ATTN: All professional/prop firm owners and managers.

Originally posted by pitufo
Your questions are pretty much right on.
An important question that you will want to ask is,

"Do you have someone I can sit beside who will allow me to duplicate their technique?"
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You want to be careful with this one. You need to hook up with someone whose style will work for you and if you're a stone-cold newbie, you probably have no idea. Are you a scalper? Sitting next to a T/A guy will bore you to tears. Are you a T/A guy? You won't even be able to follow a scalper, nor would you want to.

What you need to ask is if you could visit different offices with different styles to see which style you like better.
 
keep in mind that you'll need to:

trade small quantities on ISLD/ARCA/etc. initially, say 10, 20, 100 shares

also, to remove the hesitation and trepidation from the thought process, try to see if the firm will help you set up hotkeys.

also, segregate your grub stake or plan on working for a firm, until you're profitable (i.e. without compensation/salary/expense money)

you've got excellent interview questions
..try them over the phone with the firms' Sales Rep, then if you like what you hear, then schedule an interview in the nearest city...

you mentioned you'd relocate, try not to, until this effort pays for itself... unless you have a dote-ing relative (i.e. someone whom you can munch off of)

cheers,

You'll quickly find that a lot of the traders here, have gone through these questions also
 
Originally posted by cashonly


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Cash,

I believe I read on an older thread that you said that they will be changing the Series 7 test this spring, and therefore changing the Series 7 study material.

Do you know if this process has taken place yet?


Thanks,

Ax
 
Just got home from a week-long voyage in Las Vegas. I interviewed with 2 prop firms while I was there. Redwood Trading and Bright Trading. Don was kind enough to see me less than 20 hours before he was going in for open heart surgery (hope all's well).

A new college grad is going to have a tough time trying to find a trading job in this market. By the sounds of it, no one is going to fully back any new blood. All firms are going to require $10K-$25 capital contribution. I think they are only going to hire and stake experienced, superstar-traders looking for a switch.

Axe
 
Your questions for the interview are only one side of the transaction.
How do you respond to the questions they ask you?This will be much more important to weather or not you get in the door.
The interviewer will want to know"What do you bring to the table?"
Why you instead of 50 other guys that want to trade without risk to their own capital?
These are some things to consider before worrying about questions you may ask.
Just some thoughts from an "old-timer".
 
Originally posted by dilman57
Your questions for the interview are only one side of the transaction.
How do you respond to the questions they ask you?This will be much more important to weather or not you get in the door.
The interviewer will want to know"What do you bring to the table?"
Why you instead of 50 other guys that want to trade without risk to their own capital?
These are some things to consider before worrying about questions you may ask.
Just some thoughts from an "old-timer".
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Dilman,

I completely agree with you. I was reading a discussion on Vault.com about the hiring practices at Susquehanna and they fire off a bunch of Bayes Theorem probability questions during the phone interview. I haven't taken a statistics class in over 2 years, so I'd have to brush up on my skills if I knew questions like that were coming. So yes, you'd have to be ready for anything going into an interview.

Does anyone have any comments they'd like to share about their hiring experience at places like Schonfeld, ETG, Generic, etc.??

Axe
 
Originally posted by liltrdr
Was Redwood the same as Bright?
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No, Redwood was not the same as Bright. They only have about 6 guys trading in their Vegas office (1 stone cold newbie). Everybody trades differenently...some guys trade level II, one guy trades pairs, etc. They have offices in San Fran, Vegas, Miami, and one opening in Orange County. They said they were owned by a larger parent company (forgot the name) out of San Francisco. I'm not sure, but I would think this would make Redwood a "sub-LLC". They also have a few "customers" that come in a trade their own account. Commissions were 1 cent per share and they usually want some capital contribution.

The one principal who interviewed me was very courteous and had a lot of experience prop trading. He said they are not looking to expand too much in the Vegas office. They only want to hire about 1 or 2 superstars.

Herein lies the rub; why will prop firms only back "superstars" when its the superstars who really don't need the financial assistance? If were a superstar from the past few years, surely I would have a measly $25K lying around that I could contribute the LLC of my choice.


Axe
 
A superstar would want to be backed b/c it reduces his risk. It's not his money at stake. And the firm benefits from his experience, commissions etc. It might be a real morale booster too in the office.
 
Your risk is only what you put up. Why would a guy with a seven-figure income care about 25 or 50K contribution? Sounds kinda fishy.
 
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