Quartz – Ten years ago, hedge funds were relatively unknown entities. Often they were made up of Wall Street vets who had tired of the corporate culture at big investment banks and saw opportunities to make more money by going out on their own. They prized the freedom and flexibility of a financial start-up over the relative stuffiness of big banks.
But the funds had difficulty attracting junior hires, and often didn’t want any; some fund managers rejected the many levels of bureaucracy at the big banks they had once worked for, says one recruiter who has placed candidates at hedge funds and alternative asset managers for the last 16 years.
But that’s changed recently. Several recruiters that specialize in hedge funds told Quartz that funds are busy filling out their lower rungs—generally, with recent bachelor’s and master’s graduates from prestigious universities with zero to three years’ experience.
“The bias is for them to look for fresh analysts,” said one recruiter, who spoke off the record. ”You kind of want a tabula rasa where you can imbue on them your own perspective and philosophy.”
