Hi all,

Im from South Africa (With a British Passport) and am seriously considering to move to Switzerland in 2 years. The reason I wish to move to Switzerland in 2 years is that I have just begun studying for my Masters in Financial Maths (Currently I have a B. Sc in Maths and Applied Maths, and a B. Sc Honours in Applied Maths) and the course finishes in 2 years. What I wish to know from you is, what are my chances of getting a job with just a Masters and no experience? Where would the best places to apply be? And what would an expected initial starting salary be? If you can answer these questions any other questions that I forgot, I would be extremely gratefull.

Currently I cannot speak any German or Swiss German but I am taking courses in German and learning as fast as possible. Realistically I expect in 2 years I should be able to read German fine but ill still be speaking in a broken tounge. The reason I wish to move to Switzerland is my girlfriend is Swiss if you were wondering.

Thanks in advance
Bevan

I think your chances would be quite good. Check out Monster.ch for jobs and you aill see there are a lot of banks looking for backgrounds such as yours (think risk management and VaR stuff as well as other mathematical things). Salary I would not be so sure, someone on the forum working/worked for a bank should have a better idea - Somewhere above 80,000CHF I would imagine (plus bonuses) - or something lower to start in a internship program.

The lack of experience might be a problem - without fluent german I don't think you could get into one of the training programs in the big banks which operate a lot on german..so work hard at it (I wouldn't worry about swiss german)...It depends weather in 2 years all the bank stocks are still way up and they are still searching for lots of Quantitative people - you might want to check out all the bank job sites now and apply for some jobs, maybe you don't even need that MSc...

Andrew