Met Traders

Met attends - UCL Careers in Banking and Finance insight day

Posted October 20, 2015 Ashley Chadwick

Recently, I was invited to UCL to take part in a panel discussion about recent graduates as part of their Careers in Banking and Finance insight day. I was appearing alongside representatives from the likes of the Bank of England, London Stock exchange and Barclays.

People were very interested to learn about the experiences of recent graduates and plenty were interested to learn about something a little bit different that they may not have considered before, proprietary trading. Judging by the questions being asked, people had not really considered an alternative to a large financial institution and wanted to learn about the benefits of working for a smaller firm.

The lack of bureaucratic red tape and personal freedoms that can be afforded at a smaller firm appealed to many. As did emphasising that if someone wishes to be a trader, they will learn far more and be more experienced if they trade at a prop house, rather than a large institution where most of what the traders do is execute trades on behalf of others and rarely get to make their own decisions.

It was an enjoyable afternoon and a good opportunity to educate students that there is more to finance than large banks.