Quant fund fit

BB's recruit traders/sales/IB by looking for those that fit snugly into a preformed mold: ivy lacrosse player or similar.

Quant funds are much smaller, and differ culturally and in focus from each other. They are more like startups with a good number of them in the 250head count range. Depending on senior management, culture can vary and you never know if they are looking for the uber math geek which is socially awkward, a quant with balls that will rip a bear in half if it stands between him and finding alpha or a down to earth practical engineer and programmer.

Its important to be able to play the fit card right while interviewing, and im assuming there has been a good amount of thought put into what type of people to recruit that is common amongst quant funds: less strict in terms of defining a direct mold but different from a software co as I have yet to meet an unwashed/unshaved akward/uncommunicative quant programmer. Given that the selection to get a final round interview is intense (resume selection, test, phone screening), quant/development skills are by that phase equal with only individual areas of strength differing.

What are your thoughts on personality playing a larger than expected role in quant/development recruiting? Even though 90% of all interview questions are quant related, the way you answer shows more than just quant skills. How can you pitch the value add of your communicative and collaborative personality? Or does this not matter entirely?

 

If your speaking of job roles being silo-ed where you are to fit into a certain box and are to never peak out from it - I have wondered if funds appreciate someone that is a generalist in terms of technology/quant skills or just want you to focus on a very narrow field.

Questions Ive been asked generally focused deeply on a field the interviewer thought was relevant and others were of no interest to them. I come from a broader background then most (ME/EE/CS) but has anyone been successful in pitching their value as having a broad knowledge base or have you only focused on one of c++/optimization/statistical learning?

 
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