Job Description
State Street Bank Trust and Company
Internship – Quantitative Research Analyst
This position entails immediate responsibilities for producing research for our clients worldwide. The successful candidate will make useful suggestions, take initiatives, can be relied upon, and will show accurate quantitative skills. The person will report to the Vice President, State Street Associates.
The candidate will get familiarized with the research State Street Associates produced. As soon as possible, the candidate must be able to produce research reports for our clients worldwide. The candidate must understand basic finance (portfolio construction, e.g. some exposure to constrained optimization theory), computer programming (e.g. Matlab, VBA or C++ for instance, and office software suite is necessary).
The second step will be for the candidate to get involved in customized research projects, and contribute research innovations. Therefore, the candidate should have an interest in learning the latest finance research and understanding how it might be useful to clients. The candidate must be able to read an academic research paper and will be given the opportunity to present his research contribution directly to clients.
Overall, the job will provide substantial possibilities for on-the-job training and will prove quite valuable to a career in finance.
168 Robinson Road
#33-01 Capital Tower
Singapore 068912
Dear Mr Lee Yow Fee
Internship – Quantitative Research Analyst
I am writing to express my interest in the part-time internship offered by State Street Bank as a quantitative research analyst. I knew this position from NUS Career Center. Having graduated from NUS with first class honours and now a graduate student in Department of Statistics and Applied Probability, NUS, I have strong interest in learning financial research and quick learning ability. I believe that there would be a good fit between my skills and your needs.
My undergraduate study and the Chartered Financial Analyst level 1 course have given me valuable insights in the financial markets and have developed my accurate quantitative skills. As one of the four students getting A+ in the module Nonlinear Programming, I have a solid understanding of constrained optimization theory. Being trained as a graduate student, I am able to read and understand the academic research paper quickly and to produce research reports for the clients. Furthermore, my computer programming skills in Matlab, Excel-VBA and R will enable me to finish every research task effectively.
I am most willing to learn and to take up every research project assigned to me. My strong will to strive for excellence will put me in a good stead to take up this internship. My resume is enclosed here. You can contact me by emailing to wangchen_2351@hotmail.com. I look forward to discussing the specific contributions I could make to State Street Bank with you.
Thank you for your consideration.
Yours sincerely,
Wang Chen
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHello Wang Chen,
ReplyDeleteI enjoy reading your application letter as it is short and sweet. In addition, you did a great job by saying that you are willing to take up EVERY research project tasked to you as mentioned in the job advertisement. Your excellent academic achievements has successfully make your application letter concrete.
However, I do notice that you seem to have left out your address. You need (if I am not wrong) to put a colon (:) after "Dear Mr Lee Yow Fee" and also a space after the address. To make you appear to be proactive, you can also inform the reader when you will contact them and also when will you be contactable.
Some penny of my thoughts. Hope it does help. =)
Hi Wang Chen,
ReplyDeleteBy listing your excellent academic results and various skills related to the job, you have done a great job convincing the employer that you're a perfect candidate.
However, I'd also like to highlight the following areas.
1. I think it may be better if you could leave one-line space before "Dear Mr.", also a comma should be followed after that.
2. The date on which you discovered the job ad is missing.
3. In paragraph 1, "I have strong interest in learning financial research and quick learning ability", I do feel that there is sentence structure problem - parallel.
4. Some sentences are too long and wordy, thus making it difficult to follow your idea. For example, the opening sentence in paragraph 2, "My undergraduate study and the Chartered Financial Analyst level 1 course have given me valuable insights in the financial markets and have developed my accurate quantitative skills." and "being trained as a graduate student, I am able to read and understand the academic research paper quickly and to produce research reports for the clients."
5. I feel that there is too much "I" element.
Feel free to discuss me further should you have any doubt. Hope my suggestion helps. All the best. :)
Hi Wang Chen,
ReplyDeleteA good and concrete application letter. You did quite a good job in substantiating your skills by providing good evidence. However one area that you can explore is to write about the company and how the job interests you. In that way, your letter as an element that is specific to the company and not seem like a general letter which is often re-used.
Hello Wang Chen!
ReplyDeleteWow. You did a good job in your presentation of skills and backing them up. Overall, it is a powerfull application letter.
One point though, I feel it will be better to talk a little bit about the company. This will give the impression that you know something about the company and will have no problem with the direction and aim of the company. This will give yo an added egde to an already powerfull application letter.
Berwyn
Hey Wang Chen,
ReplyDeleteVery excellent letter. It is concise, powerful, and to the point. You probably just need to touch up on the language part, plus the points highlighted by the others. Other than that, it is truly a convincing letter, backed with a lot of strong evidence.