Welcome back to the group's first meeting of 2008 and first meeting for a few months.
Things have settled down quite a bit for me in terms of time I'm able to contribute to organizing, and I'd like to again invite folks to participate in regular group meetings.

I thought it would be a great idea to get the momentum going again if we were to focus on something relevant as well as fun that would encourage group participation and benefit everyone across instruments and markets.

Whether you are interviewing or hiring, interview word problems are a common technique used to assess the problem solving ability of potential candidates.

My recommendation is that all attendees pick an interesting and/or common problem used in interviews you have participated in. Print the problem out on 8.5" x 11" paper and make about 10 copies for the group.

We will go through each problem and attempt to answer it collectively and discuss why this problem is/is not a useful gauge for assessing candidate problem solving abilities and what you or an employer would look for in terms of solving "intractable" problems.

Great sources are the Wilmott online forums, "Heard On the Street" by Timothy Crack and of course your experiences interviewing and being interviewed.

Looking forward to seeing you soon,

Location :

Cafe Fuego
9 St. Mark's Place
NY, NY 10003
[masked]
3rd Ave & St. Marks
[Close to 6, R & W trains]
http://maps.google.co...

http://cooperbricolag...

Suggested Agenda:

1-introductions
introduce yourself and the nature of your background and interest in financial engineering
Let us know also what you would like to get from group meetings and the group in general
2-group discussion on interview questions 45 mins
participants who have brought interview questions will then "chair" the question and/or participate
in the problem solving of an interesting interview question.
3-projects discussion 15 mins
progress on group projects. Discussion of the most useful projects type of projects to be working on.
4-scheduling for recruiter visits 15 mins
The contracting firm I work for (as a contractor, not recruiter!) :-), is interested in meeting with the group for employment and training opportunities. I'd like to discuss what they have availability and gauge interest for a potential visit.