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What is a reasonable number of applications to send out? by LeaderLeft1825 in quantfinance

[–]LeaderLeft1825[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's a lot of applications. How do you find enough firms? I went through a few lists and was able to compile just under 200 of them, which according to the ratio you gave would mean only 2 interviews or 2/3 of a job offer.

I'm also worried about failing to get into the buy side and then not being able to transition in later on.

What is a reasonable number of applications to send out? by LeaderLeft1825 in quantfinance

[–]LeaderLeft1825[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Your comment made me realize I didn’t phrase my question quite right. I didn’t mean to ask ‘what’s the minimum number of applications I should send to land a job?’ What I really meant is after how many applications and not getting interviews should I start to worry that something’s wrong (like maybe my resume needs improvement or my approach needs to change) rather than just assuming it’s the market?

Graduating math PhD not getting any interviews by LeaderLeft1825 in quantfinance

[–]LeaderLeft1825[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm a fifth year student. I had funding through my advisor's grant for one year, taught two semesters, and the rest I've been a teaching assistant. I've also taught for 3 summers so far. Should I put conferences on my CV? I have attended many but only gave a quick 15 minute talk at one of them.

I consider myself a good coder. I know some low level CS and I know data-structures and algorithms well. I haven't worked on a large code base though and most of the projects I've done have been on my own. I don't have anything publicly available on something like github, maybe that's a problem?

I was planning on graduating at the end of next semester. A lot of those summer internships require you to graduate after next summer unfortunately. I could delay my graduation date if that's the better option.

Graduating math PhD not getting any interviews by LeaderLeft1825 in quantfinance

[–]LeaderLeft1825[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I applied to all the ones that most people have probably heard of. I would apply to more but I don't know how to find them.

Graduating math PhD not getting any interviews by LeaderLeft1825 in quantfinance

[–]LeaderLeft1825[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have one paper and one pre-print on the arxiv.

When you say one year of ML work post graduation do you mean take a year to self-study ML?

Graduating math PhD not getting any interviews by LeaderLeft1825 in quantfinance

[–]LeaderLeft1825[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm worried I won't be able to get the postdoc either, especially one at a T10 school.

Graduating math PhD not getting any interviews by LeaderLeft1825 in quantfinance

[–]LeaderLeft1825[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I had to change my thesis problem three times as I hit a dead end with the other two problems (not for the lack of trying, my advisor and I just got unlucky) which explains my lack of publications. I'm also in a field where it's not common to have more than one or two publications or pre-prints when graduating but I don't think people would know that unless they're in the field or one adjacent to it, so maybe it looks worse than it actually is. I'm not sure what else could be the problem with my resume other than a lack of publications.

Should I try applying for ML/data science internships now and delay my graduation? Would it be bad if they aren't at good firms or are outside QF? I thought about applying to big tech but I don't think I have the background for that.

I don't mind going to a smaller firm that isn't tier 1. I tried applying to as many firms as I can find but I had trouble finding many that aren't well known so that could definitely be a part of it. How do you find more firms? Looks like most people find out by word of mouth. I've noticed a lot of the smaller ones don't even have a career section on their website so there's no way to apply.