Prudential Investment Analyst: Quant Research Superday

Hey Guys,
I have a superday at Prudential Fixed Income (PFI) in Newark for their Quantitative Research Investment Analyst for FT. The job is PRECISELY what I am looking for, however, I am completely at a loss as to what they can ask me. Given the fact that I previously interned in an IB coverage group, I don't have many formal quant skills. I am a math minor, however I am uncertain as to the breadth of questions they would ask since I have never done a quant interview before. Any advice, please? The first round was completely behavioral, so I don't know what to expect.

Thanks in advance,
-A

 
Best Response

Description: The Quantitative Investment Analyst role in PFI is a three-year assignment that is designed to rotate among several analytically oriented areas within PFI. These rotations provide the Investment Analyst with exposure to many of our Fixed Income products and processes, such as Risk Measurement and Management, Fixed Income Modeling, Commercial and Residential Mortgage Credit Analysis, Portfolio Analysis and portfolio management. The analyst works with senior analysts and managers to analyze data, build modeling tools, develop frameworks for existing and new asset classes, and manage risk and identify investments for bond portfolios. Over the course of the program, the analyst has the opportunity to develop data manipulation, fixed income investment and cash flow analysis, risk evaluation, modeling, product management, marketing and portfolio management skills and to partner with other functions of the Asset Management business, including Operations, Technology, Client Service, Sales and Marketing.

 

didn't get it. It was pretty intense--30 minute math test covering up to multivariable calc, some stats, asset pricing, econ theory, and lots of probability, stats, regression, etc.

Then there were 6 interviews, with lunch after the first three with the first year analysts. All interviews were with senior personnel, including the CIO and all of the MD's. Interviews with about 50% behavioral, 50% technical, with the technical aspect being both your understanding of the current events and macroeconomics, and then some went into the nitty gritty finance theory, i.e. Intuition/critiques of CAPM, VaR, running a regression and determining if it is significant, correlations, efficient frontiers, swap rate spreads, the mechanics of a swap, black scholes and exotics, interest rate models (ie ho-lee, black derman toy, vasicek etc.) I have no programming experience, but almost everyone else did and they got drilled with programming questions and had to write code on the back of resumes and reverse code that was already written and all this crazy stuff. Since I am a finance major and a math minor, my interviews were more finance theory and math heavy which was fine. Other people got more of a mix of math, finance, and programming, with the finance theory not being as rigorous. Also, one of the interviews with an MD from structured products was a case study on structuring a CLO. Vague, but fairly intense. Essentially, how would one go about structuring a product that would hedge a lender that lent $xxx to a company that only has a fleet of ships. It was pretty crazy.

All in all, very difficult interview process. i however really enjoyed everyone I met and would have LOVED to have taken the job. Really fascinating stuff that they re working on there. Good luck and congrats to whoever got it!

 

I just received an interview schedule and it looks like yours. I really hope i'm not drilled about programming or math. Its 5 interviews, 30 minutes slots, a break in between and lunch at the end.

 

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