Please post a recommendation if you are an experienced professional or head hunter only… I am currently a student double majoring in finance and statistics at a respected university and soon to enter my third year. To summarize my position:- 1 year remaining until eligible for award. - Written several large profitable strategies in C++ back and forward tested generating real net returns with low risk profiles that may amount to some interest to a funds research dept.- Currently working on a major vol arb strategy in C++ with Matlab integration that, when completed, once again may be of some interest to a fund.- Have about 2 years work experience back office (not quant) work at several financial services firms (non-market participants).The idea:Approach some of the smaller alternative strategy funds out there and provide details and back-test results of my algorithms without giving too much away. Adjusted for institutional transaction costs, the systems are profitable, aren’t over-optimized and there may be sections in the code that could be useful to be integrated with their existing strategies.What I want is simple… I will hand over the source code and documentation in exchange for a junior trader role in equities / derivatives (manual trading) or assistant to a trader. I am not looking to work in the research department or back office. I will defer my final year of uni until a later late.I just want to get my foot in the door, working with real traders and will finish my degree later. I know many funds have received a battering since August so are probably not hiring , but what about in a couple of months when volatility might improve and the doors open once again??

stupidest idea i have heard for a while (especially with the hiring environment now)....get your degree first, polish your strategies.... (one year in your career is meaningless compared to getting a degree)you could try to get an internship over the summer....

I already acknowledged the far from ideal hiring conditions.. thats why i indicated i will be looking for work when conditons return to normal and not now... BESIDES: I will be taking time off study regardless (for personal and financial reasons)..QuoteOriginally posted by: meteorstupidest idea i have heard for a while (especially with the hiring environment now)....get your degree first, polish your strategies.... (one year in your career is meaningless compared to getting a degree)you could try to get an internship over the summer....

I'm with Meteor, finish your degree first, this year could well be a wash hiring-wise anyway.If you approach any funds regarding your strategy I think you'll be met with a lot of skepticism. Unless you have some sort of track record, a nice backtest alone isn't going to open many doors. It will demonstrate a keen interest in quant trading at an interview though so I would certainly encourage you to develop your ideas further whilst completing your studies.If your strategies are somewhat scale and execution invariant then why not begin trading it with your own money ? It will certainly add some credibility to your backtest results down the line.

statTrader, i have used the systems with personal money but scalability is a problem, in this case combining a high volume strategy with under-capitalization results in a nice equity curve but low in absolute CG... this is not surprising.. and re-coding the MM isn't an option - I have tried this. Another barrier is overheads - for instance a dedicated, powerful server with very high % uptime is a must(I am currently renting a Linux VPS running a mod'd version of one of my systems to communicate with POSIX (Unix API)... another cost barrier is data feeds for testing, for instance the most realistic hypothetical forward / back tested results came from using the Bloomberg API but i only had access to this for a short period of time when i was on a free trial (which i managed to get extended over an over again until the Bloomberg rep got tired of me).and one other thing, most funds have the advantage of economies of scale to make deals with their brokers to lower transaction costs. Institutional transaction costs were taken into account before i began prototyping, and as said in my initial post, the results are adjusted for realistic institutional transaction costs. This system was always just designed to imitate institutional level systems to show what im capable of, nothing more. Therefore running the system with transaction costs offered to say, an individual account, seriously offsets profit.

also i am based in Sydney not the US and the job market still appears to be robust here thanks to a very strong economy (and Asia Pacific in general) despite the fact we are in a global crisis. The one obvious exception is SocGen which is firing a large amount of staff at its ~300 people Sydney office (a friend of mine is an accountant at SocGen, but he has kept his job) - Although this is a direct result from the January incidentmost if not all of the big houses have offices here and some with a large pesence (especially Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, HSBC, Statestreet) Sydney also has (by far) the largest hedge fund industry in Asia after Tokyo