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Interview stories...

Joy Pathak

Joy Pathak

Swaptionz
Joined
8/20/09
Messages
1,330
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Anyone have any interesting interview stories? Something outrageous. Any stress tests, psycholigical tests? etc.

Or What is the most intense interview you have been to? 4 hrs 8 people 9 hours 20 people..etc

26 interviews over a period of 2 months.

Just curious.
 
Maybe people haven't had any crazy interviews.

My interview in this category would be staying up from 12am-9am at the firm and then being asked questions in the morning. It was a stress test interview to see if I can still function properly analytical and physically after staying up all night and monitoring the Indian/Taiwan/Australian and European markets. It was for a trader position at a large hedge fund.

My most number of interviews in a day for a position was 12 people over 9 hours at the firm. (This is where I will be interning this summer)

My most number of rounds was 7 rounds over one month.
 
I guess my background is atypical (software developer, just dabbling in the domain of quantitative finance related work from time to time, and also doing work off-site so I actually very rarely get involved in any sort of classical job interview), but I'll never forget two occasions: Once some years ago when I was convinced by a recruiter (don't know about quant positions, but if you're software developer, then you should never try to go through a recruiter, these guys are plain waste of time) to proceed with my application when the job turned out to be for Bloomberg, and when I had to take moronic Previsor C++ test. And then relatively recently when I applied for a position at Stryker (not quantitative finance related work), had phone interview scheduled, and then it turned out that these guys had Gallup to design some sort of behavioral test that they believe would help find them right mindset for their corporate culture, so instead of answering technical questions that I've expected, I had to spend an hour (I guess I should better just hung-up as soon as I realized what is this about, but I just couldn't believe the guy will keep coming with this sort of questions again and again, and only later I've learned about their interviewing practices) answering idiotic questions like "Please, rate your leadership skills in range or 1 to 10". I don't know - I just can't get it how it's possible that HR people oftentimes do not realize at all that the whole interviewing process is bi-directional... Especially for the software developer positions, there exist some really good write-ups on how to properly conduct this sort of interview.
 
I've had 7 interviews for the full time job I will be starting this summer. Past a certain point (after my 4th or 5th interview) , it was a lot more "fit", just to see if I would agree well with the group.
 
I think, as the number of interviewers go up.. the interview becomes easier. Imagine meeting 7 different people in 4 hours spending like half n hour with each OR 1 or 2 people grilling u together for 4 hours.
 
My craziest interview was unbelievable. When I was leaving undergrad, I took an equity options market making job on the CBOE floor. It was an all-day affair with lots of math, logic, and brain teasers. At the end, they thought I wasn't outgoing enough in a roundtable interview (4 traders) so one asked me to stand up, jump up and down and scream as if I were behind the basket trying to distract an opposing player from making the game-winning free throw. (I was in college at the time, and my school had a big game against a top team that week.) Needless to say, I jumped up and down, yelled, swore, and ended up getting the job offer!
 
chiadam said:
My craziest interview was unbelievable. When I was leaving undergrad, I took an equity options market making job on the CBOE floor. It was an all-day affair with lots of math, logic, and brain teasers. At the end, they thought I wasn't outgoing enough in a roundtable interview (4 traders) so one asked me to stand up, jump up and down and scream as if I were behind the basket trying to distract an opposing player from making the game-winning free throw. (I was in college at the time, and my school had a big game against a top team that week.) Needless to say, I jumped up and down, yelled, swore, and ended up getting the job offer!
Click to expand...

Sounds like you got a good case for a lawsuit , this is borderline harassment, real misguided of power.
(no,I'm no a tree hugging hippie I just think what they ask you to do was really embarrassing and completely unrelated)
 
Ohad said:
Sounds like you got a good case for a lawsuit , this is borderline harassment, real misguided of power.
(no,I'm no a tree hugging hippie I just think what they ask you to do was really embarrassing and completely unrelated)
Click to expand...

I could make the case that it was related. It was a floor trading job where you have to be very vocal to get an order from a broker. I didn't think it was a huge deal...pretty fun actually and made for a good story.
 
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