Hello,My firm are looking for a few Masters / Phd students with strong quant backgrounds and some programming skills (either very strong VBA or C++ / Java with database skills preferred) to each work on one of three theoretical projects with highly practical applications over the next few months. Work would be carried out (part time) in their own time / from their own uni or home as we are located off-shore.My questions for the forum are as follows:1) Do you think that we will find people interested in this kind of one off project? We do have quant jobs on offer but prefer the idea of meeting potential candidates this way.2) How much, if anything, should we pay? On the one hand we are happy to reward good work, on the other we want to find very enthusiastic students who love working on theoretical solutions to practical problems. The cash side of things may induce a 'get the job done and take the money' attitude as it is a project rather than a job.As there are plenty of people here with experience in this sort of thing I would value your advice. On the other hand, if you are an interested candidate, please PM me.Thanks.

Where are you based????

Isle of Man

using students suggests you're looking for a low cost way to do things (versus using consultants).If it's a student's thesis project, you should probably be paying their tuition and a stipend comparable to what fellowship students receive, and maybe pick up the tab for a conference or two.

Good tip, thanks.I think that using students is a good way to get a fresh perspective on some problems as, IMHO having been a consultant, consultant's tend to take a 'safe' path through a problem. Coming up with a new or slightly left-field approach is a risky proposition for a consultant - not so a student.I also think that this way, like bank's internship programmes, you get to see something of the student's work which is very useful when recruiting.My question remains therefore, does paying students to do such projects detract from the benefit of recruiting the truly enthusiastic or does it 'grease the wheels' in a beneficial manor? If only human psychology was as objective as the day to day problems we work on!

You get what you pay for in my experience. You pay peanuts ...

We've set up a small number of deal like you are suggesting but as part of an expectation that it would lead to being hired by a big bank if it worked out.I have to say that your chances of getting people with the skills you are looking for is going to be non-trivial.Partly, because most people, even after they've finished, have gruesome ignorance of programming, before finishing it can only be worse.Their maths will typically be better, but you want both don't you ?What I can't see is how you expect to show a "profit"in this. I guess for each one you take on, you'll have to interview 10-20 using quite expensive people.Even then you'll get it wrong some % of the time.You'll be competing with their other objectives, like writing up PhDs etc.

Having got it wrong hiring quants before I think that this is a good way to test people out first. When I did my masters I did a project like this for a HF in London and ended up taking a job with them. They didn't pay me for it but I feel I ended up doing nicely out of the transaction.

One thing you don't mention is how much expertise and information you are willing to share. If you have interesting problems and are willing to explain them carefully to smart, inexperienced people; and pay for the data or other resources necessary to attack the problems, you are offering something very valuable. Someone who has solved an interesting problem in a field is much more valuable than someone who has not. Many smart people don't know how to find an interesting problem, wouldn't recognize a solution if it appeared by magic on their computer screen, and have lots of background questions along the way. Having been helped along this path even once will improve greatly their ability to do it on their own in the future.If you don't plan to help much, just give a half hour discussion of the problem with one-page description, I don't think you'll have much success. Low cost/low return. But if you provide a high level of support, you've got almost the cost of training a candidate. You do save the cost of terminating a failure, but you run an increased risk of losing a success to someone else, along with some of your own intellectual property.A related idea that may be more cost effective is to teach a course. You'll meet some smart students, some of which will ask for problems to work on. You can also propose interesting problems as projects either for the course or for general interest. While you accept some duty of mentoring, you do it in a circumscribed time and place, and (hopefully) the school faculty are additional resources to do some of the work. A small cash prize works wonder on student motivation; not just the money but the resume item of winning something. No one knows what the Joe Blow Prize for Best Finance Project means, but if it says $10,000 Joe Blow Prize, everyone knows there was some competition.

why not pay a stipend similar to the one most students in grad school receive for TA/RA (about 20k USD p.a. for 20-80 hours a week) and a bonus if they provide a viable solution. The stipend would be 'peanuts' for (presumably) a few weeks work and then the bonus could reflect the monetary value of the end product

QuoteOriginally posted by: AaronA related idea that may be more cost effective is to teach a course. ah, his location may be a problem (isle of man)

It is a good idea though. We have a consultant who teaches several courses so I am going to speak to him.

i think the work should be paid, especially to students. they dont have much money. if they spend their time they should be rewarded somehow, either monetarily or by getting the grade. students can produce good results, imho. i think that all my classmates were having side jobs while studying. most of them did accounting software. i wrote math packages for a chemical plant. and you are right that we brought new ideas, because it's fun and we didnt know how to do it "right". i remember one my friend did entire accounting system for a textile factory on MUMPS, while everybody else was moving to relational databases. that was crazy, but he didnt care.

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