Hedge Funds interview preparation

Questions

100

Traced to a firm

39

Firms

16

Updated

September 2026

Asked at

All firmsMan Group10Balyasny Asset Management7Bridgewater Associates3DED.E. Shaw3Apollo Global Management2KKR2Oaktree Capital Management2Point722SCSquarepoint Capital2ACAQR Capital Management1BGBaupost Group1Coatue Management1HPS Investment Partners1Northern Trust1Viking Global Investors1Wolverine Trading1

Topic

All topicsStrategy taxonomy8Stock pitch10Short selling6Portfolio construction8Risk and drawdown8Performance and alpha7Event-driven and merger arb8Distressed and credit5Fund structure and economics7Financing, NAV and operations6Compliance and research process5Quant and systematic6India and Category III AIFs5Career and fit11

Level

AnyCoreIntermediateHard

Type

AnyTechnicalMarket viewBrainteaserCaseFit

1. 009Pitch me a stock.Stock pitchIntermediateevery roundMan GroupEquity Hedge · London · 2016Apollo Global ManagementInvestments · Remote · 2021

   Say this

   Trade first, then the business, then the variant view, then the catalyst, then the risk and what would make you wrong. Ninety seconds. At a hedge fund the variant view and the catalyst are the only parts that get you hired; everything else is table stakes.

   Then walk it

   1. Open with the position, not the company. 'Long X at 62, target 85, roughly 35 percent upside over twelve to eighteen months, and I would size it at 4 percent of the book.' Sizing in the opening line is what separates a fund pitch from a research note.
   2. Two sentences on the business. What it sells, to whom, and the one operating metric that drives the P&L.
   3. The variant view, quantified. 'Consensus has 9 percent revenue growth next year. I think it is 14, because the two contracts announced in April are not in the sell-side models yet and they are worth 5 points of growth.' Name the number consensus has and the number you have.
   4. The catalyst and the clock. What makes the market agree, and when. A quarterly print, a capacity ramp, a contract renewal, an index event, a capital markets day. Without a dated catalyst it is an opinion, not a position.
   5. The bear case with a price on it. 'If the contracts slip a year I lose about 15 percent.' Then the asymmetry: 35 up against 15 down justifies the position even at even odds.
   6. Close with the falsifier and the hedge. The one disclosure you would watch, and how you would express it, whether outright long or paired against a competitor to strip out the sector move.

   Where candidates lose it

   Pitching a mega-cap with a thesis from the financial press. If the reason is in the newspaper it is in the price. Also, never pitch without a number for the bear case and a sizing view. A hedge fund interviewer is testing whether you think in positions, not in recommendations.

   Expect next

   • How would you hedge it?
   • What is the bear case, and what does the stock do in it?
   • Who is on the other side of this trade and why are they wrong?

   Reported by candidates at Man Group (Equity Hedge, London, 2016); Apollo Global Management (Investments, Remote, 2021). Source: Wall Street Oasis.

Firm tags come from public, anonymous candidate reports on Wall Street Oasis: strong signal, not sworn testimony. Firms are named as the places a question was reported, not as partners of Fin Maverick. Answers are written for this page to show how to think out loud; they are not scripts to recite.