I’m currently interviewing with an international trading firm for a graduate trading position (derivatives market making). The office I’m interviewing is mainly market making, although throughout the firm they are also expanding into stat arb and some algorithmic trading as well.
Currently I’ve completed 2 telephone interviews (mainly HR style questions about motivation, background, describe yourself etc. but also a bit of technical material) and a series of online tests (I live in Ireland and the job is based in Holland). I’ve another phone interview tomorrow which I’m told is the penultimate stage before being offered/ declined for the job. The person who interviewed me both times has very strongly implied that my CV/background/test scores are ok but that she’s not convinced by my motivation to work as a trader for the company. In preparing for both of these previous interviews I thought and prepared responses for these type of questions (why do you want to be a trader type questions) and I’m a little baffled by why the interviewer isn’t convinced by this.
So I’m going to roughly outline my justification & motivation here and if anyone has any suggestions for what I’m missing out on, or if I’m saying something that would throw up a red flag, I’d greatly appreciate the feedback..
My first reason for wanting to work as a trader is that I found financial markets to be fascinating. As a trader you immersed in the process of how the market is adjusting to the constant stream of news from around the world in order to best allocate resources and price securities. This is a complex process which involves knowledge of what is going on in the world as well as technical understanding of the securities that are being traded.
Secondly I talked about how financial markets are competitive places, while working in a graduate trading role requires one to acquire new skills on top of what they have learned in previous jobs/education. This requires traders to be competitive, respond well to pressurised situations, and obviously patience, dedication, level headedness etc. as well. I talked about how I played lots sports, and how my dedication and various achievements provided evidence that I responded well to competitive situations. Also I’m aware that as a graduate trader one starts off with a huge amount to learn and it would be vitally important to have a willingness to learn from the experienced traders and generally try to absorb as much information as possible.
I also mentioned poker as being somewhat useful experience for trading, as I have used it as a sort of part time job/income source for the last year or so. I said that it provided practical exposure in terms of risk management/dealing with variance, not allowing short term losses to affect your decision making/mindset. Also market making trading is strongly concerned with identifying positive expected value bets/exposures, rather than economic fundamentals, so in this regard poker would be fairly useful background for this type of trading.
The other thing I told them was the numerous other companies in the market making/trading sector I applied for (after I was asked about this, and interviewer confirmed that it was expected that I would be applying to other similar companies).
So any thoughts? I really appreciate any help..
Currently I’ve completed 2 telephone interviews (mainly HR style questions about motivation, background, describe yourself etc. but also a bit of technical material) and a series of online tests (I live in Ireland and the job is based in Holland). I’ve another phone interview tomorrow which I’m told is the penultimate stage before being offered/ declined for the job. The person who interviewed me both times has very strongly implied that my CV/background/test scores are ok but that she’s not convinced by my motivation to work as a trader for the company. In preparing for both of these previous interviews I thought and prepared responses for these type of questions (why do you want to be a trader type questions) and I’m a little baffled by why the interviewer isn’t convinced by this.
So I’m going to roughly outline my justification & motivation here and if anyone has any suggestions for what I’m missing out on, or if I’m saying something that would throw up a red flag, I’d greatly appreciate the feedback..
My first reason for wanting to work as a trader is that I found financial markets to be fascinating. As a trader you immersed in the process of how the market is adjusting to the constant stream of news from around the world in order to best allocate resources and price securities. This is a complex process which involves knowledge of what is going on in the world as well as technical understanding of the securities that are being traded.
Secondly I talked about how financial markets are competitive places, while working in a graduate trading role requires one to acquire new skills on top of what they have learned in previous jobs/education. This requires traders to be competitive, respond well to pressurised situations, and obviously patience, dedication, level headedness etc. as well. I talked about how I played lots sports, and how my dedication and various achievements provided evidence that I responded well to competitive situations. Also I’m aware that as a graduate trader one starts off with a huge amount to learn and it would be vitally important to have a willingness to learn from the experienced traders and generally try to absorb as much information as possible.
I also mentioned poker as being somewhat useful experience for trading, as I have used it as a sort of part time job/income source for the last year or so. I said that it provided practical exposure in terms of risk management/dealing with variance, not allowing short term losses to affect your decision making/mindset. Also market making trading is strongly concerned with identifying positive expected value bets/exposures, rather than economic fundamentals, so in this regard poker would be fairly useful background for this type of trading.
The other thing I told them was the numerous other companies in the market making/trading sector I applied for (after I was asked about this, and interviewer confirmed that it was expected that I would be applying to other similar companies).
So any thoughts? I really appreciate any help..
