Tuesday, September 5, 2017

AIM Needs to Remain Relevant in a Rapidly Changing Industry - Our Alumni Offer Advice

Advice to AIM Students Seeking to Pursue a Career in Equity Research

Want to work in equity research following graduation? This is the advice of an AIM graduate who has been working in the industry the past several years. Things are moving quickly towards the need to have a solid FinTech background (understanding data analytics, coding, blockchain, etc.).

Two pieces of advice for students looking to pursue a career in Equity Research:
  1. Write for Seeking Alpha or another similar site (such as the AIM Blog)
    • Image result for seeking alpha
    • It indicates students are passionate about investing and are willing to do more than just the class work assigned to them
    • Helps us determine whether the candidates are adequate writers
    • Shows whether students can do thoughtful analysis
·   I would recommend choosing a single stock to focus on
·   The stock should probably be one with enough investor interest to generate a following
·   It would be more interesting if the stock doesn’t already have many authors publishing on the name (in other words, don't write about Apple or Amazon)


  1. Learn how to code - python in particular
    • Image result for code academy
    • Big data and web scraping are becoming very useful tools used in research analysis
    • Directors of Research have hinted that in the future they may not even look at a resume if it does not include coding experience
    • Code Academy and Coursera are two free / low cost resources to learn how to code
Coursera

Thanks to the AIM alumnus for reaching out to our current students - we need to remain relevant in a rapidly changing industry.