Hi Nugget
Thanks for your advice.
I’m wondering how you went about “planning” or structuring these three months. Do you seek professional advice, talk to friends, read books? 
In the past such a reflective time would always fly by and I wouldn’t be much smarter. (But I was also quite a bit younger back then.)
Hi arjuno
Thank you, you raise some important points!
I agree that salary is not the only important aspect but also what you do and where. My problem is that getting good information on company culture or how an actual work day looks like is harder than getting information about salaries or prestige of a specific job. (Especially because I don’t have a lot of friends/family working in the private sector, and most job search events are not very helpful.)
My thinking is therefore, that maybe at the beginning of the career it is ok to focus more on prestige and salary of a job, if you don’t know what you’re doing anyway. This could give me a head start career-wise/financially and I could later on focus on getting a meaningful job I enjoy.
But maybe this is naive?
You should maybe think in what field you could combine your philosophy bachelor with data analysis.
Maybe I’m not thinking about this correctly but I assumed that my bachelor was not useful beyond having a bachelor’s degree.
I do see, that there could be some jobs (such as the ones you describe), where an philosophical-analytical way of thinking could be useful. But how one would get them, except through becoming an academic or “public intellectual” I don’t know.
Hi pandas
Thanks for your tips
I would say that I’m not really talented in coding (bottom half of class type of situation, when I took a computer science course). Would you still think that it could make sense to seek some education in that area? Or would I be better off spending my time learning some specific skills like python (or stata/R for economics).
Are you talking about about US-domiciled jobs or tech- giants located in switzerland?
I’m kind off unsure whether the tech salaries we see today are really sustainable. You can often train for 1-2 years and get paid insanely well. The economist in me thinks that this is likely because tech firms have incredible marginal returns at the moment, which need not be the case forever. So I’d expect some “regression towards the mean” in the long run.
But this is quite speculative. I still think CS jobs are probably a very good bet but maybe not quite as great as they seem today.
[Maybe something I should have clarified is that FI is much more important to me than RE. I’m basically cool with the idea of working till I’m 70 if it’s a job I enjoy and I’m not working myself to death.]
Always useful to pick up some coding, technology is getting increasingly valued in most industries. R is on decline, I’d stick with python. If you can also pick up some javascript on a bootcamp level you can always get yourself employed as a web monkey to pull at least some 60-70k+. Beats serving tables and flipping burgers at mcd.
US of course. Here it’s only google that has big presence, the rest are small shops primarily hunting ML/AI PhDs.
What kind of jobs do you think is a better bet? Other traditionally high paying jobs - law and medicine - have much higher barriers to entry. $/effort ratio in tech is incredible right now.
One qucik question : where are you living ?
My problem is that getting good information on company culture or how an actual work day looks like is harder than getting information about salaries or prestige of a specific job.
Of course, you cannot think this through. What I mean is that it is your responsibility to make sure that your job and tasks align with what you want to do, and how you want to do it. You cannot hand over this responsibility to your employer/manager because they do not know what you truely want. If you have no relevant work experience, you also don’t know it, that’s why you need to constantly rethink this and take actions if you are not happy. You don’t need to quit your job, but you should discuss with your manager the changes you want to implement. If there is no opportunity for change that you want to implement - quit or change position within the company. Therefore, there is no reason to think too much about your first job, chances that it will completely satisfy you is probably zero, but it’s in your hands to change your situation.
My thinking is therefore, that maybe at the beginning of the career it is ok to focus more on prestige and salary of a job, if you don’t know what you’re doing anyway. This could give me a head start career-wise/financially and I could later on focus on getting a meaningful job I enjoy
I think there is nothing wrong to go for prestige and salary for your job, but you will fool yourself when you think you could later focus on getting a meaningful job that you enjoy. If you don’t do this from the beginning, you might quickly end up in a hamster wheel. I have friends in their early 30s, with a master degree in engineering or economics that are only happy with their job because it pays a good salary and has some prestige. One friend just switched recently to a big reinsurance company, and said that he was not really busy in the first few weeks, or that he would go and work (pure presence time) a day between Christmas and New Year to not loose a holiday day. Confronting your manager and dare to change your work environment needs energy, if you already think now that you focus later on getting a meaningful job, you won’t do it - don’t fool yourself.
Maybe I’m not thinking about this correctly but I assumed that my bachelor was not useful beyond having a bachelor’s degree.
It’s wrong to think that. I see this degree as a big asset, it shows that you have different interests and see the world from another point than someone who has a linear education in economics, computer science or engineering. ETH created about 5 years ago a new masters degree called Science, Technology and Policy with the aim to educate engineers, scientists on political analysis and evaluation and economic, social and political processes. There are companies that are highly interested in employees with such a background, else they would not have created this masters degree. Probably there are even more companies that are not aware that they need such employees. I didn’t study philosophy but from what I had in high school I think at it’s core it is the study of exactly these topics.
I do see, that there could be some jobs (such as the ones you describe), where an philosophical-analytical way of thinking could be useful. But how one would get them, except through becoming an academic or “public intellectual” I don’t know.
The perfect job for you does not exist. I agree that it is maybe easier to create such a job in academia (I am staying there for the moment because of the freedom and flexibility). However, I still think with enough energy, initiative and motivation and a good manager/company culture you are able to create a position that suits your interest and background also in industry. But you cannot expect that this job description will pop up on any platform and if it was there you would not know if you actually like it.
I agree with the others: learn python! You can start by analyzing your finances with beancount and fava and try to create an importer for your account statements.
I live in Bern. But this is somewhat flexible, almost completely flexible within switzerland.
This is a bit off topic, but I want to motivate you to take your bachelor degree as a serious education that is needed also in future. Below some practical examples, where I believe a person with knowledge in ethics and moral aspects and what is correct and what is useful for the society was clearly missing in a high rank position and the WRONG DECISIONS were made because the whole decision process was purely based on economic numbers and public relations (satisfying shareholders and stakeholders).
NASA challenger disaster (1986). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raMmRKGkGD4 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kpDg7MjHps. The engineers knew that the risks for a start were too high.
Boeing 737 MAX crashes (2018). To me history has just repeated itself - no way that there was not a single engineer that raised some concerns. Wikipedia article
Avalanche that went over an official piste in Andermatt (2019). There was an official report from experts that raised concerns about the safety of that piste. NZZ article.
Similar things also happened in academia/research.
So you make better use of your bachelor degree if you are ever going to make decisions based on your master degree.
Hi Arjuno
This is a great point.
I really didn’t want to negate the usefulness of my bachelor for my life.
I learned a lot about reasoning and how to think about ethical questions that I think will be useful for my personal and professional life.
Well, at least one advantage of having done a bachelor is that you can now do master degree on (almost) any other topic, nor necessarily related to your BSc. A chance to pivot your career into something more practical and better paying, use it wisely.
If you are interested in banking or audit industry, have a look in big 4 firms in switzerland. They hire sometimes for few months on specific project which allow you to gain experience and have a nice entry on your CV !
For example internship in risk and compliance for 6 months in ZH : https://jobs.kpmg.ch/job-vacancies/internship-internal-audit-risk-compliance/fb47642d-3447-4b21-a447-12843ccc3610
Or in Geneva if you speak french ! https://jobs.kpmg.ch/job-vacancies/stagiaire-ou-junior-consultant-forensic/89726237-ee2b-41dc-b873-b755040b630a
Philosophy and BA - I dont think its such a bad combination. From a guy working at EY I know that they hired Phil. graduates.
There are many people with a Business degree out there. You are one of some guys with a phil Bsc and a business MSc, this is good for getting attention. But only if you are interested in using your Philosophy knowledge.
I would suggest that you find what fields of work could be interesting for you. Does your MSc have any specialisation? Is there a company for which you would like to work for?
For your first job I wouldnt think to much about how the work environment would be and how much prestige you have. You should do something that you like. If you are not sure what that could be, just try it.
that’s a good question, and a can tell you by my case how i went about it. To me it was super worth it. and on the bottom line, off-month worked well for me if i had the finances sorted out and a packed daily agenda.
Anticipating already in March last year that I would want to quit at some point and take some months off to figure out what to come next, i stopped investing and kept all my income on my giro.
at the same time I started to systematically meet all my private and professional contacts to talk about jobs, perspective, their idea on how things do. I kept doing this until very recently. I also met a career coach for two expensive hours. Buying beer from that money would have been a better investment, but that might not apply to everyone.
when my work contract ended in september, i already knew that i wanted to go for something with “data science” (careful with buzzwords…). I first took care about what-I-always-wanted-to-do-but-never-had-time-for-projects, and in the mean time signed up for any (free) techy events I could find, especially via meetup.ch and other organisations that i had some contact with. there is plenty! Talks, hackathons, even IBM day courses on WATSON, which was great.
I was pretty much all day busy until end of November, when I started actively to apply.
In retrospect I find it is super important for me to fill up my agenda with stuff to to, because when I don’t (as i now know…) time indeed flies by with no benefit:
)i hope this gives you some idea 
Based on US data, but pretty good chart
Salary vs. Stress by Occupation
Thank you for your insights.
Quick question, did your friend maybe talk about people from a phil-hist faculty (which includes philosophy students)? Would be seriously surprised by pure philosophy students being regularly hired by EY, especially since there aren’t that many of them to begin with.
I’m not studying Business but Economics (VWL). I couldn’t tell you a lot about the workings of a firm.
Do you think your view also holds for the phil-econ combination?
Thanks for writing all this down!
Even though I quite likely won’t be able to do such a thorough/long break in the short time future, this is really helps me to imagine how such a situation could be productively used (Maybe also during a shorter period ).
Did you also apply for some jobs to get some interview training? Or was that never really a concern for you?
I’m thinking about taking these steps in the next couple of months.
Learn a programming language (likely python)
The way I would go about this:
Arrange coffee talks with as many professionals as possible
I don’t really know many people working in fields I might be interested in but I think I’d be able to find a couple people who’d be willing to answer some of my questions about their field/firm.
Get a good sense of what firms are out there and maybe get work experience
I don’t have a good feel of what the landscape of corporations looks like.
I could increase my understanding by going through lists of larger firms and trying to figure out what each of them do. But maybe there is a more efficient way to go about this? (The coffee talks might also be helpful for this.)
If a firm seems really interesting or has an internship or student job listed that I would like, I would also apply. Any thoughts on unsolicited applications for a firm I find really interesting?
Look into possible further training after my studies/after some time on the job
I got recommended to maybe try to become a Chartered Financial Analyst, if I want to work in finance. Or Chartered Financial Data Scientist.
Or maybe some specialisation MAS.
Does that sound like a reasonable plan for my foreseeable future?
this sounds like the straight path to success to me! good luck!
I’d suggest to go attend some meetups on topics that interest you - hopefully you’d both learn something interesting about a subject and get to talk to people working in it.
CFA will mean a pretty serious commitment to finance industry. AFAIK you need a few years of finance work experience to get it. It’s not just passing exams, which are also tough.
Regarding learning how to code, next to online courses, I strongly suggest reading a book or two on the algorithms and data structures, i.e. learn the slightly more theoretical side too.
Will come useful and your knowledge of general concepts will deepen, which you will appreciate further down the road.
Wow, GPs earning the most / more than CExs? I find the numbers a bit odd.
