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You'll also find that commodities houses produce, store and even distribute these products, so they also recruit for a variety of people in jobs unrelated to finance. On eFinancialCareers, however, we only list the financial jobs which are related to trading activities, for example, commodities broker jobs.

The commodities trading houses focus on dealing in the raw materials, while investment banks largely deal in creating and trading commodity derivative products. Derivative products, like over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives or commodity futures, are the essential way that farming cooperatives and any other producers protect against a bad year or downward price fluctuations. They also help investment banking clients to hedge against their exposures.

Jobs in commodities usually fall into one of the following categories:

Trading: Commodities traders have a particular area of expertise that is often one of the product types described above. They manage trading portfolios on behalf of either their company or client, dealing with buying and selling either raw commodities or commodity derivatives. Traders also perform market analysis and research regularly to gain knowledge for their trading decisions. This helps them to take both a long-term and short-term view of the market. Traders who work with physical products also take into account issues such as shipping, storage and stock levels and how pricing exposure is managed using derivative products.

Sales: Investment banks recruit most of the salespeople working in commodities. These sales jobs in commodities are mainly about developing relationships with clients. These clients can be either commodities producers, who plan to use derivative products to manage their price exposure, or consumers. Commodities sales staff must have good analytical skills to keep track of the latest developments in the commodities markets and their implications so they are able to explain their reasoning for trading decisions and strategies to their clients. Commodities salespeople are responsible for developing pitches, writing reports and compiling presentations for clients explaining these things.

Structuring: Structuring positions require a high degree of statistical analysis; they are highly quantitative jobs. Many banks will only recruit people for junior positions with a master's degree in a highly mathematical subject, such as physics or quantitative analytics. As their name implies, structuring jobs are about creating structured products to offer clients and performing the statistical analysis required to track performance. A few examples of these products are commodity-linked notes or baskets of commodities. Structuring roles can also include creating custom solutions for a client's (often a corporate) commodities hedging needs.