Original subtitles

I landed a six -figure hedge fund analyst role straight out of university

without going to a target school.

And in this video, I'm giving you my entire blueprint to do the same. You'll

my CV, the emails I sent, the resources I used.

And finally, a bonus tip that literally nobody ever talks about when it comes to

breaking into buy side firms.

My name is Barak. I've worked at two different hedge funds as an investment

analyst here in London. And now I'm currently working as a quant trader at a

high frequency trading firm. And for full transparency, my starting salary

£106 ,000.

That's base plus bonus. And this is exactly how I did it.

During A levels, I unfortunately missed the grades that I was hoping to get to

secure the universities that I wanted to go into. So unfortunately, I had to go

through a clearing. I was lucky enough to still land the Russell Group

University, but it was no means the university that I wanted to go into. I

to study aerospace engineering at Queen's University, Belfast. And the

reason I picked engineering was because I thought it pays a lot at the time.

Anyway, first year rolls around and I quickly realized that engineering isn't

for me. So I look around to see what kind of careers are out there that I

be interested in. And I finally land on finance.

And at the time, there was no one really at Queen's talking about Insight

events, but I found online resources from LSE students, et cetera, talking

how important it is to secure Insight Week at large investment banks and so

So I ended up applying to a bunch of these Insight Weeks, and as you can

probably guess if you're watching this video, I landed in nothing, which

basically meant the summer of my first year, I spent doing nothing. I

LinkedIn and just basically networked. Now second year rolls around and this

time I wanted to be a bit more strategic so my main concern was that my CV had

no real target education so I wanted to focus on that for my second year of

summer but what I did is I focused on research internships at universities

hoping that it could basically cover up the fact that I went to a non -target

for my undergraduate.

So I searched online loads of research internships and I finally found one

offered by University of Oxford. It was a program called Unique Plus.

It was basically a program that was aimed at undergraduate students.

to do research at University of Oxford if they get accepted.

And if they do well and they want to continue, they can start a PhD or a

postgraduate, like a master's degree at the university.

So I apply and end up getting accepted.

So I spend the second summer of my undergraduate studies at Oxford doing

research. And now I felt like I had a stronger CD going into third year. Third

year rolls around.

I apply to large institutional investment banks again.

And you can probably guess.

it's straight rejection. There is not even an interview. So at that point in

third year, I realized that no matter how good the CV is, it's just not

through to these investment banks. So what I tried to do is get creative in

I could get my CV into the hands of people that would actually see it. So

decided to do is focus on firms that I'm very much interested in, but are small

enough that there's no HR department. So my CV might actually get through. So I

decided to apply for hedge funds.

as the size of hedge funds fluctuates quite a bit you have smaller ones and

larger ones the larger ones i kind of expected the same outcome like a

but i thought the smaller ones might actually give me a chance but i didn't

how to find them and what i did was quite creative and in my opinion a it

really smart move or i guess really stupid that it became kind of smart is i

decided to find them just like how you'd find like a restaurant basically using

google maps so what i did is i went onto google maps opened up an area of london

which i knew had a lot of these institutions obviously in your case if

like new york it might be different but in london there's an area called mayfair

there's a lot of these firms and so i literally typed in hedge funds and most

them come up as like asset managers capital partners etc at the time i

know what those were anyway I Google and I realized those are hedge funds. And

so now I'm like, okay, this is great. I take a list of all their names and go

into their LinkedIn. Then I look at how many employees there are and if there's

anyone that works in HR.

And then I focused on the ones which don't have HR departments.

Then I would go on their website and search for either investor relations or

contact. And disclaimer, probably don't email investor relations, but I was

pretty desperate at the time. So I was just trying to get my CV seen.

any which way and then i would basically send a cold email and attach my cv and

ask if they would be open to give me an internship all of the resources i'm

going to include in the next section but let me finish the story so then i send

a bunch of these emails at the start of my third year and there was no real

responses at the time couple rejections but that's when i knew that at least i

was getting seen because i was getting rejected by real people rather than an

automated email so as my third year was coming towards an end i decided that i

didn't want to leave academia and still continue to improve my cv so i applied

for a master's degree at imperial college london to study computer science

accepted and then i also don't want to waste the summer between starting my

master's and finishing my undergraduate.

So then I decided to still do research.

I get accepted at UCL to do research within their computer science

So summer rolls around and during that period, whilst I'm doing research, I'm

still cold emailing. And finally, one place gives me an interview.

which then turns into an offer.

And then I decide to quit my internship at UCL to start that position during

that summer. And that's how I landed my first hedge fund internship.

And then finally, after I finished Imperial, I do the same tactic again and

my first graduate position.

Let's get to the resources.

Somewhere on the screen, I'm going to put the exact CV and email I used, which

landed me my first position.

The CV is pretty basic. So let's tackle that first.

What you really want to do when it comes to applying to anywhere is to keep it

as simple as possible.

there's not much to really learn from this it's pretty much all the same

you'll find from most videos keep it thought concise one page and no clutter

just straight to the point look professional as possible it's pretty

simple there is not too much that goes into creating a good CV so the email is

the main part and there is something that I didn't include at the time

don't know but I'm going to tell you exactly what you should add to

improve this email. So let's get started. It needs to be very short. It

be three sentences just like you see mine. The first sentence, basically, who

you are.

secondly why you're emailing them and then thirdly now this is key in the

sentence you're going to hint to the second attachment which i don't have

i'm going to explain your first attachment should obviously be your cv

second attachment is going to be a financial model plus an equity research

report and the reason you're going to do that because you are going to prove to

them straight from the beginning that you can do the internship the reason

funds don't hire straight graduates coming out of university and instead

expect you to do two years at an investment bank before coming to the buy

and the reason for that is because then you are trained into how to financial

model and how the financial ecosystem works in general but the thing is

of these skills can be self -taught and i'm going to show you exactly the type

of model and equity research report that a hedge fund would want you to do at

the job so then you can pretty much skip the two years and just listen to what

i'm about to explain this is most applicable for long short equity hedge

obviously it would differ with hedge funds like global macro etc but you can

focus on the subsection what you want to build is a free statement financial

model What you want to do is go on Google and type in how to build a

statement model.

There will be lots of tutorials. You can search YouTube, ChatGPT, etc.

Then you need to pick a stock that you want to go long or short. It doesn't

matter. What you want to do is go onto that firm's website, go into investor

relations. Then you'd find all their financial reporting, quarter by quarter,

annual, everything.

What you want to do is download all those reports.

then open up the tutorial and follow that tutorial to build a free statement

financial model using those financial statements you're basically going to

this free statement model using the free statement their income statement the

cash flow statement and the balance sheet what it basically looks like is

combining all of these statements into a single model to give you an insight

into the financial health of that company you will basically be doing

data so that's all the stuff that you that the company reports then you'll be

making a forecast into the future obviously you're going to learn how to

as i described using google finally after you build this model what you want

do is write a single page equity thesis and the way you're going to do this is

as follows let's say you picked um i don't know pandora so you're going to

pandora's news you can use chat gpt you can use other resources online to

basically find recent news about pandora so let's say pandora changed its

interior design of its shop or they did something else or they collaborated with

a different company etc etc then what you want to do is support those news and

research around that company so this will be qualitative research and then

you're going to support the financial model let's say the financial model

a very healthy outlook into the future when it comes to their finances then you

support it using the news and other reasons for why it creates an

point within the industry that it operates in so then you're going to

that stock to industry so if it's pandora you'd compare it to its industry

it's like if it's like a real estate company you'd obviously you'd compare it

that if it's like an agricultural company you'd compare it to that etc etc

you're going to basically write a single page thesis supporting the financial

statement then giving your opinion on that stock whether to go long or short

finally concluding it with why you should long the stock and then a time

so you want to say due to these news etc and its competitive advantage there is

a catalyst coming up within the industry or within the company itself so use the

word like there is a catalyst this is a common term within hedge funds and then

you're basically going to say in the next three months i expect it to be and

then give a range so if it's a long so what is its current price of that stock

then you'd say in three months my prediction is between this range which

basically means it's currently undervalued etc this will be pretty much

what you do on the job and it proves to them that you pretty much are way ahead

of anyone that's even close to you in second or third year this is going to

create the most incredible advantage you can ever imagine when it comes to cold

emailing the thing is these firms are not looking to not hire you they just

no reason to hire you and that's what you need to pick they do not care who

are they care about themselves just like anything else and you are selling

yourself to them because you can provide value you can do the job at a very

young age which means they can train you exactly how they need you to be trained

for that strategy and that portfolio manager and now finally the bonus tip

university students that are trying to break into buy side firms like hedge

funds focus on the idea of working at the investment banking division of an

investment bank or sales and trading etc

I'm going to tell you why that is the wrong approach to try and break in. And

there is a much, much better approach outside of cold email. Firstly, the

trading of a hedge fund, they're just execution traders. They're not the

who generate P &L. What you want to become at a hedge fund is a portfolio

manager. That is the person who generates P &L. And the first step to

that is an investment analyst.

Now, the skill set, as I just kind of described, is equity research.

So when it comes to applying to larger institutions, that is great. If you can

go and work at Goldman Sachs, J .P. Morgan, etc., that's going to look

on your CV.

However, the investment banking division isn't actually the most applicable

skill set when it comes to breaking into a hedge fund. It's actually the equity

research division.

So when you become an investment analyst at a hedge fund, you will be working

directly with equity research analysts and the sell -side firms.

like investment banks so you'll be using their reports etc you'll be digesting

and synthesizing all that information and they'll be basically doing the exact

same job that you're doing so if you go to a non -target university or even if

you go to a target university i would actually recommend you to try and break

into equity research division of an investment bank because there you will

two things Firstly, the skill set of actually equity modeling is the exact

that you'll be doing at a hedge fund and most analysts actually come from this

route. And secondly, you will be networking directly with the investment

at hedge funds. This is a absolute no -brainer. So if you can break into that

department, which you usually get less applications compared to the investment

bank and sales and trading, you are actually in a more prime position to

into a hedge fund. Anyway, that's everything from me for today. If you

questions about anything that I spoke about, let me know in the comments. Take

care.