I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Optiver (London, England) in Jan 2016
Interview
Had an online numerical test with 80 relatively easy maths questions in 8 mins. 1 point for every correct answer, -2 for each wrong or unanswered question. 54 i think was the threshold. I passed that and was invited for an HR telephone interview. Asked about my reasons for wanting to do trading, why did I choose Optiver etc. Very friendly person from HR. Then got invited for a numerical assessment in London. 3 maths tests, first was 80 maths questions in 8 minutes, the same as the online test. The next round was a sequences test and the final one was like the first one but not as time pressured. The first was probably the most difficult because of time, but the second one was also tricky. Make sure you practise different types of numerical sequences. Next round is a technical Skype interview, haven't had that yet.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
whats the next number in the sequence: 1/2,1/3,1/6,1/18,1/108,...?
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.
OA was weird and hard. there was only three sections (i think) this year compared to 5 last year. questions are weird and I don't know how they can judge your ability base on that.
