"Quant finance recruiters think they're the best... they don't know they're in a bubble"
I’m a quantitative finance recruiter in London. I'm good, but I know many quant recruiters who are not. Many recruiters in my space say they partner with hedge funds and electronic trading firms, but they aren’t really competing at a high level, even the biggest ones.
Some tier one recruitment firms are perceived as good because they’ve been around for so long, and they have volume, but their individual recruiters can be weak. Every recruiter at these firms seem to think they’re the best. They are simply trading off the cult of their firm.
The reality is, there's a quant recruitment bubble.
Beyond those top tier recruitment firms, others only do work in bits and pieces. A lot of them are reliant on luck. Many quant recruiters don’t actually know much. They rely on a really aggressive approach to find candidates, since that's what the industry seems to prefer, and they aren’t selective enough. Some recruiters are even sending very long voice notes to candidates they’ve never spoken to before. They’re ruining the reputation of all the quant recruiters in the industry.
Good recruiters are out there, but they're few and far between. Luckily, there's a way to spot them. If they can demonstrate that they know managers or partners at a firm, and can introduce you to them, you'll know they have a good working relationship. It's good to ask a headhunter who they've placed into a firm you're discussing. If a recruiter can't introduce you to people and is just sending you to the black hole of an HR job portal... you'd be better off applying on your own.
Johnson Falworth is a pseudonym
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