Fixed Income Salesperson

Q. What do you trade/sell?
I work on the fixed income side, focusing on corporate bonds and credit derivatives.

Q. How did you get interested in sales and trading?
I was interested in working for an investment bank. As a career switcher, I diligently attended all the company presentations on campus, and quickly settled on sales and trading. My prior position was in hospital sales. I used to be on the phone all day long selling, and I figured that selling on Wall Street can't be too much different.

Q. I noticed that the only woman in the Boiler Room was the secretary. Obviously real life is different. How is it like working as a woman in the super-macho sales and trading environment?
It's not easy. There are very few female MDs or VPs on the business side. Most women are either sales or trading assistants, with a slight bias for women in sales. Perhaps this is the face of the future, or perhaps it's the glass ceiling. Successful women in this business work hard. A saleswoman that I work with has been in the business for over 20 years. She graduated from Wharton and has a reputation for making a lot of money and for being a workhorse -- she competes with the best salesmen on the desk on a regular basis. Of course she rarely goes out drinking with the boys, since she has to go home to her kids. Another factor here is that a lot of women have husbands of means and often end up quitting the business to take care of the kids.

Q. Do you find the jokes on the trading desk to be offensive? How do you handle this?
It's hard to ignore everything, but I do my best to ignore the really tasteless stuff. Although the trading desk is definitely raucous, at the end of the day, most guys realize that this is a place of business, and they will conduct themselves accordingly. Going for drinks after work, however, can be a totally different experience.

Q. How do you manage the work/life balance? How have you observed others managing this balance?
The really successful people in this business (men or women) spend a lot of time working at the job. There's really no way around it. To be successful you have to be a little obsessive about your career.

Q. Do you feel that your quality of life is higher than your friends' in other industries?
Great question. The answer is that it depends on your definition of quality of life. If your definition of quality of life means the person with the most money, then the answer is maybe. Sales and trading involves getting up at ridiculously early hours and going to bed before the 10 o'clock news. There's always the image of a trader holding a losing position and having a heart attack on the floor. While this undoubtedly happens, stress in this business is more insidious. It's monotony interspersed with stressful situations day after day after day. Most people in this business are young and physically fit, but it's incredible how many people have ulcers or high blood pressure. That's not to say that this business isn't for the right person. What I would say is that you need to have more of a reason to get into sales and trading than wanting to score the fast buck or not wanting to work in the investment banking sweatshop. One of the MDs I work with has been around since before the 1987 stock market crash. He still gets up at 4:30 a.m. every morning and is the first one to log onto the Bloooberg to check the news. This isn't because he has to -- it's because he loves the business.