Campus Quantitative Trader (Intern)

Tell me about a time you took a real financial or competitive risk, like in poker, sports betting, or trading a personal portfolio, and it didn't pay off.

What they are checking: how honestly the candidate reflects on losses and whether they learn from variance instead of overreacting to it

What's a market or asset you've been following closely, and what's your actual view on where it's headed and why?

What they are checking: genuine, current interest in markets versus a rehearsed answer with no real curiosity behind it

Tell me about a time you competed against people who were clearly better than you at something. How did you react in the moment and afterward?

What they are checking: resilience and competitive drive, since the internship is built around constant benchmarking against strong peers

Why quant trading specifically, and not quant research or software development, given the internship touches all three?

What they are checking: whether the candidate actually understands the difference between the three tracks and has a genuine preference

If you had a trading position that was losing money and every signal you trusted said to hold, but your gut said to cut it, what would you actually do and why?

What they are checking: whether the candidate can separate emotion from process and articulate a disciplined decision framework

If a mentor gave you feedback that your reasoning on a trade idea was sloppy, right in front of the team, how would you respond?

What they are checking: whether the candidate can take direct, public criticism without getting defensive, since mentorship here is blunt and immediate

During the internship you'll be juggling mock trading, mentorship sessions, and real project work on a tight schedule. How do you decide what gets your attention when everything feels urgent?

What they are checking: time management and prioritization under the intensity of a 10-week program with daily deliverables

Say I flip a biased coin that comes up heads 60 percent of the time. I offer you a bet where you win 2 dollars on heads and lose 1 dollar on tails. How much would you pay to play this game once, and how would that change if you could play it a hundred times?

What they are checking: whether the candidate can quickly translate probability into expected value and adjust reasoning for variance versus repeated trials

Walk me through how you would price a fair value for a game where you roll a die and get paid the square of the number shown.

What they are checking: comfort with expected value calculations done quickly and cleanly under pressure

You're given a stream of numbers one at a time and asked to guess if the next one will be higher or lower than the last, with a payout for each correct guess. How would you think about setting your strategy before seeing any data?

What they are checking: ability to reason about uncertainty and build a strategy before information arrives, a core trading skill

Estimate how many piano tuners there are in Chicago.

What they are checking: structured estimation and comfort thinking out loud through an unfamiliar problem

Describe a project or problem where you had to write code to analyze data or test an idea. What language did you use and what tripped you up along the way?

What they are checking: actual hands-on programming experience versus coursework familiarity only

Two people are playing a card game and one claims the odds are even, but you suspect they're not. How would you go about figuring out who's actually favored without a computer?

What they are checking: mental math speed and instinct for spotting mispriced situations, a direct proxy for trading intuition