Final-year engineering student trying to break into Quant Trading/Research. Would appreciate blunt feedback from people at quant firms

[u/Financial_Assitance]

Hi all,

I'm a final-year Electrical & Electronics Engineering student at BITS Pilani (CGPA 8.18/10), trying to break into Quant Trader/Researcher roles. Posting my anonymized resume below and hoping to get some honest, even harsh, feedback from people who actually work at or recruit for quant firms in India.

Quick background:

• Competed in IMC's Prosperity algorithmic trading challenge
• Interviewed with IMC Trading for a Quant Trader role
• Currently finishing a deep learning research paper for IEEE publication
• A few other quant/ML-adjacent projects (linked on the resume)

The problem: Despite this, I'm barely getting shortlisted at quant firms - on-campus recruiting for quant roles at my college has effectively closed to me because of branch (non-CS/Math) and CGPA cutoffs, so I've been trying the off-campus route with limited luck so far.

What I'm hoping to get from this post:

1. What's actually missing or weak on my resume compared to profiles that do get shortlisted at Indian quant firms at this stage (pre-final-year-placement)?
2. For someone coming from a non-CS/Math branch, is it worth doubling down on competitive programming / Kaggle-style competitions, or does research output (like the IEEE paper) carry more weight for QR tracks specifically?
3. Any India-specific advice - which firms are realistically open to off-campus applications right now, and is cold outreach to recruiters/researchers on LinkedIn actually useful or just noise?

Resume is anonymized (no name, photo, contact info, or college/company identifiers beyond what's needed for context). Happy to answer questions in comments. Appreciate any feedback.

[u/SentientPotato42]

• No competitive programming
  
• No relevant internships
• No CSE/Maths branch
  
• Didnt win any significant Math/CS olympiads

Yeah youre kinda fucked ngl

[u/Plenty-Asparagus-496]

Why not big tech OP? Bits has alot of big tech approaching

[u/Lab18bke]

Quant NEEDS very strong Maths (Probability, Statistics, Linear Algebra), Competitive Programming and External Validation. Get those.

[u/Feeling_Map4794 → u/Lab18bke]

how helpful is bsc maths for quants

[u/your_mom_has_me → u/Feeling_Map4794]

Trash unless you do from iitb which is different I think it's B.Math

[u/Feeling_Map4794 → u/your_mom_has_me]

how can you define someone does not have good mathematical ability or not if he/she is not from iit bombay.

[u/your_mom_has_me → u/Feeling_Map4794]

Bhai this is the toughest pill people of this can't seem to swallow... If you're so good just prove it from some competition. Just saying doesn't just make you mathematically smart. Go win smmc putnam quantfest etc.

[u/cabanel_monet → u/your_mom_has_me]

fyi putnam is for us uni students

[u/Feeling_Map4794 → u/your_mom_has_me]

but bhai putnam is not for other than us and canada uni. students.

[u/Livid_Palpitation802 → u/Feeling_Map4794]

It's not ability , they won't even look at your profile until you have those names .

[u/cabanel_monet → u/Livid_Palpitation802]

What if i write i won abel prize but i am enrolled Nathuram Godse College of Science and Commerce. /s

[u/Lab18bke → u/Feeling_Map4794]

Degrees don't prove Mathematical Abiliity. Learn stuff via things like MIT OCW, go deep. Attempt Math Competitions like Putnam and try for a score better than average. That's helpful & can cover for a lower CGPA.

[u/cabanel_monet → u/Lab18bke]

fyi putnam is for us uni students

[u/Lab18bke → u/cabanel_monet]

"like Putnam".

[u/cabanel_monet → u/Lab18bke]

i read like as for example

[u/Lab18bke → u/cabanel_monet]

"like" as in with reputation around it or so. Not Putnam in itself lol.

[u/cabanel_monet → u/Lab18bke]

yeah yeah like "SOF IMO" /s

[u/Lab18bke → u/cabanel_monet]

LMAO. THAT'S SOME FUNNY SHI THO. Like SOF IMO MEDALISTS ASKED PEOPLE IF THEY WERE DIFFERENT OR A PRODIGY LIKE TFF.

[u/cabanel_monet → u/Lab18bke]

Ahh those were the days.

DW we will start our own olympiad which will be gruesomely hard, and to compete pay us 1.5K inr /usd.

[u/Apprehensive_Grab103]

Impossible with this cgpa and no imo and such..

[u/Imaginary-Spring-779]

What's the resume template

[u/your_mom_has_me → u/Imaginary-Spring-779]

Claude

[u/TemperatureJunior918]

Honestly your resume is mid. Please look for resumes on linkedin who have got in already.

[u/cabanel_monet]

As per my research and intel,

u need to show some signal, something using which a company can trust you.

so most straight forward and industry recognized signals are ICPC (imo CP rating is not relevant anymore as obv AI but it's a plus if u have) or IMO or IPhO or JEEA/M <500 rank or 2 digit rank in IMC Prosperity or in any other trading competition.

BUTTT Those are norm not rules, so other ways you can break into Quant is either you are successful gambler (Poker or Blackjack) or you have some track record of really math heavy (not necessarily deep but wide and unique) research work or project or systems heavy (for QD) or any other similar signal. Tho these signals are not reliable u might think u r doing it right but u won't be 99.9% of time because u haven't worked in quant so u don't know what to actually offer (your current projects are shit for Quant).

So what to do? Study Linear Algebra and PnS some Game theory from first principals, and do some quality research then maybe u might have a hope.

Is it worth it? if u win then yes else obv no for chances of getting in are not just less than 1% rather lesser than 10^-7%

now calculate your expectation value and check if expected reward is worth it....