negotiating comp at a strong fund?
I'm relatively new to quant finance, but have been interviewing for quantitative researcher positions and am at the stage where it seems not completely outlandish to think that I will get an offer at 1+ pretty good place (think, eg., Rentech, TGS, PDT, DE Shaw, HRT, JS). I am coming from a tenured faculty position (in an adjacent-ish field), and know nothing about negotiating comp :). I am working with a recruiter, who seems pretty good and upfront, but it's not clear that recruiter-client interests 100% align.
I would love to get any thoughts on (1) ballpark what comp might be sensible; (2) subtleties to keep in mind; (3) effective ways to actually negotiate; and maybe (4) how to most effectively utilize a recruiter at this stage. Any informed knowledge comparing those companies would also be most welcome!
Also, if there's any interest, I'm happy to discuss things that [I think] have made me a relatively strong candidate in this process (both with regard to getting interviews and getting through that interview process). This is likely primarily relevant to those with a PhD (as that is my background). I won't disclose any particular interview questions that were asked, but I do feel like I have possibly identified some things that quant funds believe are indicative of better/worse fit (and are very similar indicators to those I have used for eg. choosing PhD students). That said, I could be totally wrong! (and, to be fair, I know very little about quant finance)
New Quant PhD offers at top funds/prop shops tend to be in the 300-600k range for first year. For some of the prop trading firms and funds you have mentioned, I would expect it to be in the mid-upper end of that range, with about 25 to even 200k in the form of a signing bonus. Top quant undergrad packages will approach those numbers as well. Growth beyond that is going to be very firm and performance dependent and getting a sense of that for the specific firm will be first order for you (e.g. why optimize over 50k signing bonus in year 1 vs the potential for many multiples of that in a few years?).
Coming from a tenured faculty position, I would expect that would be the floor on an offer, but I am not sure how much benefit you'll see unless your research is directly applicable to the trading strategies and has a clear line of sight to future pnl impact. Your transition from tenured faculty is much more rare, and therefore much more situation dependent. But for example, math, CS, physics postdocs will get pretty much identical offers to fresh PhD grads of similar quality.
Would be interested to hear how things end up for you and what the recruiter has been setting as your expectations.
Thanks! I really appreciate the insights. My recruiter said that their expectation for the offer is ~700k (TC) for the first year (but that there could be some variance around that)
I have nothing else to add to this convo since I’m not a quant. But remember.
YOU are unequivocally NOT the recruiter’s client. Anytime you’re not paying for a service, you should know the interests are in fact misaligned.
Good luck with the offer!
Thanks! Definitely a good thing for me to keep in mind re. the recruiter.
That depends on how the recruiter is set up with the firm. Often external recruiters are paid a % of the first year TC (or salary), in which case their interests are in fact aligned. I had an experience with one of these and they were way better to work with
I wouldn't go quite that far. It's true that your incentives are never perfectly aligned; but the recruiter is almost always paid a % of your first year guaranteed total, so they do have a strong incentive to get your offer as high as possible. Sure, there's a few other factors (for instance, the recruiter only cares about your first year comp while you care more about long-term growth, and they have no incentive to care if you're actually happy in the job or not, so they may try to push you into a high-paying job that's not right for you) so your incentives are never perfectly aligned. But they do have a strong incentive to help you negotiate a high offer.
But the idea that a recruiter won't negotiate hard because he doesn't want to risk the deal is ludicrous. Frankly, most recruiters are better negotiators than most candidates are, and they also have a much more realistic sense of what the market is paying for people like you. A typical recruiter will have already negotiated dozens of other packages this year alone, and they usually have a much better sense than you do of how far they can push without risking the deal.
The incentives aren't perfectly aligned, but they're close enough you can mostly trust the recruiter's advice on negotiating comp.
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