Graduate Trader

- Started with online math speed test. 80 questions in 8 minutes. Simple additions, subtractions, divisions and multiplications. Some fractions included, need to be able to flip fractions around quickly in your head and work with them. Multiplications fairly easy, the hardest might be 23 x 16 or something like that (from memory).
- If you pass the speed test online, you get a phone interview. I think the pass mark for the speed test is 54/80 but not sure. The phone interview was all behavioural with someone from HR. They were very friendly. Asked things like, favourite subject in university, why you chose the course you did.
- If you pass the phone interview, you get invited to their office. You have to re-take the math speed test on paper with someone watching you. It is the same test, i got 74/80 online and 72/80 in person. You lose a mark for every one you get wrong. You also have to do a number sequences test, which is pretty tricky. It is just picking the next number in the pattern. I think it was either 20 or 30 minutes to do 25 questions or something like that.
- If you pass both tests then they you do a further 1 hour interview on the same day with someone from HR and a trader. The first 30 minutes is behavioural, asking typical behavioural type questions (e.g. tell me about a time you....). Then the next 30 minutes is a technical interview. It starts with simple things like what does a market maker do, what is an option contract. Then a fermi question, how many dollars are spent on pizza on a friday night in Australia. They give you a timer for each question, I think it was 30 seconds for the market maker and options question, and 1 minute for the fermi question. Then you play a card game. What is the expected value of a random card drawn from a deck of cards. What is the expected value/sum of 3 random cards? Make me a market on the 3 cards. Then they give you a theoretical bank account and offer you different prices and you have to buy/sell and then cards are flipped over and you calculate your profit/loss. They start changing the rules, like spades are now worth double and you have to recalculate the expected value. They keep making more quotes to you to buy/sell, you have to keep track of your profit/loss all the way.
- If you pass all that, you go to the final round. The final round was really hard. You have a 45 min behavioural interview followed by 30 minutes of a technical question and then another 15 minutes of behavioural. This is with 1 HR and a trader again. The technical question is an expected value/probability question and you have to find risk-free arbitrage opportunities. Then there is a pseudo-coding activity, not very hard. Then you spend some time watching a couple traders. Then there is a group interview with a few different questions, you work in groups of 3 and have very short time to answer the questions. They are pretty challenging questions too. To finish is a dinner later that night with all the candidates and traders plus HR involved in the process.