Interview Process: Internship & Trainee at ABCD - Companies
I have been following this site for a long time now and it has been very helpful in gathering information about the finance industry.
However, when it comes to these four companies (ABCD), there is not a lot of helpful information on this site.
The interview process of BB's has been commented on extensively, but what would I have to expect from an interview with one of the big agricultural traders? What kind of skills do they assume and what books are helpful to gain the needed knowledge?
Thanks for any helpful responses
I can't really give you specifics as it depends what you'll be interviewing for and there is probably no recruiting process that is common to all of them. Having said that, given that these companies are big in physical trading, learn about what physical trading is all about (sounds obvious, I know). What are the challenges in trading a physical commodity? Can it be stored? Does it rot? If you know what commodity you'd be dealing with as a recruit, try and figure out what affects demand/supply for the commodity in question e.g. weather, holiday seasons. How do they minimize the risk of adverse price moves (hedging). As a new recruit, you'll probably deal with logistics and middle office stuff before market analysis/trading. So get an idea of how the supply chain works. Once the commodity is taken out of the ground or grown, what happens until it gets to the end user (refining/shipping/storage)? What are the big trading hubs for your commodity? Oil 101 has been mentioned as a helpful book, but it is very focused on oil (surprise, surprise!) and natural gas to a (much) lesser extent. However there are things in there which I'm sure would be applicable to other commodities, at least to get the general idea of what physical trading is about. Also, in addition to WSO, Google is your friend. Do you have an interview at one of these places? What position are you looking to secure?
Thank you, quester. I am specifically interested in the agriculture business of these four companies as well as in that of Glencore and Noble Group. I live in Europe and I am currently trying to find out if these companies offer off-cycle internships and/or traineeships for risk management/operation roles. The reason for this is that I have a three to four-month window for an internship before I graduate with a bachelor and it seems that internships tend to be less structured in continental Europe in comparison with the U.S. (=less Summer Internship Programs).
After doing an extensive search on Google and on the company's websites, I found that the recruiting for these companies is practically non-existent in Europe. So I was wondering if sending them my resumé would be the same waste of time as it is for BB's or if this is actually the way they usually recruit people.
Although most user on this site are North Americans, I hope that there are some people who can shine some light on the recruiting process of these companies in Europe.
During my search, I found a study by OXFAM regarding the ABCD's that might also be interesting to other users:
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/files/cereal-secrets.pdf
PS @quester: I have read Oil 101 and although it was an interesting read, I noticed that I am not into energy trading. Also, to make it clear, I currently do not have an interview at any of these places, but thanks, again, for the research hints.
I'm in a similar boat to you Alrik and there's not much out there as far as I can tell for ag trading. Getting in is very much connection based from what I can gather.
GoodBread, is this view based on experience in the U.S. or in Europe?
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