Bronte Capital is hiring a graduate

We are a small growing hedge fund based in Bondi Junction Sydney Australia making our second external hire. We run our portfolio long-short with longs being (mostly) traditional value investments and shorts being (mostly) an assortment of stock promotes, frauds and failures.

The successful applicant will work mostly with me as a graduate-trainee stock analyst. As we run global equities international travel will be involved.

This blog has a global readership but unfortunately I have to restrict applicants to people who already have Australian Permanent Residency.

The primary requirements are that you are (a) very bright, (b) interested in the investment process and (c) most importantly curious. The job will give you endless opportunity to be curious.

We would like some business experience – however we are very willing to hire straight out of University – and we are happy to delay your start date until you finish your coursework.

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Bronte Capital does not feel like a traditional financial firm. Our stock selection criteria are non-standard, our dress sense is casual (to a fault), and we are situated above a shopping centre and not in the central business district. Our hours are highly flexible (though often quite long).

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Our dream candidate has a ridiculous list of skills and we understand that nobody will have all of these. However we are interested in candidates who have some of the following:

(a). Curiosity – especially about the workings of business and technology. Our interests are very diverse. If you are curious about what determines jet engine efficiency that is interesting to us. If you are curious about how hair dye is marketed that is also interesting to us.

(b). Competent science education. We would prefer a science based degree to a finance/economics based education (even though our ideal candidate has both). What we really want is a bullshit detector – and that can be numeric (as in the numbers make no sense) or scientific (as in that is flat nonsense and here is the falsification) or a combination of both.

(c). Languages. We are a global fund but we have shortcomings in some jurisdictions where English is not the primary language. We have a Mandarin speaker in the team already. However German, French and Japanese would be looked on favourably as we lack these skills and they would be useful.

(d). Enough computer skills to handle the odd largish data project (though our first hire also had considerable computer skills).

(e). Demonstrated interest in the investment process.

We are grade sensitive. Unless you have at least a handful of Distinction grades in a variety of subjects you are unlikely to get the job. We do not require high grade averages. Someone with a handful of High Distinctions in subjects in which they are interested and otherwise pass grades might be a good hire so long as their interests overlap with ours. Curiosity – even in grades and subject selection is valued.

Pay will be competitive. Bonuses are possible depending on a combination of your performance and our performance.

Applications are due by Friday 14 August. Please send these to the email address in the blog and make the subject “Job Application”. [I will sort email on that subject.]

John

Process explained: I will be sorting the applications on the weekend of 15-16. We will offer a largish number of very short interviews in the following two weeks. If you can attend in person that would be better but is not compulsory. Skype is acceptable.

With the last position I interviewed about 40 people but most interviews lasted only five minutes at which point we told the candidate we did not think it would work out. We preferred less conventional candidates and so we chose to interview widely (and reject readily). We don’t want you to take it personally (and it most certainly was not meant personally as many fine people applied).

Less conventional candidates however are encouraged to apply. This process will at least give them a hearing that they might not get from a recruitment consultant.

A handful of short-listed candidates got second interviews. We expect to repeat that process.

Negatives working for Bronte:

To be entirely fair to applicants we should spell out what we believe are the negatives working for Bronte.

The first is that this is a very small team. If you want a large organisation with wide scope this is not for you. You will be trained well but it will be a narrow training as we cannot hand you from department to department giving you a feel for how big organisations work.

The second negative is that being a small organisation you are inevitably “long” us as we will be “long” you. There is career risk. This can be good and bad. If you do well and we do well it might be very good. If either of those things don’t play out this might wind up being a bad career choice. We are fairly sure we will do well – but that is a decision that you are going to have to make and a risk you are going to have to take.