If her dissertation is about incomplete market pricing? Looks like the research topic is very theoretical and not used in practice and on the street?

QuoteOriginally posted by: mizhaelIf her dissertation is about incomplete market pricing? Looks like the research topic is very theoretical and not used in practice and on the street?Do those ECON PhDs go to the street?

Most Econ Ph.Ds on Wall Street are not quants, they are economists. Econometricians may be the only exception. The skillsets are quite different, especially when it comes to programming skills and high powered math.

QuoteOriginally posted by: nonParametricMost Econ Ph.Ds on Wall Street are not quants, they are economists. Econometricians may be the only exception. The skillsets are quite different, especially when it comes to programming skills and high powered math.Interesting. Would you mind elaborating? For example, how do the programming & math requirements differ? Do there exist people hired for a broad ranging knowledge covering many different subjects such as econ + quant + finance + whatever or are they hired only according to strictly distinct categories?

Most econ Ph.Ds can not solve a PDE or SDE, most of them know little in C, C++ or even VBA. Granted, not all quant jobs require these skills, but the majority of them do. Filtering out jobs that do require these skills leaves a very small window open. Econometricians are stronger in both math and programming skills, there are also more statistical/econometric jobs than pure economics jobs. The challenge for econ Ph.Ds is to get a job offer. Once into the door, smart people (which include econ Ph.Ds) can pick up things quickly and find their niche.

QuoteOriginally posted by: nonParametricMost econ Ph.Ds can not solve a PDE or SDE, most of them know little in C, C++ or even VBA. Granted, not all quant jobs require these skills, but the majority of them do. Filtering out jobs that do require these skills leaves a very small window open. Econometricians are stronger in both math and programming skills, there are also more statistical/econometric jobs than pure economics jobs. The challenge for econ Ph.Ds is to get a job offer. Once into the door, smart people (which include econ Ph.Ds) can pick up things quickly and find their niche.If an ECON PHD has a financial math master degree and is very skilled in math, statistics, and programming, and her PhD topic is quite theoretical, -- about incomplete and inefficient market/finance, etc..., her thesis has both econ and finance in flavor and also a lot of math inevitably, what type of job can she find on the Street? And what will be the best position and best pay for her?

See this is what I was hoping there would be some elaboration on as well. If the ph.d incorporates topics from a variety of different fields, i.e. econ, finance, quant, math, econometrics, stats (did I leave any out?), then is that ph.d degree considered more valuable to a wall street employer or is the holder of that degree isolated because most of the jobs available are for specialists in some narrow focus?I realize this might depend on the nature of the dissertation as well but if someone could offer a feel for the majority of wall street jobs in terms of the above, then that would probably answer mizhael's question more effectively.QuoteOriginally posted by: mizhaelQuoteOriginally posted by: nonParametricMost econ Ph.Ds can not solve a PDE or SDE, most of them know little in C, C++ or even VBA. Granted, not all quant jobs require these skills, but the majority of them do. Filtering out jobs that do require these skills leaves a very small window open. Econometricians are stronger in both math and programming skills, there are also more statistical/econometric jobs than pure economics jobs. The challenge for econ Ph.Ds is to get a job offer. Once into the door, smart people (which include econ Ph.Ds) can pick up things quickly and find their niche.If an ECON PHD has a financial math master degree and is very skilled in math, statistics, and programming, and her PhD topic is quite theoretical, -- about incomplete and inefficient market/finance, etc..., her thesis has both econ and finance in flavor and also a lot of math inevitably, what type of job can she find on the Street? And what will be the best position and best pay for her?

Whay are you saying "her dissertation" ?Incomplete market pricing is of interest to HF's and some trading bits of banks, though as nonparametic says, the hardest bit is actually getting in.Although a economist may have a finance math masters, the problem is that the maths covered are for a subset of finance, and thus a FinMath course gives you quite a narrow band of techniques.If he has done useful sorts of maths, then (as you may be picking up), the challenge will be to show that the PhD contains relevant material.I don't know exactly why economics types seem so rarely to have any grasp of programming beyond that acquired by a Macintosh user, but if they are serious about some sort of quant job, they need to get a copy C++, and start working on it hard.

QuoteOriginally posted by: flankSee this is what I was hoping there would be some elaboration on as well. If the ph.d incorporates topics from a variety of different fields, i.e. econ, finance, quant, math, econometrics, stats (did I leave any out?), then is that ph.d degree considered more valuable to a wall street employer or is the holder of that degree isolated because most of the jobs available are for specialists in some narrow focus?The impression I get is that the Ph.D. degree just gets you to the interview table. Once you get there, then the criteria is how well you perform on the questions that get asked you. The employer really doesn't care what courses you've taken (or really what your degree is in). What they care about is whether or not you can answer the questions that they throw at you.The typical quant first-round interview consists of five hours of math (mostly probability) and c++ programming questions thrown at you.The basic assumption (which isn't a bad one) is that if you have the math and programming skills then you can pick up all of the economic stuff on the job.QuoteI realize this might depend on the nature of the dissertation as well but if someone could offer a feel for the majority of wall street jobs in terms of the above, then that would probably answer mizhael's question more effectively.You need to be careful about that question. If there are 1000 jobs, but 10000 applicants, this is bad for you. If there are 5 jobs, but you are one of two credible applicants, this is good for you.

QuoteOriginally posted by: twofishThe typical quant first-round interview consists of five hours of math (mostly probability) and c++ programming questions thrown at you.FIVE HOURS !!!Is that all verbal (... by which I mean, face to face, across the table; but maybe with aid of paper and pen...) ?Or are you referring to a written (examination) sort of test?Anyway, hope it's not continuous ... but maybe, five rounds of 1 hour each. Am I understanding this right?

5 hours blocks of interview are not atypical. Sometimes it's more.Varies a bit. Some do a basic screening interview first, then get you back for the full monty.

QuoteOriginally posted by: bhutes<brFIVE HOURS !!!I've been told that this is actually pretty typical. I had loads of fun (and learned that I didn't understand how to throw exceptions in constructor classes, and I need to brush up in my vector calculus, since I didn't know off the top of my head the form of the Langrangian operator in cylindrical coordinates )QuoteIs that all verbal (... by which I mean, face to face, across the table; but maybe with aid of paper and pen...) ?Both. The bank in question had a standardized test, and also had a standardized deck of cards in which they picked six questions at random and then gave you an hour to do the problems. One interesting bit of the pen and paper section is that they collected all of your notes after you finished, presumably so that they could critique your problem solving methodology. All the questions were C++ and math/probability questions with a few physics questions thrown in.QuoteOr are you referring to a written (examination) sort of test?Anyway, hope it's not continuous ... but maybe, five rounds of 1 hour each. Am I understanding this right?It was pretty continuous. There would be one interviewer at a time. After an hour they would leave, and you'd get someone new. One or two of the interviewers were basically proctors. They'd give you the test and then they'd leave. You'd get a ten minute break in between the interviewers. Loads of fun. It helps if you don't think of it as an job interview but rather a free all expense paid intensive one-day workshop in C++ and mathematics or else a game show for ex-physicists. (Imagine Alex Trebeck saying Now, Dr. Wang, for a chance for big money and prizes, can you derive the field equations for a harmonic field in cylindrical coordinates? Jeproady theme plays. (1)I didn't get the job, but I came away with a personal checklist of "knowledge holes" that I need to work on.The atmosphere of the office felt a lot like a math and physics department, and one of the reasons a job as a quant is attractive is that it is the job most similar to a physics professor that I have any realistic chance of getting. There is some weird mental sado-masochiastic stuff that happens between physics Ph.D.'s. One of the interviewers was obviously relishing the role of a sadist and watching me helplessly drowning in the interview, and there was a part of me that was enjoying the role of a masochist and drowning in an interview. One of the reasons I suspect these interviews are "fun" for the sadist (which I've been sometimes) is that if you try to break mentally someone who isn't expecting it, that's just nasty, but if you are a situation where you are trying to break someone who is expecting it and at some level wants to be broken and who might not break despite your best efforts, then that's fair.I suspect its these sorts of cultural things that make banks like physics/math Ph.D.'s for quant positions.Mistakes:1) Didn't bring copies of my resume.2) Didn't eat at a really nice restaurant of the banks expense account afterwards before getting on my plane.3) Didn't review the C++ written test with the proctor. I think I did alright, but it would have been good to have someone look over the test for errors.(1) And before anyone talks about this not being relevant for the job. These sorts of questions is *very* relevant for the job. You can create a multi-asset derivative that whose probability distribution mimics these field equations.

Quote(1) And before anyone talks about this not being relevant for the job. These sorts of questions is *very* relevant for the job. You can create a multi-asset derivative that whose probability distribution mimics these field equations.And what physics class teaches these field equations, harmonic wave, etc?

It's important to understand the "process" by which people get hired...OK, no-one understands it all that well in general, but my job is to be marginally less clueless than the average person.Your CV will go through a set of filters, operated by people of varying knowledge, brain and motivation.These include HRs, HHs, some intern told to look through a pile of CVs and the hiring managers.No one will read your CV.CVs are browsed, some of the big headhunting firms feed them into a database to do keyword matching.Even when looked at by a real person in a HH, or HR it will be mostly buzzword search again."physics" is a buzz word, as is C++, monte carlo, time series, finite difference and differential equations. We helped one guy a lot by getting him to delete the word "pure" from pure maths.And some keywords have negative value to the buZzWorrd scanners, or more accurately different words have different values, both +ive and -ive to different scanners.Sad to say if you don't pass the scan, you don't get that job.But if you get past them, then you can try to shine in the interview.

we often see some "Senior Economists" on wall st journal, financial times, cnbc doing commentary.who are they actually?