talk about your finance job interview

James282 · #1 05-12-2007, 11:15 PM

i've always been very curious as to how companies go about interviewing people for trading jobs or other finance related positions. Do they ask a lot of logic/math types of problems? It seems as though in jobs where individual performance is key(as opposed to working well in a group dynamic) they would attempt to gauge things like logical/mathematical skills, trustworthiness, work ethic, etc. Just curious as to how they actually go about doing so.

James

stoxtrader · #2 05-12-2007, 11:40 PM

my experience is that mostly who you got you the interview is much more inmportant than how you actually do at it.

ahnuld · #3 05-12-2007, 11:55 PM

I found some guys asked general questions where others asked very specific. I got something like "there is a fisherman with 5 boats in newfoundland, selling his business. How would you estimate the correct value of his business?" SO you go on to explain how you would estimate the discount rate and project sales and expenses and such.

Or things like, other than DCF, what would you consider when evaluating a drug company, politically and economically.

Scorpion Man · #4 05-13-2007, 02:08 AM

It is highly idiosyncratic to the interviewer...so you have to be ready for anything.

I used to give the Monty Hall problem, which most people surprisingly were not familiar with and did poorly on.

The number one avoidable problem that people had with me was not knowing what they wanted to do for a living and not having done enough homework on my specific firm and industry niche. It is amazing the number of people who kind of just show up for an interview like its a date over a cup of coffee. I used to treat my job interviews like final exams. For the most important ones, I might spend literally 5-10 hours studying up.

ahnuld · #5 05-13-2007, 10:50 AM

yeah I can echo scorpion mans sentiments that its very important to show up prepared for these things. They all give you the same geenral questions so its important to go in with a prepared answer that sells yourself at the same time. Check out the vault for interveiw preping, make sure to research the firm so you can ask intelligent questions and show up early.

APXG · #6 05-13-2007, 11:52 AM

[ QUOTE ]
yeah I can echo scorpion mans sentiments that its very important to show up prepared for these things. They all give you the same geenral questions so its important to go in with a prepared answer that sells yourself at the same time. Check out the vault for interveiw preping, make sure to research the firm so you can ask intelligent questions and show up early.

[/ QUOTE ]

But if you were interviewing a candidate, you would want prepared answers to your questions and a sales pitch from the person? Are you hiring an accountant or a trader who can react to unforeseen events better than his competitors?

APXG · #7 05-13-2007, 11:58 AM

[ QUOTE ]
It is highly idiosyncratic to the interviewer...so you have to be ready for anything.

I used to give the Monty Hall problem, which most people surprisingly were not familiar with and did poorly on.

The number one avoidable problem that people had with me was not knowing what they wanted to do for a living and not having done enough homework on my specific firm and industry niche. It is amazing the number of people who kind of just show up for an interview like its a date over a cup of coffee. I used to treat my job interviews like final exams. For the most important ones, I might spend literally 5-10 hours studying up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Scorpion,

How would a candidate find out info about a hedge fund when all they have on their websites are notices such as "If you are not supposed to be here, leave immediately"? And specifically the smaller funds that are not in the news.

Is being familiar with all the strategies and thus being able to discuss any one they happen to use enough in such a case?

Sniper · #8 05-13-2007, 01:24 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
yeah I can echo scorpion mans sentiments that its very important to show up prepared for these things. They all give you the same geenral questions so its important to go in with a prepared answer that sells yourself at the same time. Check out the vault for interveiw preping, make sure to research the firm so you can ask intelligent questions and show up early.

[/ QUOTE ]

But if you were interviewing a candidate, you would want prepared answers to your questions and a sales pitch from the person? Are you hiring an accountant or a trader who can react to unforeseen events better than his competitors?

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you want to hire someone who is prepared for unforseen events or unprepared? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Yes, you should not only be selling yourself in an interview, but you should also be letting the interviewer know that he/she needs to be selling you on coming to work for him/her, as well...

James282 · #9 05-13-2007, 03:31 PM

Great answers so far. I think being prepared is probably key. You want people to be able to react to unforseen sitatuations, sure, but preparation >>>>>> being able to react in almost every situation. If you are prepared, you don't need to react to a lot of things and you can spend a lot of effort on the things you really do need to react for. Interviewers will be able to surprise you either way - so being prepared as much as possible seems to be the best route.

Scorpion Man - it seems like you have experience on both sides of the table. What types of logic/math questions would you ask besides the Monty Hall Problem?

James

Scorpion Man · #10 05-13-2007, 06:26 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It is highly idiosyncratic to the interviewer...so you have to be ready for anything.

I used to give the Monty Hall problem, which most people surprisingly were not familiar with and did poorly on.

The number one avoidable problem that people had with me was not knowing what they wanted to do for a living and not having done enough homework on my specific firm and industry niche. It is amazing the number of people who kind of just show up for an interview like its a date over a cup of coffee. I used to treat my job interviews like final exams. For the most important ones, I might spend literally 5-10 hours studying up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Scorpion,

How would a candidate find out info about a hedge fund when all they have on their websites are notices such as "If you are not supposed to be here, leave immediately"? And specifically the smaller funds that are not in the news.

Is being familiar with all the strategies and thus being able to discuss any one they happen to use enough in such a case?

[/ QUOTE ]

As a hedge fund analyst, you are going to have to bird dog a lot tougher assignments than finding out the style of a particular fund. Networking is an important source. People at other hedge funds and brokerage firms will have some insights. You can also pull the firms' top holdings off of Edgar (do it for many quarters-- this will tell you whether they are low or high turnover) - this will tell you a lot about style.

At the very least you need to know the niche (long/short, etc). Also, you would need to know whether they were long term of short term oriented, value vs. growth etc. Remember...you need to sell yourself as buying into the strategy....how the hell are you going to do that if you don't know what the strategy is?

One of the ways I would trip people up was to ask open ended questions...for example what do you think is the right holding period for a stock? Sometimes people would have an answer (an adamant answer) that was so different from our philosophy that I thought they were too big a risk of being disullusioned and unhappy later on....there were people I might have considered if they had not failed this test.

Being familiar with the different strategies is terrific. In particular, it is HUGE to be able to articulate why, being familiar with these strategies, you chose OUR strategy as the one you are passionate about. I would say less than half (maybe way less?) of candidates did this. It went a long way with me.

You are correct -- for most funds you will not get a bunch from their websites. However, if you are proactive and request the names of the people you will be interviewing with, you can google them. At the least you might be able to figure out where they went to school and what they majored in.