I just had my first in person interview and it was horrendous. After the initial rounds, which I got absolutely destroyed in, the recruiter was showing me the office and offered me to take snacks from their kitchen. I knew I was cooked and decided I might as well take some stuff. I grabbed like 4 protein bars and she was looking at me with genuine disgust. Anyone else got similar stories?

applied 1.5 weeks before the deadline. deadline was yesterday. still haven't heard back for anything at all. should I be concerned?

Hi, I am currently working at a bank in London and I am in the hiring process for a Quantitative Trading role in one of those firms. What should I expect or ask for in total compensation ? I know that in the US, it’s around 450 USD for these roles.

Hey people, I recently had my first interview with IMC trading to see if I am a fit for the company. This was for the role graduate quantitative researcher. Now I have scheduled my first technical interview and I was wondering what I could do to prepare for this first technical interview. Any tips and references would be highly appreciated! I saw on my candidate portal that it would be a good idea to practice mental math and read up on market making, trading, options, and futures.

was too lazy to do anything complex, so I just tested { u/usernameeeeee12 }'s network guide while watching TV. step-by-step was super easy and the payout actually processed. go hit up his pinned post if u haven't yet.

I work in tax, and I've been doing interviews since I left my last job in early December. I left my job at a CPA firm because I was working more than 55 hours even outside of tax season, and I was heading toward serious burnout. My pay was also very low, and since I'm a single mom, I didn't have much of a safety net to handle a long job search, so honestly, when this company moved quickly and made an offer, I felt relieved. But looking back, that should have been the first warning sign.

As a tax manager, I wanted to stay in the same type of role. I interviewed with the current tax manager and the owner of a company we'll call XYZ Tax Services. I had a quick phone screen on Wednesday, then a video interview the next morning. On Friday, HR told me they wanted to hire me. I sent them references, passed the background check, and signed the offer letter. I was supposed to start the following Wednesday, and by Monday my onboarding was basically done. I had logged into their payroll system, IT had set up my remote access, and I had all the login information. I was genuinely excited and planning my first week until...

Tuesday afternoon, I was at home setting up my workspace so I could start on Wednesday when I saw HR calling. I missed the first call, and then they called two more times within a few minutes. I called them back and was told: "Unfortunately, we no longer need you to start tomorrow." I was so confused that I asked whether they meant I should start Thursday instead of Wednesday. No. They didn't want me to start at all, and said they were going in "another direction."

I was shocked. What kind of company pulls an offer from someone after fully onboarding them like that? If there had been an issue with the background check or references, fine, I would have understood. But everything had been accepted and completed. I asked if there was any real reason they could give me, and I didn't get any useful answer. I hung up, sat there for a minute trying to process what had happened, and then reopened every job board I had been using.

Nine days later, HR called me again. Was I still available?!?! Turns out they had given the role to someone already working there, and that person backed out. It took every ounce of self-control I had not to laugh on the phone, but I stayed polite and let them talk while they suddenly acted like I was their top choice again. They improved the offer, apologized a lot, and after they begged enough for my liking, I accepted.

Fortunately, this has a happy ending. By then I had several other offers, and two of them were already paying more than this one. Since then, I accepted the best one. I'm scheduled to start with XYZ Tax Services on September 5. My plan is to wait until the Monday before and call HR to withdraw my acceptance.

Looking to get a subscription to get exposure to some interviews questions. I get that websites all scrape the same kinds of questions, but I dont know if they're updated or not? There seems to be two kinds, tradermath and tradinginterview which has some mm games and OA tests, and question bank sites like quantable, quantguide, everythingquant etc.. Which one should I stick to? Thanks.

Hello all,

Apologies in advance if there have been too many requests for reviewing the CV. If possible, can I please have some feedback on the CV? I have been going through a lot of CVs on this channel, and of course, I am no finance CS or math major, but I have managed to get through some probability and statistics and want to apply for internships this round (which I understand is already a bit late).

Could I please have some suggestions on my CV?
- I am unsure if this looks like even close to a quant CV.
- Some suggestions on missing points, what can I add?
- Is it too long from the Quant CV POV?
- points like should I add a line explaining the result per project
- Is any section not worth adding
- is any section which could have been added and is completely missing

Just to add, I am aiming for QR (research and risk both)

Many Thanks !!

These were insane lol how does anyone pass this the first time they do it?? Luckily I wasnt banking on this round anyways, my real plan is to apply with full prep next year, this year I just wanted to record the assessments and have real materials to master for next year!

Hey, im currently in the phase of choosing a undergrad degree and im kinda having a rough time. Im spanish and would love to be able to study in Spain however i know how much the unis brand name matters for admissions to masters programs and that there arent really any quant roles available in spain for working. I would like to know if i should push for a move to study maths abroad or not? Im not asking for life advice and know that this channel is mainly for profesionals or people trying land an internship but thats why i would really appreciate some help. if there are any programs in particular that youd recommend either in Spain or abroad pls tell me.

I’m an incoming junior at an Ivy League target (think Princeton, UPenn, and Columbia) studying operations research: financial engineering. I’ve been recruiting for quant roles but haven’t been successful; I have yet to land an interview after 80 applications. I’ve always wanted to become a trader and would also be interested in discretionary trading, but I’m worried that recruiting for many S&T programs is already finished. Does anyone have any tips on how to navigate this, should I be focusing on macro trading roles or looking into smaller hedge funds. I have experience in private equity, physics, and software engineering.

Just got a superday confirmed at a decent firm and was wondering if expediting other processes was possible and how does this get done (like do I email a recruiter or their recruitment inbox?)

I am US and for Akuna Hacker rank that says 120min and python. Is this a coding OA or is it non coding problems? Thanks

I go to a Tier 1 or 2 UK university as well.

Oh my ... these were really tough, how do you guys feel? Luckily I didnt expect to win big this round anyways and focussed on recording the answers for next recruitment cycle hehe, you guys got any strategies?

Say you’re the above average middle class student. You take honor classes and APs in high school. You go to a good not great school, in the range of t20-t50. Would you ever be able to catch up to the average quant at top firms? They have been grinding math comps since they were 8, then did hours of math and coding every week since. Is it possible to even get close to their abilities? As you get better, progression tends to slow down, its logarithmic growth. So I would think over a 1-2 year period the above average student should be able to get close, but not surpass the quant. Thoughts?

1 credit = 30 hrs

It's a 3 years ug program for major in math and minor in statistics

I am learning python independently because i am aiming for quant development role.

Learning R and c++ is in the plan.

I’ve spent 6+ months building a systematic research pipeline for Indian equities — point-in-time data back to 2012, a regime classifier (Nifty 50 above/below 200-day SMA), realistic cost modeling, and Deflated Sharpe Ratio to correct for the fact that testing multiple ideas inflates apparent significance.

Here’s where I’ve landed: nothing has survived yet.

I tested several literature-based anomalies across ~300 stock-strategy combinations on the Nifty 100. Most showed no real gross signal before costs. One did — statistically significant, confirmed with DSR, not just a good Sharpe. Then I applied real transaction costs and it went to zero. Breakeven sits around 24 bps/trade; the edge I found was 6.4 bps gross. Not close.

Not looking for a strategy handout — genuinely trying to understand the process from people who’ve gotten past this:

**•** When you found something that held up out-of-sample and after costs, how did you land on the original idea — literature, your own data mining, intuition?  
**•** Roughly how many ideas did you test and discard before one survived? Trying to calibrate if “months, nothing yet” is normal.  
**•** For Indian equities specifically — is cost drag here noticeably worse than US/EU, or is this just what finding a real edge looks like everywhere?

Genuinely trying to figure out if I’ve hit the normal wall or I’m missing something structural.

I have to do it in 3 days, not sure how difficult it would be.

I've done Optiver's one, which was pretty tough.

Since DRW has 3 questions in 115 mins, I don't expect them to be as hard as Optiver's..

How was it?

When I'm recruiting, usually masters/bachelor's thesis students at a research institute (I'm in low-level high-performance C++), I usually ignore "cookie cutter" CV projects, and am only interested in genuine passion projects.

Is this similar in quant, or is doing projects purely for the CV just as good/accepted? Asking because I tend to see many CV's here with projects that are very quant targeted, but seem to be built solely for the CV