Susquehanna International Group Internship

[calhawk]

Internship posting
Resume - Fullscreen -- The second part of the resume was not included when I submitted the application online. However, I did email the formulas to HR and others at Susquehanna.

My career goal is to become a trader. I enjoy looking at charts. I started trading at the end of my sophomore year at college. I have a passion for trading and the financial markets. I enjoy dealing with the uncertainty that the market has to offer. And I perform good around hectic environment. I have placed 1st out of 179 people in a $50 re-buy tournament. The cash out was ~$6100 and average buy-in was 130$. hawko0I | FullTiltPoker - Online Poker Player Profile

Most of my trading career has been directional equity trading. I have a good understand of option theory, corporate finance and market structure. I want to learn from senior traders.

I have learned many lessons after making and losing money in the market. For example:

• It is impossible to time the market
• There is no holy grail - Only proper money management and position sizing.
• Big board stocks can change direction at any moment because of news that is related or even non-related to the company.
• Trading toward the $INDU can significantly increase your odds of having a successful trade
• Ninety percent of all stocks at any given time or day follow the same/similar pattern
• There are simply too many variables that affect the "dominating" trend for the market on any given day.

I have already submitted my application for the Trading Assistant Internship at Susquehanna International Group. I have tried to network with people at the firm by sending them emails and phone calls. What are the chances that I would be able to obtain this internship?

I have passion for trading and I want to trade for rest of my life. I live in MD, and in the past year I have seen zero internships that are trading related. This internship is in PA - About 1.5 hours away.

---------- Post added at 10:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:45 PM ----------

Recently I have been feeling pretty bad because I have spent many months trying to look for trading related jobs/internships/mentor; I've tried to network with traders etc. But none is willing to give me a chance. Please give me some advices. I will be graduating with my bachelors in two more semesters. Originally I was suppose to graduate next semester but starting this semester I've decided to add mathematics to my minor (it doesn't show in the resume that I posted). The minor requires 24 credits. I am taking the following courses:
Discrete Mathematics
Calc 1
Calc 2
Probability
Differential equations
Mathematical finance
Can someone tell me what the hell am I suppose to do so I can get a trading job! Excuse my language, I'm just frustrated, depressed and feel pretty bad..

 

[ThinkDifferent]

what the hell am I suppose to do so I can get a trading job!

why the hell you restrict yourself to a trading job only?

 

[calhawk]

Because I enjoy trading and that is what I want to do..

 

[Andy Nguyen]

That's different from asking people to pay you to trade their money. You can always trade your own money, be your boss and do what you love.
You are competing with people with advanced knowledge, training, experience for fewer and fewer trading positions.

Why would anyone hire you?

 

[calhawk]

That's different from asking people to pay you to trade their money. You can always trade your own money, be your boss and do what you love.
You are competing with people with advanced knowledge, training, experience for fewer and fewer trading positions.

Why would anyone hire you?

What kind of advanced knowledge and training can a undergraduate student have? I understand the competition must be intense but one would think that a student who busted his butt maintaining a GPA that is above 3.0 and traded full time would get at least an interview for an INTERNSHIP. This isn't a paid job and yes the competition is intense but my competitors are my peer students and not professional traders.

They should hire me because my passion is trading and I took the initiative of entering the market with my own capital. Here's a thought, If your life counted on a intern that had the following duties:

•Disseminating information to floor traders and producing reports for risk managers.
•Following daily reports of dividends, earnings and news.
•Assisting the market maker in maintaining an orderly market by matching trades, maintaining positions and calculating Profit & Loss.
•Facilitating information flow between product traders and research teams.

Would you hire a student with zero trading background from MIT or a student who has trading knowledge but goes to a "non glorified" university? Obtaining this internship is important to my professional career for years to come. Correct me if I am wrong, but having the knowledge of fundamentals analysis is vital for anyone if they want to advance in the financial industry. I tend to think that a trader has two sides. One side is fundamental and the other side is technical/quantitative. I am gaining my fundamental understanding of the market through my major, Finance. I learned technical analysis and developed trading strategies during my entrepreneurial trading career. Obviously, I wasn't successful but It did teach me a lot of valuable lessons that all traders ultimately have to learn.

 

[joel_b]

My two cents, which is not authoratative in any way, as I'm been mostly self-employed.

They may not want people with trading experience, so they can train in their own style.

If you don't know anyone at the firm, the emails and phone calls to employees could be just harrassing them and they've started ignoring you. Why would you send multiple emails to HR and other people if you have no audience with them? That's a red flag for me.

Hell, they are likely still accepting applications, do you even know?

The posting is pretty clear about hiring people from technical backgrounds and programming is encouraged. Your major is buisness, and a minor is economics...if you are know adding a minor in Math it isn't even mentioned on your resume. So to them, you're not taking many technical classes at all.

Top candidates would be providing their grades as well, you posit that having a GPA over 3 should be good enough, it's not. Providing the formulas is too much IMO, you leave nothing for them to interview you about. Plus, they may think those strategies aren't that useful.

We also can't tell what you said in your cover letter, if you came across like you do in these posts, I don't know if I would ring you up. You sound a little desperate for someone with some experience and their whole life ahead of them. You sound like you're trying to sell yourself to us, but it's your competition you need to be concerned with, and I really think you underestimate the pool of applicants, and their qualifications.

I don't know why you would be so fixated on one position. You're young, you have some experience, you should just be looking to get into a good firm in any capacity and go from there. Like someone else said, very few people would get hired as a trader right out of school, you should broaden your search.

You worked for a trading firm already, what happened? Was this an internship? Why can't you leverage their assistance to give you an audience with other firms? Will they not help you?

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I have passion for trading and I want to trade for rest of my life.

No, you won't. I don't see any 50-60 yo traders walking around the last time I worked on a trading floor.
The shelf time of a trader is relatively short. What is the average shelf life of a career, do you know?
Chalk it to the environment: high pressure, hectic life style, high turn over rate, changes in technology, increasing complexity in product and knowledge required.

If you are good at trading, be an independent trader.

Here is what you can do for the moment, upload your resume. You never know, one of the hiring people googling for SIG/trading talent may contact you.

But I'm going to warn you that an attitude of entitlement for anything but a trading job will do you more harm than good.

Let's us keep a healthy and grounded perspective on career in this field. Nothing turns off prospective employers more than seeing ignorant and clueless wannabes.

 

[iHateVariance]

dnt want to sound arrogant or anything. i think SIG does value success in poker. but one win dsnt imply that u have edge over ur competition. variance is there and u can be on either side when it hits u (u can go to AC put all on red and win). from what i hear those games are hard, if u can beat mid/high (50r/100r/50c/100) stakes online over a gd sample 1500+ games that is very impressive. some kids online are very gd and would prbly make great traders. their PnL is straight line with a sample of 50k+ games at low mid stakes and they know everything about variance and bankroll management. they always ontop of competition by going through hand histories modelling their opponents and looking for +EV spots.

 

[euroazn]

Not only are your "formulas" very primitive, your resume... is disappointing.
I mean, Towson was not your best choice for any finance-career.

Good luck, but please be realistic.

 

[alain]

I mean, Towson was not your best choice for any finance-career.

why not? could you explain?

 

[euroazn]

Unfortunately, Towson has neither the rankings nor location nor network for significant career opportunities. And I'm a Maryland resident and know quite a few people that went/go to Towson.

 

[Scooot]

I can probably add something to this discussion.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
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I know a great deal of poker players and I know a few that already work for SIG. I know of more that I have indirect contact with as well.<o:p></o:p>
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From the little I've read here, you don't seem like the type of person they are looking for. I don't mean to offend you but that’s just the read I get from this thread.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
SIG doesn't look for specific poker skills per se...they are looking for individuals that can handle managing risk and understand where value and "skill" or "edge" is derived from....this is typically shown in winning poker players and is something not easily taught and generally takes some time to learn.<o:p></o:p>
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This isn't the only thing they look for however and its foolish to think otherwise in my opinion. I wish having a solid poker background and strong understanding of the game was enough to work there, then I'd be working there along with the thousands of others just like you.<o:p></o:p>
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Unfortunately, these positions are very competitive and just having a "desire to trade" and some poker history is not enough.<o:p></o:p>
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I'd assume they'd easily hire an MIT grad with no experience in trading/poker that shows brains in a technical degree over you. I wouldn't fault them either. I think it's easier to train a smart person to learn to trade than it is take someone familiar with trading and teach them to be smart. Take that for what it's worth.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
These are just my assumptions and could be wrong.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
What I do know is that they've hired a few positions in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Ireland</st1:place></st1:country-region> and some of the hires were graduates in physics and mathematics that didn't even know what an option is. That probably can answer this question for you:

Would you hire a student with zero trading background from MIT or a student who has trading knowledge but goes to a "non glorified" university?

<o:p></o:p>
SIG has an amazing training program...they don't need people with desire about the markets or someone that has been trading for their own account...they need intelligent, level headed candidates with technical skills.<o:p></o:p>
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From what it looks like, I don't think you're there yet.<o:p></o:p>
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Also, if you want to leverage your poker skills....don't use SNG/MTTs to showcase your ability. I can promise you that cash games will look more favorable.<o:p></o:p>

We also can't tell what you said in your cover letter, if you came across like you do in these posts, I don't know if I would ring you up. You sound a little desperate for someone with some experience and their whole life ahead of them. You sound like you're trying to sell yourself to us, but it's your competition you need to be concerned with, and I really think you underestimate the pool of applicants, and their qualifications.

I agree 100% and couldn't have said it better.


Also agree with Ihatevariance as well. Stating that you won one MTT actually probably hurts you more than it helps since it almost shows your lack of understanding of long term results, variance and being results oriented. This is also why I think cash games would sound better on a application....and this all assumes that the people reading them and interviewing know about poker....and from those that I have spoken with about SIG hiring, this was not the case.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[iddqd]

I have friends that work at SIG and have worked with the company professionally (as a software vendor). You don't have the profile they are looking for.

Also like others have said anyone can win one tournament (see: Jerry Yang). The 100R on Stars is one of the toughest games on the net and I will assume the 50R on Tilt will be almost as much but you would need a sample size of at least 1000 games, probably much more, to get their attention. Stating your results as you have would show a complete lack of understanding and would be a turnoff.