Trading Interview Advice
I'm looking to land a gig with a prop trading firm , or s&t bulge if I don't have luck with a reputable prop firm. I recently interviewed for various IBD positions on the street and have decided the banking PE exit opps don't appeal to me and trading is what I am truly interested in.
So with IB, there's a ton of prep guides outside of just the Vault guide. Anyone have any recommendations on trading interview prep guides in addition to the Vault guide? Or would I be better of just finding material that covers probability and mental math?
Any advice would be much appreciated
With math, you need to know how to add and multiply numbers in your head with ease. What is 1/9? 11/8 ? what is 39 x 39..if you can't answer these question in 5-10 seconds, you might have some problems. Also know how to calculate expected value.
Keep up with the news, know the risks that affect the product you are trading, what are the key drivers, what is happening in the market, regulation, ect. Then there is the obvious, where is the S&P, EUR, JPY, 10 yr, Oil, Gold, what have the price movements been like in the last 1 mo, 6 mon, and 12 months.....why is that.
Then there is the all important...being able to talk about things besides business. Which is important in general, but more important for traders.
Why do traders have to be more outgoing than people in other IB roles? Everyone says trading is populated by nerds these days, so as long as you have basic social skills, I don't understand your emphasis on this point.
From my experience, trading interviews have more of a "social, conversational, get to know you better" part of them than banking interviews. banking interviews might be 5-10 minutes of non-technical while trading interviews were more like 15-20 minutes of non-technical talking. Also, the guys on the trading floor go out a lot more. A lot of the interns have gone out to clubs with sales guys or brokers while their banking counterparts might go out once or twice (with one of them being the Friday night after they get offers).
u dont have to have any social skills to be a good trader, quite the opposite. One of the good things about trading especially prop or buyside is that you dont have to be political or sociable at all as long as u r good. I would not go into an interview expecting to talk about things outside of the job.
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