(I completed the 1st and 2nd round interviews, but received a rejection prior to the final round). Online tests: Optiver cares very heavily about how quickly you can make numerical decisions, and thus their round of online testing (pre-interview) is pretty long an strenuous. For the Quantitative Trading role, it includes their “80 in 8” (80 questions in 8 minutes) mental maths test, followed by an identifying sequences test, e.g. you are shown a sequence of numbers, and must guess the next number or missing number. After completing these both, the results are looked at manually by HR, before they decide whether to send you a second round of online tests. One of these is a personality-based test, which they say in the email doesn’t influence whether you get a 1st round interview, it is only used to "purely to influence the context of behavioural interview”. Another is called Zap-N, and is very similar to Pymetrics used by other firms. The so-called “gamified assessment” presents you with roughly 10 different mini games, ranging from remembering incrementally longer strings of numbers to reaction time tests. Finally, an SHL “General Ability” test is sent, which is also similar to what many banks uses, and consists of questions testing your ability to calculate simple percentages, read data from graphs and interpret information. The first round of online tests are definitely harder than the second, and I think where most people drop out of the process, so mental maths preparation and practise is really key! 1st Round Interview: This takes place with someone from the campus recruiting team, and is kept relatively casual and conversation-like. They were very friendly, but kept emphasising how important communication was at Optiver. They stressed how being able to communicate efficiently with your teammates - in a short and concise manner - is a vital skill. The questions asked were: - Short introductions - Why did you choose to study the degree that you are studying? - Why do you want a career in trading specifically? - Why Optiver (over other market making firms)? - Top skills that make a good trader, other than quantitative and technical skills? - Name a time you’ve worked in a team - Why do you think communication is important? - What is one of your biggest failures? - Any hobbies that are not on your CV? - What would you say is your strongest skill that makes you stand out against other applicants? - What would you say is your weakest skill? It was definitely useful to have a few scenarios from your life that you remember well, with which to answer these questions (e.g. when you’ve worked in a team, or failed), especially ones that highlight teamwork. Another useful point for the “biggest failure” question is to always reinforce your answer with what you learned from the experience, and what you will do differently in the future to prevent this sort of failure happening again. Even examples of similar scenarios since then (for which you have not failed) would be useful to mention. 2nd Round Interview: The second round takes place with a trader. At the very start, you are told you are not allowed to use a pen-and-paper, or a calculator, for the entire duration of the interview. Two market-making games were played, one at the start of the interview, and one near the end. This was deliberate I think, to check that you took into account the feedback you received during the first game and applied it during the second. The market making games are played as follows: - You are given a question, such as “How much money was spent in pubs in the UK, on the first day after the COVID lockdown?” - You are first asked to come up with an estimate, and to give ranges with a 50% and 90% confidence interval (e.g. you are 90% sure that your guess falls within the range you suggest). - Then the market making game starts. Each turn is played as follows: - You give a bid and ask (price you are willing to buy and sell this estimated value for, respectively), with a fixed 10% spread. - The interview either buys from you or sells to you. - This repeats, the idea being that you move your bid and asks sufficiently based on the “new” information you are receiving from the trader. E.g. if they brought, you raise your quotes, if they buy again, you raise again (as they have more information on the actual value you are estimating). Finally, after 4 rounds of the game, I was asked my net position (how many times I brought - sold) and average price transacted for. This wasn’t mentioned before starting! So useful tip, make sure to make a mental note of each transaction as you play the game, so that you can answer this question. The interviewer also added new rules, such as limiting how many units you can be long or short. The feedback I received specifically was that I did not move my quotes up fast enough, and thus after 4 rounds, the interviewer had bought from me every round and I now had no upper boundary on what the true price could be. Ideally, you’d move your quotes by larger amounts, so you can find an upper and lower bound for the true value, and then “narrow in” on this. This was followed by a couple of behavioural-based questions, asking about what role I’d take in a team, and what I’d do if I was confident on a solution to a particular problem, but a much more experienced team member disagrees with me. And then the following quantitative and finance-related questions: - How long would it take you to do 2/17 in your head (to 3 decimal places)? - I said 10 seconds, and then the interview said “Okay, go.” and started a timer. - Today is a Wednesday, what will be the day of the week on this date next year? - Simpson’s Paradox question: Was given various pieces of information on two football teams, playing two halves of a game, and they individually have a “pass ratio” for each half. It was asked that if Team X has a higher pass ratio than Team Y in the first half, and the same again in the second half, could Team Y have a higher pass ratio overall? I was then asked to give a numerical example. - What is a call and put option? - Can you name a few of the Greeks? - Explain what Delta is, would it be positive or negative on a call option and on a put option, and then the same question for vega. Overall Impressions: The mental maths testing and second round interview is very tough. It requires a good ability and practise with thinking and making decisions quickly and under pressure. However I thought the interview process was very fair, and gave a good opportunity to showcase your ability in a fair manner. From further chatting to both interviewers, it seemed like Optiver’s training program was incredibly strong too. They hire almost their entire intern class as full-time graduate hires, and they believe a summer internship isn’t long enough to learn what is required and demonstrate you are a good trader, so once you are on the summer internship they treat you as if they are going to hire you full-time, and invest a lot of time into teaching their new hires. They also have a very flat structure, and lots of opportunity to move around. They prefer people to rotate desks every few years, so knowledge and ideas from different products can flow between desks. The environment is very collaborative, and the bonus structures is based on the firm’s global profits (with a personal performance and experience multiplier), which encourages teams to work together for a shared mutual benefit. Both interviewers also mentioned how the culture at Optiver means that everyone is quite blunt and to-the-point when communicating, including when giving feedback etc., so this is worth keeping in mind. Top tips: - Practise mental maths thoroughly, especially involving decimals and fractions. - Learn what a market making game is, and how to play one, and practise beforehand, so you are not stressed about the rules and mechanics of it, and understand it fully. - Brush up on options and greeks.