Dimensional Fund Advisors
Friend of mine has an interview coming up with this firm and I wanted to ask the people here what they knew about it. I think it is for their austin headquarters. He is currently working in banking, so was looking for an idea of comp, culture, etc.
If anyone knows anything, it would be appreciated. Thanks
fama french
Interesting move from Wall Street to DFA -- after all, DFA was set up as the academic, passive-investing, modified-indexing antithesis of Wall Street. DFA's message tends to resonate best when markets are tough/choppy leading to stock picking losses.
Haven't worked at DFA, but for background/interview prep, check out
(a) Michael Lewis's 2007 article, "The Evolution of an Investor". It introduces readers to DFA through the eyes of a real-life, disillusioned stockbroker who converted himself and his clients to DFA's efficient market religion.
(b) the New York Times article "Finding Success, Passionate Followers in Tow", which makes reference to 'cult', 'church' and 'dark-suited employee acolytes'
Bottom line, DFA is a highly successful firm. Its success is based on a regimented, codified belief about how to invest. Success reinforces beliefs, right or wrong. Drink the kool-aid before you interview.
P.S. one more nugget gleaned from the reviews at GlassDoor, which your friend may have already visited. I quote: "... it leaves you specialized to the point where nobody else cares how you view the world through a DFA investment microscope. Leaves you with little transferable skills because of the specialized nature of the firm. If you can stay and somehow find a niche then awesome, but like most people who leave you will find yourself exactly where you started with few skills added." Caveat emptor!
Dimensional Fund Advisors Comp (Originally Posted: 01/22/2015)
Throw away account here.
I recently interviewed for DFA's Financial Advisor Services Senior Associate (post MBA) group and have been invited to the super day. I am wondering if anyone knows what the intern or FT compensation plan looks like? Glassdoor has garbage #'s as usual, but all of the reviews state that the comp is better than industry average.
Thanks for any insights
Curious about this as well
Dimensional Fund Advisors Rotational Analyst Interview (Originally Posted: 09/27/2014)
Hey everyone. I have an interview coming up soon with DFA for their rotational program: investments role. Does anyone know what I should be expecting in this interview? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I wasn't sure where to put this question, and this is the forum I have posted to the most so I just put it here. Please let me know if there is a better place for it.
Thanks!
I don't know about their rotational program but I interviewed with DFA for a summer position in Austin last year. Expect lots of questions on regressions, factor models, how you might interpret results of a regression, etc. Assuming you know how Dimensional works and invests there shouldn't be any surprising questions.
Thanks! So the initial phone interview got pretty technical then?
@"MagicKnights"
How did the interview go? What kind of questions can you expect during the initial phone screen with HR?
Dimensional Fund Advisors Phone Interview (Originally Posted: 09/26/2014)
Hey everyone. I have an interview coming up soon with DFA for their rotational program: investments role. Does anyone know what I should be expecting in this interview? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I wasn't sure where to put this question, and this is the forum I have posted to the most so I just put it here. Please let me know if there is a better place for it.
Thanks!
I would have put it in the get a job forum but whatever.
I imagine they'll ask a lot about DFAs overarching market efficiency strategy and how they go about overweighting the stocks based on Fama's model. Just a guess though because I never interviewed with them.
Job forum probably would have been better. I'm going to post it over there and see if I can get anymore traction. Thanks for the response though. I'll look into both of those suggestions!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treynor–Black_model
Is this the post-mba role? The investment associate role at santa monica is filled up, so they are just looking to hire for Austin. I submitted my app recently and waiting to hear back.
This is for the analyst role in Austin. I'm coming out of an MSF program so not post-MBA. I applied through their website and heard back on Friday. Probably applied 3ish weeks ago.
@"MagicKnights"
How did the interview go? What kind of questions can you expect during the initial phone screen with HR?
It was mostly behavioral questions, just like an initial phone screen. Asking how I heard about DFA? What got me interested in DFA? What my long term career prospects are? And then asked if I had done research on DFA - their investing strategy and what not.
No technicals. Hopefully hear back this week.
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