Hello,How much time to you usually have to accept offers for Quant associate roles at investment banks?I'm asking because I need to schedule a few interviews with IBs and hedge funds over the next weeks.Many thanks!

A few days. If you interview for a job, you should be serious about taking the job if offerred.

Because? Employers take time to decide which one of the candidates they want. Why should candidates be shamed into making snap decisions, clearly against their interest?

agreed with katastrofa.joel (from joel on software) wrote an interesting blog about exploding offers years ago. still relevant to this discussion:http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/11/26.html

I think a week is normally a week is a general soft deadline once an offer has been made and it's normal to get pushed on an answer if not received after that mark. Once a contract has been drafted I think the norm is 3-5 days from what I've heard from friends and experienced myself.

2 weeks from the date the contract was prepared. then it takes a couple of days for hr to collect signatures within the firm so realistically you have something around 10 days. Depending on how good/bad you are you can ask hr for additional time, maybe an extra 1 or 2 weeks.

QuoteOriginally posted by: ElysianEagleagreed with katastrofa.joel (from joel on software) wrote an interesting blog about exploding offers years ago. still relevant to this discussion:http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/11/26.htmlNote that this was still the time when Spolsky was all about running a super cool hipsta software company in New York. He was pandering to the crowd ("rockstar developers", "fly them first class").

QuoteOriginally posted by: katastrofaNote that this was still the time when Spolsky was all about running a super cool hipsta software company in New York. He was pandering to the crowd ("rockstar developers", "fly them first class").He's been all about that for 15 years. In that time his company, Fog Creek, seems to have developed a bug-tracking application and a source code control system. Neither of which was particularly needed.

QuoteOriginally posted by: CrashedMintthen it takes a couple of days for hr to collect signatures within the firmLOL you clearly haven't worked in a crappy big banks

QuoteOriginally posted by: MattFQuoteOriginally posted by: katastrofaNote that this was still the time when Spolsky was all about running a super cool hipsta software company in New York. He was pandering to the crowd ("rockstar developers", "fly them first class").He's been all about that for 15 years. In that time his company, Fog Creek, seems to have developed a bug-tracking application and a source code control system. Neither of which was particularly needed.That is actually quite a good point. I think he writes some interesting blog posts (my favourite being the one about abstraction), but I always found the tone a little bit smug and self aggrandising. And of course the observation is correct, you might think yourselves elite and you might put the developer first etc etc... but what has been produced?The answer is a little underwhelming as it turns out.So maybe you do need a few of those pushy, annoying MBA types to work out the 'business' angle and push projects through after all! [Although it should also be stated that while not a 'product' of Fog Creek as such, StackOverflow was concieved there... and that is a pretty awesome resource]

QuoteOriginally posted by: DevonFangsQuoteOriginally posted by: CrashedMintthen it takes a couple of days for hr to collect signatures within the firmLOL you clearly haven't worked in a crappy big banksWorst ever was this Japanese bank I worked for - you could have perfectly reasonable requests go through management, but then a mis-spelling on a document and you'd have to restart with all the signatures etc...

Japanese attention to detail. Quotemis-spellingPeople have been hanged for less.