I used Twitter to compile advice for people trying to get into the quant/derivatives world:
https://twitter.com/KrisAbdelmessih/status/1453787825321639937?s=20
There is much resonant advice, I had to re-factor it to make this evergreen. As an assurance, even though some of these accounts are anonymous, they are professionals.
Before the details let's see the common themes.
Everyone Agrees These Are Important
- Emphasis on aptitude (often proxied by pedigree) & teachability over direct market knowledge Although if you lack any market knowledge you might struggle convincing an interviewer on the next point...
- A genuine interest: The game is hard, you will need persistence and interest to carry you through the inevitable difficulties. You should be able to demonstrate this.
- Skills. In today's marketplace you must have technical skills. Math and coding. While that's a common theme below, I'll give 2 additional reasons for needing these skills. The first, is as an assistant, the more useful you can be to your bosses the faster you'll progress. Training apprentices is expensive in time and money. It's not great if you have to spend company time learning broad skills. You put yourself at a disadvantage. Secondly, skills allow you to self-start. You can prototype and test. If you need to rely on a dev or quant to study hypothesis that are probably wrong in the first place, you are dead in the water. You need to be able to build yourself so you can iterate through ideas faster.
Without further ado, here's outstanding advice from these generous and seasoned pros...
The Pros Weigh In
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<img src="https://prod-files-secure.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/0cf10c00-9599-48d1-b309-4bb16acbc805/677bb375-66aa-48d8-8038-cd55dc58ce8d/favicon.png" alt="https://prod-files-secure.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/0cf10c00-9599-48d1-b309-4bb16acbc805/677bb375-66aa-48d8-8038-cd55dc58ce8d/favicon.png" width="40px" /> Buy-Side Quant Job Advice
There may be nobody better equipped to offer career advice to quants than author, risk manager, and researcher Giuseppe Paleologo.
Start with his essay then move on to the rest of the resources:
Buy-Side Quant Job Advice
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