Breaking into Quant Trading from ~1 year in IB

[darrenxcx]

Hi Andy and Community,

I've seen many extremely helpful posts on the forum and wanted to seek your insights on my case.

My background:
- Graduated with Math and Stats major in a US top 10 university 2 years ago, did several Stats modeling projects (Bayesian) and a semester Quant research with my Math prof
- Worked in IB (M&A) at a BB in HK for ~1 year
- Applying for MFE & Stats programs this fall to break into Quant
- US resident

I've always been interested in Math and modeling, and aftering doing IB in Asia I realized I want to do something more "mathy" with more scientific modeling. But the issue is I haven't done a quant or trading internship and heard people talking about how extremely demanding Quant jobs are in terms of trading experience and IQ. I start to get a sense that Quant is for a small group of extremely gifted people and you're either one of them or not. While the idea of trading and mathematically rigorous modeling excites me and I'm comfortable with probability, I only want to get into something I have a decent shot in. So I want to get your opinion on how I can gauge if Quant (buyside/sellside) is for me.

Also I'm seeing some worrying placement stats in some top MFE programs this year (less HC and lower % going to buyside), some say that the job market is still going to be down in 2 years. Curious to hear your thoughts on that.

Thank you very much!

 

[latus_rectum]

For quant trading, to gauge your strengths and see whether you would like to prepare for it, you can try out the following -
1. Try out mental maths - zeta mac, tradermaths.org - check out optiver's zap-n and akuna's 80 in 8 tests. See if you enjoy it. You will have to practice these a lot and become really good at these.
2. Probability - Expectations and Puzzles. A very good command over EV based problems is a must. Check out green book, quantable etc
3. Market making games - These are asked in tandem with probability puzzles. You will have to play a game, build strategies, calculate expectations to place bets and find arbitrage. Check out trader maths.

Irrespective of individual's background or mfe program, a quant trader interview consists of 5-6 rounds between the above 3 topics.