Here’s some insight into the world of Hedge Fund recruitment courtesy of CNBC. In the old days the Hedge funds would often just steal the best talent working at banks. However with Banks trading floors collapsing in size and they divesting themselves of proprietary trading operations it means the pool of talent has decreased significantly. Hence why it’s interesting to see that Steve Cohen’s new fund has a 12 month trader training school as part of its set-up.

This is at a time when Hedge funds are not what they once where. In the old days they were proper ‘absolute-return’ funds and you could expect double (and sometimes even triple) digit growth. These days Hedge Funds has become a misnomer for all sorts of funds, many of which struggle to beat the market index. So why would a youngster want to join a fund when they could head off to an exciting tech start-up instead?

I have been fortunate enough to have done some recruitment for Hedge-Funds. It’s always a fascinating experience where you get to learn a great deal about how funds are set-up, what their expectations are….and you also see the good, the bad and the ugly in terms of candidates!