CONFESSIONS OF A SERIAL INTERVIEWEE: Close encounters with an algebra addict

I did three or four rounds of interviews with a start-up hedge fund a few years ago (pre-crisis) and finally made it to the point of meeting the main partner.

The guy was pretty intimidating. He was a Mathematics PhD, was once a partner at a heavy-weight hedgie, and now was running his own show.

To give you an indication as to how serious this was, he had seeded the new fund with his own equity (the mind-numbing takings from his previous payouts). Here, investors were optional.

I'm meeting him in his slick offices and get taken to the inner sanctum, his private meeting room, adjoining his office.

We make small talk as he looks at my CV for the first time (clearly I am not a priority today). He discusses how my role will involve doing any and everything from balance sheets to fetching coffee at Manon to booking flights for he and the wife to and from the Cayman Islands.

If I want 'in' at this shop, I start right at the bottom.

I always knew I spent all those years at Uni to be a PA.

He then notices that I studied mathematics at undergraduate level. He promptly stands up and writes the opening lines of a theorem I haven't seen for years on a white board. He then passes the marker pen to me and tells me to complete it.

Ah.... Blank.

It turns out you are not even worthy of making coffee in a Hedge fund if you don't know your algebra proofs. It made me feel a little better that even this Einstein was leveraged- long Bear Sterns stock... to the bitter, bitter end. The end of the fund too as it turns out.

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