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Most unexpected to me was they ACTUALLY asked the "how many lightbulbs in John Hancock Center" -- it's so ridiculous and unrelated to trading that I had trouble believing this was a possible question when I read reviews, and I actually managed to be unprepared. Note that the webcam interview also asks you to cut/paste URLs that you used to figure the answers out, so it's just a logic/reasoning process. I figured out lumens per square foot, how many SF in the building, how many lumens per bulb, etc. But I didn't do a thorough job of pasting the website addresses in, and the number I came up with was probably way off. They could probably sense my incredulous attitude, because midway through I wondered if I really want to work for a place that throws this kind of crazy out as a measure of a trader, instead of measuring something more relevant like -- oh, I don't know -- maybe my TRADE LOG and SUCCESS RECORD? Or whether my proprietary self-developed methodology could be turned into a profitable algorithm to contribute to the firm's profits? Maybe it was just a test of patience, and in this case I failed.
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Junior Trader

Interviewed at Simplex

4.2★
Nov 9, 2012

Most unexpected to me was they ACTUALLY asked the "how many lightbulbs in John Hancock Center" -- it's so ridiculous and unrelated to trading that I had trouble believing this was a possible question when I read reviews, and I actually managed to be unprepared. Note that the webcam interview also asks you to cut/paste URLs that you used to figure the answers out, so it's just a logic/reasoning process. I figured out lumens per square foot, how many SF in the building, how many lumens per bulb, etc. But I didn't do a thorough job of pasting the website addresses in, and the number I came up with was probably way off. They could probably sense my incredulous attitude, because midway through I wondered if I really want to work for a place that throws this kind of crazy out as a measure of a trader, instead of measuring something more relevant like -- oh, I don't know -- maybe my TRADE LOG and SUCCESS RECORD? Or whether my proprietary self-developed methodology could be turned into a profitable algorithm to contribute to the firm's profits? Maybe it was just a test of patience, and in this case I failed.

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