We've heard that one of the best books to prepare for a "strat" interview at Goldman Sachs or a quant job at a hedge fund is "Heard On The Street: Quantitative Questions from Wall Street Job Interviews" by MIT PhD Timothy Falcon Crack.
Strats — short for strategists — work on trading floors alongside the traders creating models for pricing and risk management, etc. The job description is similar to that of a quantitative analyst, but quants typically aren't on the trading floor.
Interviews for these sorts of positions tend to be heavily focused on math and candidates are also drilled with brainteasers.
"Heard On The Street" features hundred of quantitative, logic, derivatives, statistics and non-quantitative questions compiled from real Wall Street job interviews. Dr. Crack's book also has a detailed answer key for how to solve the quantitative questions.
"Many of the questions collected and presented here are 'classics' that appear year-after-year without fail. However, this book is definitely not for people who just want 'The Answers' to such questions. Such people are archetypal sheep in wolves' clothing, and they are quickly identified as such in an interview," Crack writes in the book's preface.
There are also a bunch of entertaining anecdotes throughout the text. For example, Dr. Crack explains how one of his students at a Goldman interview was given a pencil and a sheet of paper and asked to draw a picture of himself.
Of course, the book isn't just for those pursuing a career at Goldman. It's a great resource for many people pursuing a position at an investment bank or hedge fund.
"While the book is geared towards more technical positions and does involve a fair amount of math, I would still recommend it even if you are looking for a non-technical position with a hedge fund or an i-bank, since this book contains a lot of brain teasers and logical questions that are commonly asked in all finance interviews to test how well you can think on your feet and under time pressure," reviewer "spaceman" wrote on Amazon.
The book isn't cheap, though. We were able to get a used 9th edition for about $35. Some of the newer copies were about $89 and we saw a few that were over $100. But hey, if you get the job it's definitely worth the investment.
We've included a few of the sample questions from the book below. There are non-quantitative (thinking) questions and then purely quantitative/logic questions.
"How many elevators (i.e. 'lifts' if you are British) are there in the US?"
"Heard On The Street: Quantitative Questions from Wall Street Job Interviews"
"How many ping-pong balls can you fit in a jumbo jet (e.g., Boeing 747)?"
"Heard On The Street: Quantitative Questions from Wall Street Job Interviews"
"How would you move Mount Fuji?"
"Heard On The Street: Quantitative Questions from Wall Street Job Interviews"
See the rest of the story at Business Insider