Family Office / Hedge Fund Interview
Hi WSO,
Have a preliminary 1st round interview coming up with a relatively small multi family office / hedge fund (AUM: $600-$700mn) - Investment Research Analyst and not sure what to expect.
Some background about myself: Economics & Finance undergrad background and now working at a bulge bracket in iB.
As far as the interview is concerned, being a first round interview, what type of questions should I expect more of:
Fit / Behavorial, Technical, or brain teasers, etc? What type of questions should I be on the lookout for specifically?
Should I have a pitch ready for the first interview (long or short idea)?
What Fund specific questions should I ask for first round? To note, I am already familiar with what the fund invests in.
What company based questions should I ask? Like things on culture, "normal" day questions, upward mobility, etc?
How should I prepare For any salary/comp based questions just in case the interviewer wants to gauge how expensive I would be? Or does it not work this way at all and you simply get an offer?
Feel free to add anything else that would be helpful! Open to ALL advice, recommendations, and suggestions please. Thanks ahead of time!
Take a Look at the WSO Family Office Database Here
Family Office (Hedgefund) Interview (NO CLUE WHAT TO EXPECT) (Originally Posted: 06/09/2015)
Hey all -
So I'm currently in a sell-side research role at a bulge bracket. My boss left about 4 weeks ago, which allowed me to solely focus on studying for the CFA (just took Level II). Long story short, now I'm done with the exam and can focus on my next move. I've received no update as to what's going on and there is no proverbial light at the end of the tunnel at the moment.
As luck would have it, an old colleague of mine threw my name into the ring for a position at a smaller (~$500 mm in AUM) family office. Specifically, the hedge fund arm of the office. It would be a junior type role (I have a total of about 1.5 years of research exp under my belt). To be completely honest with everyone here, I still have a ton to learn, but am wondering if that's the case for everyone and is expected when you move over to the buy side?
As for the actual interview, I have NO clue what to expect. I spoke with a guy on the phone a few weeks back (works at the fund) and he told me what type of securities they invest in, so I'd ideally like to have a few pitches put together for the first round. Other than that should I just expect some typical FIT questions, or what else should I be prepared for? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
My ESP is telling me you hit post before finishing what you meant to write
I would expect the following:
Hey all -
So I'm currently in a sell-side research role at a bulge bracket. My boss left about 4 weeks ago, which allowed me to solely focus on studying for the CFA (just took Level II). Long story short, now I'm done with the exam and can focus on my next move. I've received no update as to what's going on and there is no proverbial light at the end of the tunnel at the moment.
As luck would have it, an old colleague of mine threw my name into the ring for a position at a smaller (~$500 mm in AUM) family office. Specifically, the hedge fund arm of the office. It would be a junior type role (I have a total of about 1.5 years of research exp under my belt). To be completely honest with everyone here, I still have a ton to learn, but am wondering if that's the case for everyone and is expected when you move over to the buy side?
As for the actual interview, I have NO clue what to expect. I spoke with a guy on the phone a few weeks back (works at the fund) and he told me what type of securities they invest in, so I'd ideally like to have a few pitches put together for the first round. Other than that should I just expect some typical FIT questions, or what else should I be prepared for? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Family offices are all over the place and there's very little "standard" in anything, let alone interviews. Your plan sounds good to have a few pitches put together but I'd have a couple of completely different ones put together because you most likely will find out that they'll invest across the board in all types of situations because they probably don't have a super strict mandate and at "only" $500MM (we should all have such minute problems) there's a chance the guy who made the money or at least the family is involved and can take a flyer. You may have talked to the guy and he said "we invest in large cap value" or whatever so have a couple of those ideas but have something slightly or completely different and interesting to throw out there. Short a small cap biotech BC you've been researching them and don't think they're getting stage 3 approvals or something like that.
I'd also have lots of questions about their strategy and how the HF public equities portfolio relates to other aspects of the FO. Do they switch up their macro asset allocation (not simply large cap to small cap but public equities to real estate) depending on the market so one day you're working with a $200MM portfolio and the next day they decide to go almost all real estate or PE.
And fit-try to find out from your friend or whomever what the cultures like so you can come off as similar. Like I said, FO's can be all over the place so they may be uptight suit and ties or chinos and golf shirts (and I mean that more figuratively than what you should wear, which is a suit and tie).
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