Trust the Candidate Knows What They're Doing How one applies knowledge is much more useful in business than how fast it is applied (even in high frequency trading).Ĥ. This was an excellent way of testing the candidates’ body of knowledge than their brains’ computational time. The questions were general enough to not be under the brain’s cobwebs, but specific enough to test whether one knew the specific area in question. Candidates were given as long as they pleased, and most finished within an hour. ![]() ![]() It consisted of precisely four questions, each from a different area of quantitative finance (stochastic calculus, programming, econometrics, undergraduate mathematics). The type of test was actually quite simple in nature. One solution, actually provided by a certain other bulge-bracket foreign bank, is to indeed provide a different kind of test. It does not test the quality of knowledge (nor the body), only how fast one is performing calculations which can be automated via VBA, C++, or any other given programming language. For example, a Chicago prop shop I once interviewed with provided such a test to make rapid fire calculations… 80 of them in under 5 minutes. There are many variations to this, but it all boils down to performing rapid fire calculations in an absurdly insufficient amount of time. Speaking of tests, certain companies (mostly prop trading shops and some hedge funds) tend to provide the candidate with an electronic test. It will waste a lot less time for both the interviewer and interviewee. For such a wide-ranging field as quantitative finance, this is imperative. If you want to ask econometrics questions, go ahead, just let the candidate know ahead of time on the topic area and the style of interview (test, panel, group, etc.). This lack of expectation and focus leads the candidate to perform poorly and the potential employer to waste their time on an ill-prepared, but most importantly, highly nervous interviewee.Ī good solution to this problem would be to provide accurate and fair warning of the types of questions or topic area that will appear. an unnamed bulge-bracket bank’s famous 100 questions in 60 minutes test), a nearly behavioral interview, all the way to one where you must interview along with others (e.g. ![]() You may walk into an almost classroom setting in which you are given a formal exam (e.g. There is absolutely no expectation of what will happen. This leads into the next problem with quant interviews. If the interviewee knows ahead of time to prepare for statistics questions, then they have a much better shot at the role but more importantly, not to waste the interviewer’s time. Remember, in order to secure a job in this field, you must have total recall at all times during the interview, no matter how long ago you studied the topic in question.Ī good solution to this problem is to provide some focus for the interviewee to prepare. Thus, I ended up struggling through the problem which was a waste of time for both the interviewer and me. I literally hadn’t thought about this topic in ages. I come in to the interview only to get hit with a softball first-year graduate econometrics question something that had been collecting cobwebs in my brain for 4 years at this point. I did so, fully re-studying and recalling what sigma algebras and filtrations were all the way to different variations of stochastic models that could arise. The headhunter told me to be prepared for questions regarding stochastic calculus and Black Scholes model variations. I once interviewed for a desk quant position on a municipals trading desk. However, this spirals into the second problem which is the absolute randomness of topic area. ![]() The first is the same as with every other type of interview: the interviewer has his or her favorite questions which they ask each time without variation, which the interviewee does not know ahead of time. What tends to happen during quant interviews is that interviewers try to test bits and pieces from each of these subfields. From physicists, to chemists, to mathematicians, to economists, or to electrical engineers, quantitative finance is a highly diverse field with highly diverse talent. It is no wonder it employs the top intellectual talent on earth. Quantitative finance is the nexus point of several fields: finance, mathematics, economics, statistics, computer science, and engineering. Here are five problems with how quant interviews are conducted and how to correct them. Quant interviews are a gauntlet of highly technical questions which you must know the answer to straight away. Unlike traditional behavioral interviews conducted at most companies, interviews for quantitative finance (quant) jobs are a different beast altogether. That difficult, make-you-sweat-in-your-seat interview is everyone’s nightmare.
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