I’m relocating to Italy in the coming months and actively targeting front-office finance roles: sales & trading, macro research, or quantitative strategy ideally in Milan or any financial hub across the EU.
I’d really appreciate insights on:
-How is the recruiting landscape in Italy (and broader EU) for someone like me?
-Do international desks (Milan, Rome,…) value non-EU education and hands-on experience?
-Is it smarter to go through local applications or target global banks with EU presence directly?
-Would a CFA or another cert add real leverage short term?
I’m not new to the grind just looking for practical advice from professionals who’ve walked this path or worked with profiles like mine.
Open to any insight, even brutally honest ones. Thanks in advance.
If you like the work you’re doing on algo trading, you might wanna have a look at jobs in Amsterdam, it seems to be much more of a hub for that kind of thing.
It might also be worth (if you were willing to go back to school) seeing if you can find a masters in financial engineering course at a decent school. They tend to have very good recruitment pathways, but there’s only a few very good ones. Maybe try the ETH Zurich one: Master Quantitative Finance | ETH Zurich
I think Bocconi has one as well if you need a course in Italy but I’m not sure about its specific prospects as a course (although putting Bocconi on your CV can’t be a bad thing)
Thanks for the input Greg, really appreciate the suggestions.
Amsterdam is definitely on my radar for quant/prop trading long-term,especially with my algo trading work and Python background. For now I’m locked into relocating to Italy (family/legal reasons), but I’m optimizing my profile to eventually target hubs like AMS or Paris once I build EU experience.
ETH Zurich is a top-tier pick, if I decide to go back to school in a few years for a quant degree, that would definitely be on the shortlist. Thanks again for your time
