interviewee here, who was smart enough to apply the sentiment, but not the execution, to his recruiting efforts.

Here’s how he made the leap from visa-less foreigner and non-target student to sales & trading at a bulge bracket bank, and how you can do the same – plus:

• The top challenges you’ll face as a foreigner breaking into finance inLondon – and how to overcome them.
• Whether or not there’s a glass ceiling in finance if you’re not from the country.
• What to expect in Fixed Income, Currency, and Commodities (FICC) recruiting and how to prepare for interview questions.
• A day in the life of a FICC junior trader.

Let’s dive right in:

Traders and Brokers: Bud Fox vs. Gordon Gekko?

Assuming you’ve seen Wall Street (the awesome, original one, not the watered-down sequel) – it is a requirement to work in finance, after all – you know something about traders vs. brokers.

The traders are like lone wolves who go in and make tons of money by making quick decisions…

But supporting every successful trader is his broker – the one who actually connects buyers and sellers and makes trades go through.

Both traders and brokers are linked to the market and need to stay on top of everything that’s happening – but beyond that, they’re quite different.

So, what do traders and brokers actually do?

Which one is a better match for your personality? How do you break in?

And most importantly, who makes more money?

All About Automated Trading: What It Is and What It Isn’t

[This is a guest post from a reader who currently works in an arbitrage development team. He wanted to clear up a few points about what "automated trading" is and isn't.]

Ah, taking a mid-day nap and waking up with extra money in your trading account… who wouldn’t want to make money while sleeping?

That promise of set-it-and-forget-it money draws lots of traders into the field and attracts computer science and engineering students who suddenly “discover their interest in finance.”

Only one problem: “automated trading” is far from automated cash flow, and you always need human intervention.

To find out why and to learn all about algorithmic trading, arbitrage and other forms of automated trading, read on.