Trading Desk Analyst

Applied online.

HireView Style Video Interview:

6 questions, mostly basic. Tell me the difference between a stock and a bond. If you had $1M how would you invest it? What are some risks associated with bonds? Tell me about a project where you had to learn a new skill. Can't remember the last one but was roughly behavioral/CV related.

Super Day:

6 rounds of interviews, 30 minutes each. 2 behavioral, 1 macroeconomic, 1 technical, 2 mix between behavioral/macroeconomic.

Macro was mainly focused about trends and expectations (read PIMCO report and was fine), general commercial awareness (what is inflation right now/interest rate/etc). Some stuff about unemployment and ESG. If you read the WSJ/FT/Economist with any frequency and study PIMCO's quarterly/yearly outlooks you should be fine.

Behavioral was standard questions about your resume, etc. Got along really well with my interviewers so we mainly skipped the script and talked about whatever. Very laid back and it was super chill. I think these are to see if you pass the "vibe check", ie. if you answer the first question well, the tone of the interviewer immediately changes to a much more informal one.

Technical was by far the hardest, not in the sense that the math was hard but it was concepts they hadn't warned me about in the slightest. I was asked the price an oil forward for a year from now, describe how one hedges against currency risk, and different investment ideas. Eg. if you thought the USD was going to depreciate, how would you make money off of it? Tell me what the convexity and duration of a bond is. How do you price a convertible bond?

I would recommend knowing about FX/Bonds/Commodities/OTC Products. I didn't get asked a single question about equities whatsoever. Macro super important as well.