Customer Reviews

A Practical Guide To Quantitative Finance Interviews

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4 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

What I like most about this book is that it has detailed step by step solutions to the many many real world interview questions included in it. It explains how to approach common (and many not so common) problems --from analyzing the problem, breaking it down to its parts, to arriving at a good answer.It changes the way one thinks rather than provide mechanical canned answers.. Unlike a few other books that have been in the market this one has greater breadth and depth.I'd recommend the book to both job seekers and interviewers.

Anyone who's been to a quant finance interview knows how difficult some of the analytical and technical questions can be. I recently bought this book (thank you, Amazon Prime!) to prepare for an upcoming interview, and was really impressed by the 200+ questions the author has collected as well as provided detailed solutions for. I've definitely seen some of the questions in real before, so I believe the author when he says these are real-world questions. This is a valuable guide for anyone going into quant interviews. If you're a newbie to the quant job market, this book goes well with another book, written by this book's editor, called Starting Your Career as a Wall Street Quant: A Practical, No-BS Guide to Getting a Job in Quantitative Finance and Launching a Lucrative Career which is more about general advice and tips.

First, you should really ignore Not Mee's comment, because he apparently had never been to a real quantitative finance interview. I have interviewed at big banks and hedge funds, and 95% of the analytical questions revolve around math, stats and programming, even though I have a finance background. The 5% that do involve finance is mostly about fundamental finance concepts like how you value an option. Quants are developers, so they are not expected to know a lot of finance like a Wharton MBA would be expected.

I like this book because, first, it's not pretentious and doesn't constantly imply you are an idiot like another more expensive book written by a former MIT person does. (That book keeps saying something like if you can't solve this question, you should go become a homeless. Very annoying.) Second, it gives you very detailed solutions, pretty much step-by-step. Every solution is almost like a tutorial, so if you don't really understand an answer, you are literally held by the hand to walk through the solution.

Of course, people like myself are actually dumb (I recently tested for my IQ and it was pretty low), so I have trouble with a lot of math questions. But the book at least allows me to know what the "right" answer is like. With a little BS, I can actually convince people I know the answer, although so far that hasn't landed me a job yet. But at least, I come across as someone who's technically competent.

The only significant omisison of the book is programming questions, like those covering topics in C++, C#, Java, SAS, Perl, Ruby, etc.

I am a math finance student who will soon start a summer internship on Wall Street. I want to leave feedback for the best and worst books that I used in my studies so far.

This is a terrible interview questions book, the worst out there. There are very few finance questions, 30 pages out of the 200 pages book. And they are all (except for 7 pages) on options and Black Scholes.

The brainteasers are simple and cover too much of the book. The probability questions, are, in fact, more brainteasers. Some of the stochastic calculus questions are unlikely to be asked on interviews. The book covers very superficially many topics, including algorithms, and has no programming questions. Some answers are too short and unexplained, some unclear, others not correct, or missing the intuition under the question (which I learned the hard way in interviews after learning from this book).

It should have been called a Brainteasers Book, not a Quant Finance interview book. Joshi's "Quant Interview Questions" is the best out there, and a real quant interviews book.

nice one, very useful for my interview. this book has lots of examples with detailed answers to solve various interview questions.

This is what you need to know for the first round interview for quant positions. It helps me pass the first round of Morgan Stanley.

Of course this is only the first step, but a very necessary step.

A great book, and a must read for quant finance interviews. Was asked atleast 1 question verbatim. Prepare using this book before advancing on tougher texts. This cannot be your primary book for learning, but just interview preparation!

The hardest part was faking like I hadn't heard the questions before. I was amazed, this book got me a flyout at a prop trading firm, and very nearly got my the position--on my first qaunt finance interview ever.

A must have for everyone who wants to interview for a quantitative finance position. I was told by a recruiter that the folks in Goldman Sachs often pick original problems from this book!

The book is simply horrible:

1) The title is misleading, there is almost nothing in the book about quant finance.
Chapter 6 "Finance" is a short(30 pages) review of option pricing and can be found in any other quant finance book. The rest is a collection of random math questions and puzzles that can be found anywhere. For puzzles one can read Quantnet or wilmott forums, for math questions consult your textbooks.

2) The book feels weird and unprofessional. It is pretty obvious that no corrector/editor worked on this book. Page dimensions are weird too. The material is typed in a hurry, very messy and sloppy.

3) Most of the material is well-known. I did not participate in math Olympiads
and was never interested in puzzles, but somehow I heard about almost all of the puzzles in the book. They are simply math folklore that almost everybody knows.

To sum up, this book has nothing to offer to anybody preparing for quant interviews. Instead you should read Joshi's book on interviews, "Heard on the street", and read quantnet / wilmott. Do not waste your money on this book!