Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSpartanguy
Thanks for the reply even though it is more judgmental than helpful.
The "necessary homework" did not include an internship because we, the Ph.D. students, are "employed" by our department throughout the year, for conducting research and teaching. We do not get summer and winter off like the undergraduates. I viewed my Ph.D. as a full-time job. As for the network, I had a few sessions (organised by my university) with people from J. P. Morgan, Barclays etc. but perhaps you know dedicated networking courses, sessions etc. are not parts of the Ph.D. curricula, unlike the MBA folks. That said, I have networks via collaborations, joint publications etc. in the academia and research community, who unfortunately do not belong to the finance industry.
I do not want to sound boastful, but I believe my CV justifies my four years for a Ph.D. at least in terms of skills acquired and some research publications. So anyway, my question is still unanswered about applications to DBS etc. If you have any information regarding that, particularly whether they recruit freshers without internship (but with good knowledge of finance, mathematics and coding) I will be grateful.
And most Ph.D.s from my university or NUS etc. are exactly in a similar stage, without an internship because Ph.D. is a job. |
Its not about being judgmental or what - fact is fact. That's how the game is played and if you didn't research and play it properly, you lose the game.
Nobody is interested in your explanation/excuses of why you don't have anything related to banking to present. Academia and joint publications on unrelated disciplines doesn't work in your favor either.
There is no shortage of good people all over the world wanting to be quants. If you don't have the necessary achievements, experience or network, then your CV won't even make it past first round - that is exactly what happened to you in DBS, a casual dismisal asking you to go their website to signup for generic grad program. And if DBS isn't interested, you can bet the other foreign banks will be even harder.
Sorry to break the bad news to you, but you should have prepared much earlier. It is what it is. There is no secret application process for either DBS or any other local or foreign bank that anyone can share with you. You can either apply through normal process (i.e. normal jobs) or cold emailing to all the bank HRs hoping that something will stick, but
IMHO it won't work anyway.