Whether or not you can answer a question is irrelevant. How you respond to a challenge however, tells us all about you. In this instance I asked a set of questions for a reason. I wanted to see how thoughtful you are when exposed to information that you have no background for. In this instance, you could have done a little research and come back with questions or with comments. Either way I (and others) would have been impressed that you meet the challenge in a straight forward way. Unfortunately you responded with a negative comment and so far you have shown no interest in the topics. In fact, now you say that you have a "general idea" of what you will be asked. Education matters to employers, also character matters. Your style is one of the things an interviewer remembers after you are gone. Here in this venue, you have the advantage of anonymity and you choose to call me an asshole. I wonder if in the interview, you will do something similar when faced with a question or set of questions that you cannot answer. Will we hear that it was the interviewer's fault? That he or she was unfair to you? or didn't like you? So far, I haven't seen a reason to hire you, and I assume that a skilled interviewer is likely to feel the same way. It doesn't matter to me, but it will be too late when you are walking out of that room having exhibited that sparkling wit to the wrong person. Lefty
you wanted to test me. I didn't ask you to test me. Certainly don't assume I was a willing to subject myself to you or anyone else without actually stating it. Perhaps signing up for an actual interview would qualify; now thats a novel idea as opposed to what you would call a test. You and I both know you are out of line, and out of place in assuming my intention when yours is so heavily weighted towards belittlement (no, its not just a random word, its EXACTLY your intent in posting evidenced by almost all your messages in this thread) What a pompous, patronizing suggestion you make...that you honestly believe you were making a clean effort to "test" me....if that were your true intention, you failed to come across as sincere, posting little smileys every time you have a go at it. Had I wanted to hear people speak a tone above me, i'd taken a walk across to our fin math program and listened. I shouldn't really even put forth such a gesture: If evo cap HR asks one question that is even related to any of the five you mentioned, I will admit I was wrong. You want to see me under pressure? Ask a brainteaser. Being an asshole hasn't been the industry standard in my interviewing experience thus far. This little dialogue between you and I is over.
Kamdooo you are way out of line. You post for a help on a message board, so you should learn to take the good with the bad. You are very green, and you are talking down to someone who appears to have valid, real-world experience with this subject, and you are basically not willing to hear him out or answer his questions. Anything on an interview is fair game, ANYTHING. You are not owed anything, and your negative repsonses do show something about your immature naure. If you don't like what Lefty had to say, thank him and move on. You got a few things to learn about the real world, but good luck with your interview anyway.
Kamdoo, I guess I'm the only one on your side here. To be honest though, they may ask questions related to the greeks; nothing to the extent that Lefty has put forth, but things like what is gamma/theta; what is the sharpe ratio; what's 49*27 or 7% of 15; you know things like that, easy stuff but that can put you under pressure at an interview. All these questions were asked to me when I went for my interview. I even had to give the equation for the sharpe ratio (which I didn't remember but I made an effort to try to figure it out). They will not ask what equation is constant volatility and stochastic vol...but they might ask why they are different and what makes a better model for measuring vol. Take it easy bud, good luck.
The whole interview process is bullshit. I've been through quite a few. The people who were asking the questions were all pompous asses. They are in a position of power, and you basically have to fit their idea of what a good worker/trader would be. After getting my last job, I realized 3/4 of the interviewers were not good people and on top of that not management worthy. Go figure. This is one job you can do on your own. There is nothing brilliant or ingenius in the game of trading. ozzy
Actually I think Lefty has been pretty helpful in the sense the metagame of interviewing is important. It isn't necessarily how much you know but rather in what manner you learn. This is so important (not just in trading) because in many situations at a new job, your previous knowledge isn't quite what is so useful, but rather what is useful is: a) the speed at which you obtain the new knowledge that your new position provides that is required for the job b) your potential to create new value; really what we are talking about here is raw genius/creativity Now it is true that there is some correlation between just the depth of your previous knowledge and your potential for a) at least, since to some degree your previous knowledge is based on time and a). But really what matters most is a) and b) directly. The whole point isn't to see if you can answer "depth of knowledge question # 10" or not, it is HOW you answer. In addition to that, there is the whole playing the metagame of the interview. Let me give you some real-life examples: Awhile ago I applied for a position as a programmer for cnnsi.com, a website about sports (an online version of Sports illustrated). I wasn't particularly into sports other than watching the playoffs/Superbowl in football each year, ie I was a casual viewer at most, not a sports addict/statistician. My recruiter told me (incorrectly) it didn't matter. So I interviewed with them, and was pretty impressed with the setup, etc. The interview itself seemed fairly easy, nothing too tough technical wise. Then we break for lunch. It is me and like 3 other of them. The whole lunch period, I was pretty silent because they were talking back and forth about all these stats (that I hadn't heard of), not just RBI but you know the other 10-30 baseball/football/basketball stats and which up-and-coming players were the most exciting. I was clueless at the time and sort of thought they were just kind of ignoring me (not in a mean way), but just were good friends and were having a good time chatting together. Anyway, I could sort of tell that I just wasn't into sports enough to really be a good candidate for the job. That is exactly how they felt-- I didn't get the job and the reason given was I was a great candidate personality and technical-wise for them, but I didn't have a passion for sports. Btw I didn't realize this either during the interview or even after it for a while; I was pretty clueless. I just realized it months later. At yet another company, they had some other interesting meta-interview techniques. They basically had me interview with about 10 people over 12 straight hours during the day, including answering questions in between mouthfuls at lunch. They make people work pretty hard so were actually testing stamina in addition to technical skills. At my own programming group, we have a policy when interviewing people that we start with easy questions and increase the difficulty to 1 level more than they are capable of answering. This tells us both the interviewees current knowledge maximum as well as how do they deal with challenges. Sometimes we are nice and even tell them that up-front before starting the questions, as in "don't worry about getting our questions right, no matter who you are we always will purposely ask you questions that are above your level just to get a better sense of your thought process." Anyhow I have seen repeatedly in my personal life how a) learning speed b) creativity c) various other meta-game interview techniques are in fact commonly used by many high-end groups when interviewing candidates. An interesting corollary is flipping this around, as someone looking for a position, if a group doesn't ask you these kinds of questions that is sometimes a bad sign, at least if you are looking to join a group that operates at the highest level in its field. Hope that helps, -Taric
Everyone here has a valid point, but what seems disturbing is the lack of gratitude and humility shown by the original poster. It's obvious that the original poster knows nothing about the markets, trading, etc. That's fine...however, he is trying to get a job in the industry in which he knows nothing. To overcome this obstacle, he turns to this board for help where there are some poeple with experience in the markets. No one is this business owes a job to someone with no experience. Furthermore, there are thousands of other people with the same credentials as the poster that could do the same quality of work (in Hawaii, no less!). I don't know the poster. I'm sure none of the other contributors to this thread knows the poster either. I have NO vested interest in the poster getting a job, not getting a job, or whatever. I would suspect people only contribute to this type of thread out of a sense of "it's a good thing to do, and perhaps the favor will be passed on". Lefty took an agressive path, Swoop and ptunic took a more benevolent path, and my contribution was fairly neutral. I think that's fairly representative of the interview process. Several people posted and nothing along the lines of thanks? I suspect there might be some hubris/arrogance at work here that will ultimately come out in the interview. That will most certainly kill any chances. Think about it...
People are chameleons. They will try to give the best possible impression, character flaws like arrogance/hubris will not show up immediately it usually takes time for these traits to appear. I still recommend this person to trade on his own. You learn a great deal more, a little guidance (spoon feeding) is nice. But to be able to go on ones own and be successfull, now that's an accomplishment that will stay with you the rest of your life. No guts no glory. ozzy