What are hedge funds interviews like?
For people looking to switch from PE to HF, what is a typical process like? Roughly how many interviews did you do before getting an offer? Did most interviews have a Stock pitch take up most of the time?
I can add some light here. It depends on the mandate of the hedge fund you're applying for and the strategy. For us, we're a L/S US Equities fund focusing on Technology and Retail...yes, we got hit pretty hard this year and I'm not pleased with the results, so save your comments.
We typically do 4 rounds of interviews:
Round 1 - We ask you behavioral questions. very simple most people pass this round.
Round 2 - We get a lot more technical. "How do you get from TEV to Equity Value?", "If I buy a bike for $100, what happens to the 3 financial statements" , "pitch me a stock."
Round 3 - We give you a take-home case study. We give you 4 days to complete it and produce a write-up / model (majority of candidates either forfeit or fail here).
Round 4 - If you made it this far, you basically have the job and this is where we negotiate your salary etc.
This is a fairly standard structure. Some funds take it too far *Cough Point72* and have a ridiculous amount of rounds. We did this in the beginning but it was completely counter productive.
You're definitely going to be asked to produce a stock-pitch of some sort. Some funds want a 30min pitch, some others want 1min..it all depends.
hope this helps.
It's doable for everyone, which increases competition, which means at the end you have to present a killer case. Not as easy as it sounds. Try doing that to TCI then hit me up if you get the offer.