When to turn down interviews

[AlexanderMcFarlane]

My first question is: When should I reject interviews?
My second question is: Are there jobs out there for new quants with relevant internships in the Autumn as most recruitment seems to happen in the winter?

I'm short on time due to the volume of modules on my Msc course. I am unable to take time to even prepare for tel interviews. I am also studying theor-physics, which has little do with the traditional probability or array sorting questions one might cover in an maths/stats course in semester.

Thus far, I have accepted all telephone ints but they are all taking nearly 1hr of my day up. I am also concerned about the time I will lose in an assessment centre and consequently turned down two centres already. I feel I am missing out on a key recruitment cycle in doing so, hence my second question.

 

[Alexandre Chretien]

Do you even want the jobs?
What are you priorities? Theoretical physics or landing a job?

 

[DavidHilbert]

My first question is: Why do you even apply for jobs, when you don't want to do interviews?

As far as I know you already told us few times how extremely busy you are with your coursework, as if everyone else interviewing has nothing else to do.
My first advice would be: First determine what you want to do and then do it, whether it is finding a job or doing stuff for school (most people I know can do both at once though).
Second: Stop taking yourself so seriously. Even the busiest Ph.D. student at any top school has time for doing interviews...

 

[F.Fontana]

Instead of asking question 1, you could consider to avoid applying to those jobs such that you wouldn't take or you are in doubt of taking the interviews. Doing so, you could also save the time needed to complete the applications.
I don't think that exist a specific answer for the second question since it seems quite vague to me.

 

[AlexanderMcFarlane]

As far as I know you already told us few times how extremely busy you are with your coursework

I must apologise as I've never taken myself that seriously before doing my postgrad! Working in a room with no windows and only Lagrangians to talk to, after a year of snowboarding every day, one does tend to lose a bit of perspective

I think you all for your quick and honest responses: that's why I particularly appreciate this forum. I think my priorities are misaligned. There will always be people looking for quantitative grads and conversely there will not be multiple opportunities to graduate with the grades I am pursuing.

Edit* In a funny way, this post is actually a bit ironic... I time all my activities to reduce distractions and the irony being that in the 30mins it took to post here I could have prepared for a tel int :D ... anyway thanks again for the advice.