Ah, sorry about that MattF. I sent that response without it being finished.Thanks for your feedback and your honesty. Can you think of some things that I could do to make myself a stronger candidate?

<t>QuoteOriginally posted by: MattFI doubt you'll like my answer ... but you're not a strong candidate at all.The days are long gone when anyone who understood how to solve a PDE numerically and could knock out some code was getting hired as a quant. Chicago, Columbia, Sloan, Wharton etc etc are chu...

<t>Many thanks to everyone who replied. Its a tremendous help.To roundandround:1) Why finance and not academia?I do not have a desire to pursue a career in academia that requires teaching. I believe my skill set is better suited for the types of problems that arise in quantitative finance.2) What in...

<t>QuoteOriginally posted by: bearishOK - it's been a couple of weeks and I think you need more help than what Hansi has provided. The conditionally expected return is 2%. In order to get to 103, you need a (simple) return of 3%. That means you need 3%-2%=1% stock specific (or idiosyncratic) return....

And yes, I did make a mistake when I said stock prices are normally distributed. I meant returns as Hansi pointed out.

<t>So, I have [$]P(R \geq 0.03) = 1 - P(R \leq 0.03) = 1 - N(0.03)[$]where [$]N(x)[$] is the cumulative normal distribution function. I looked up in Hull "Options, etc." the approximation for [$]N(x)[$] in the "Cumulative Normal Distribution Function" section and it looks like I can just plug everyt...

<t>Hi Dominic,Thanks for your post. Would you mind linking me to that FAQ? I'd be interested in reading it.You're the second person that has recommended to me that it could be my enthusiasm during the interview (or interaction, if you prefer) process that fails me. So I started reading some articles...

<r>QuoteOriginally posted by: HansiYour sort of on track but check the first few links for 'what is alpha' on google, e.g:<URL url="http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/102714/whats-difference-between-alpha-and-beta.asphttp://www.arborinvestmentplanner.com/what-is-alpha-and-beta-how-do-they-relat...

<r>QuoteOriginally posted by: HansiLet's try <URL url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging</URL> but with a bit of starter guidance. What's a beta? What is it's connection in the relationship of a stock to a market?How is that meas...

QuoteOriginally posted by: Hansi'type of quant' or just 'quant roles' might be a starting point. + Mark Joshi's old paperAre you referring to his quant advice paper?

<r>QuoteOriginally posted by: HansiI think you can find a lot of the information via the search button above. Also reading this is a good starting point: <AMAZON id="0071468293F" tld="uk" url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0071468293Fantastic."><URL url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0071468293Fantastic">...

Perhaps it would be useful to others, and myself, if a few comments were made about the several types.

Hey Everyone,What would others consider as baseline knowledge that an entry level quant should have? I'm trying to focus my independent studies to make myself more appealing to hiring managers. Thanks in advance.

<t>Hi Everyone,I found a few sample questions that either tend to be brought up in interviews or are good beginner questions for newbie quants to study. I'm going through them and the first one I came across that was not immediately obvious to me is below. Some pointers on how to proceed would be mu...

<t>QuoteOriginally posted by: bearishIt sounds like you talked to a bunch of HR people, or possibly real people following HR scripts. In your case you are probably too much of an outsider to have much of a chance in that game and need to get to real decision makers, or more precisely, those who are ...