Good Evening Mike,
I know you’re busy so I will keep this short. I have dreamed of trading for SMB capital since I was a Sophomore in college about 7 years ago. I am a retail trader who mainly focuses on option spreads and asymmetric return trades by way of LEAP options, but I want to apply and make the switch to proprietary trading at SMB in the future. Is there anything I can do over the next 2 to 3 years to prepare me to impress your recruiters so that I can have a shot? Should I be focusing on having steady returns to show or refining a strategy? Any advice is appreciated and thank you for listening!
@MikeBellafiore
Mostly, we wold love to see a track record of active short-term trading. Nothing would impress us more.
We would love to see that you have coding skills so that you can deploy the technology at our firm, with alerts, scripts and automated models.
We would love to see that you fit into our culture of improving everyday. We like being around elite performers.
We would love to see a demonstrable history of success. It doesn’t matter what you have excelled at in the past, just show us you have won.
We would love to see that you are a team player and will add value to our Teams. We are not interested in spending three years developing you as a trader, without you giving back to the firm in ways other than PnL.
We would love to see that you will push the keys and take risk. We need for you to make 7-figures to impact our firm PnL so that means traders who will trade big.
We would love to see that you know who we are, what we do, and what we offer. This shows conscientiousness. If you will not prepare properly for an interview with us, why would we think you would prepare properly for each trading session?
We want to get a feel that you can figure things out. Yes, you will be trained. Yes, you will sit around highly profitable traders. Yes, you will be armed with capital and technology. Yes, you will be exposed to trading edge. But at some point you have to build your trading business from all of this. And this requires talent that can figure stuff out.
We want to get a feel that you are deservedly self-confident. I may be standing on an island internally with this thought. But there is a feeling I get from talking to our top traders that they just BELIEVE in themselves. Perhaps this is indigenous to our firm. But that is what I observe from my seat.
We want to get a feel that you can process information quickly at the highest of levels. Short-term trading requires an ability to process information quickly. You cannot teach talent, goes the saying. And we need talent to walk the halls intraday for us to succeed.
We want to get a feel that we will like being around you for the next many years to follow. This is pretty self-explanatory. We want to win and enjoy what we are doing. That requires being surrounded by high character, high quality people.
We want to believe that you can be a 7-figure trader, whether as a discretionary, hybrid or automated trader.
If this is you, please consider applying here.
*no relevant positions
