There is no clarity about the job title "Quant Trader" and because of that I don't know how to prepare for this career if I had one year.
I am specifically referring to the job title Quant Trader because firms like Optiver, Flow Traders, SIG, IMC, Akuna and Jane Street have programs designed to hire grads with no experience and teach them how to trade. And right now I am strictly referring to that role. I finished Akuna capital's options trading course and realized that a quant trader role at Akuna might be market making of options on an exchange. I think SIG and Jane Street when hire fresh grads they recruit them for market making also. Now on the other hand Tibra's program looks like it trains newly hired for HFT and I think Citadel also focuses more on systematic trading....and at this point I am confused that if I have to become a quant trader then what should I learn? If I have one year for myself then should I learn stochastic calculus or Should I learn information theory and ML which are more suited for HFT? I feel like systematic trading and options trading are two completely distinct field and a person can't specialize in both fields at the same time. It will be great if somebody could confirm my beliefs. Now when I read the reading list which some users suggest on this forum I feel like its not even possible to learn all of that. Its like some 16 year old just went on a research trip on world wide web and just compiled everything and dumped it....and I am saying this because I have met quants who specialize in specific thing.....even they can't be an expert in stochastic calculus and ML at the same time.....
I don't the firms you listed expect college hires to know stochastic calculus, information theory, or ML. For HFT/research roles coding is very useful and some firms like to hire people with ML expertise but beyond maybe basic coding skills I don't think there is much required knowledge for quant trader roles at these firms. Once people start working they develop more specialized product knowledge. I think Jane Street's position description https://www.janestreet.com/join-jane-street/position/6837725002/ is reasonably accurate in what they look for and so interview preparation would typically be mostly about brainteasers and behavior questions than specialized technical knowledge.
Jane Street makes it sound like they would hire some arts student out of no name college.....but I have applied to their program numerous times and did not even get invite for assessment .....
No its just when they say 'A critical thinker with a strong quantitative mind' they actually mean it. Which evidently ur background isnt showing.... so if you think you actually fit that description, you need to show it better.
My impression is also that "strong quantitative mind" for this role is closer to great at high school math competitions than advanced knowledge of stochastic calculus or machine learning. And because there are a huge number of candidates who could potentially meet those criteria they can afford to be very picky.
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