I want to break into quant trading from a T50 non-target. I have some competition math experience from high school (AIME) but no olympiads. If I do nothing but grind for the Putnam for the next 3 years, and get a good score, say top 250, what are my chances of getting into a top quant trading firm? Is this a viable strategy? I'm willing to spend every waking second grinding.
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Quant trading or quant research cause the exam would be better geared towards research IMO. I feel like in order to stand out in the Putnam exam, you should be going for top 50 not top 250. Regardless good research/projects and internships are more important.
What’s putnam?
It's an undergraduate math contest.
I wonder if firms will still look for putnam/IMO winners a few years from now. They were valued back when students did it for fun, but everyone grinds them to get jobs now. This happened to the math phd, the industry stopped valuing it over time.
It’s pretty easy to differentiate people who did putnam b/c they actually enjoy it vs people who think they’ll get a quant job. Time better spent either doing a project/networking or grinding interview qs
I don't think it's that easy to differentiate. Hiring managers think they can but really cannot. Most hires in the last few years got in by grinding.
It's well known in math research circles that IMO/putnam is no longer predictive of research ability because so many students now grind for it specifically.
If you couldn't qualify for the olympiads (IMO/MOP or even USAMO), what makes you think you can just "grind" your way into Putnam? Hint: many top 500 people are USAMO qualifers, and many t200 are IMO people MIT recruited from other parts of the world.
if you magically grind and get top 250 then you are more likely to get interviews but that's all that it will count for. Then you have to pass the interviews. Quant firms aren't IB programs so if you have some sort of research / interesting experience / did well at math/cs at a T50 school then they are pretty likely to at least give you the OA then it's in your hands.
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