How do I market building a trading algorithm in interviews?
Hi all,
So I'm currently working on finishing a semi-automated trading system that helps me screen a large number of stocks and coming up with short term buy or sell recommendations using a simple algorithm I made up. Basically, I am wondering how I should market this when I apply for s&t internships new semester?
How useful is having personal experience in making trading systems to sell side s&t firms? From what I understand, personal trading experience is not really seen as necessary for banks especially since the traders there do such different functions. Could talking too much about my interest in building proprietary algorithms cause the banks to think I may be more interested in prop trading than s&t and that i dont know what the actual job function at a bank is?
Also is this something I can somehow also list in my CV or should I just bring it up during interviews? How should I spin this during an interview?
what language u program it in ?
This was just done in excel using VBA
List it on your resume, and be prepared to talk about the details (what are the backtest results, is the data you used survivorship bias free, what's the sharpe ratio, did you account for transaction costs, is your model free from look ahead bias / data snooping bias, did you paper test it, ect).
If you can talk about it intelligently this should look good for algo trading interviews.
backtest, backtest, backtest.
But don't bring it up unless they ask you.
What do you mean by dont bring it up unless they ask me? You mean dont bring up the backtesting results, or the whole topic about the trading system? I dont think they would ever explicitly ask me something so particular in an interview, so I was thinking a good time to bring it up would be under the "why you decided to do trading" type question? FWIW i am not trying to get a job on an algo trading desk, my #1 choice would be something along the lines of interest rate or equity derivatives
Well, what I mean is don't go in there as some college kid trying to sell this trading system. Wait for a good question where you can segue into your trading system:
1.) "Give me a good idea for a trading strategy." 2.) "Why should we hire you?" or "What do you have to offer this firm that other candidates don't?" 3.) "If you had unlimited capital to start a business, what would you do?"
Your interview is probably going to be highly technical, and they will want to see how you respond to stress. Don't be some punk college kid and try to take over the interview with some amazing proprietary that reinvents black-scholes. Wait for them to give you the opportunity to bring it up- you'll get it. That's all.
Thats exactly what i was wondering about. Thanks.
lol, the VP (Technology) of RBC Capital Markets called me a keener when I started talking about high frequency trading.
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