Trader applicants have rated the interview process at Optiver with 3.6 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 56% positive. To compare, the company-average is 49.1% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Trader roles take an average of 22 days to get hired, when considering 139 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Optiver overall takes an average of 20 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Optiver as a Trader according to 139 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 31%
Skills test: 17%
IQ intelligence test: 15%
One on one interview: 13%
Personality test: 6%
Presentation: 6%
Group panel interview: 5%
Background check: 3%
Other: 3%
Drug test: 2%
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I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Optiver (Edinburgh, Scotland) in Oct 2014
Interview
The first stage was "assessment centre". I only had to sit through the first 8min test, as I only managed to answer 49 questions (pass was 55). The questions were "easy" equivalent on what you can find in tradertest, but it also includes fractions which, for me personally, made it much more difficult, as answers were given in different denominators. The questions are really not too difficult and it is definitely doable if you practise enough. I had only one day to prepare so I did not get enough practise and failed the test. Surprisingly, there was one guy who answered all 80 questions and had one minute left... Also, I do not really understand their system, but at first they mention that every skipped or answered wrong question will subtract two points. However, when our results were given, it seemed like each wrong question was -1. Not quite sure about this.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Questions are difficult, but the given time makes it difficult. There isn't even time to do something on scrap paper, you have to calculate everything in your head.
Standard - tough maths questions on probabilities and different risk games.
Nice smart people who challenge you throughout the process.
Tough overall experience but good relatability to role and requirements.
spent about 1.5 months pretty much purely dedicated to preparing for interviews for all the pre-penultimate programs (Optiver, IMC, JS, SIG, Citadel, etc). I used these resources:
Green book (Really good starter but I got bored of it after a few weeks)
EverythingQuant (Went through literally every single interview prep question, went through the interview guides, and completed the probability course just to make sure I covered all bases)
Briefly read through this guide
Watched coding Jesus in my spare time (not sure if this helped directly lmao but he’s a great creator and very informative)
Mental math test, beat the odds, online puzzle like games etc online, brain teasers during physical interview and a behavioral interview where they want to assess how competitive and assertive you are.