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. 008How large is the hedge fund industry?Strategy taxonomyIntermediatephone / first roundMan GroupEquity Hedge · London · 2016

   Say this

   Around 4 to 4.5 trillion dollars of assets under management, across roughly ten thousand funds, with the largest twenty or thirty firms holding a very large share of it. If I had to build it from scratch I would get there from global institutional assets and an allocation percentage.

   Then walk it

   1. Build it up rather than guess. Global professionally managed assets are of the order of 100 trillion dollars. Institutions allocating to hedge funds put roughly 5 percent of portfolios there, which lands you in the right neighbourhood of a few trillion.
   2. Sanity-check from the other end. A top platform manages 60 to 70 billion of investor capital. Thirty firms of that scale is close to 2 trillion, and the long tail of small funds roughly doubles it.
   3. Then say the important caveat: AUM understates market footprint badly, because these funds run leverage. Gross market exposure across the industry is a large multiple of the equity, which is why hedge funds matter more to market plumbing than 4 trillion suggests.
   4. The concentration point is the real insight. Assets have been consolidating into the largest multi-strategy platforms for a decade, because institutional allocators want operational infrastructure they can underwrite.
   5. Compare it to what it is not: the global mutual fund and ETF complex is an order of magnitude larger. Hedge funds are a small slice of assets and a large slice of turnover.
   6. And flag the measurement problem: nobody counts it cleanly. Definitions differ on whether managed accounts, UCITS alternatives and private credit vehicles are included, so the published numbers vary by a trillion depending on the source.

   Where candidates lose it

   Either freezing because you do not know the number, or firing out a figure with no structure. This is an estimation question dressed as a fact question. Show the build-up, land in the right order of magnitude, and then add the leverage caveat, which is the part that shows industry awareness.

   Expect next

   • How much of that sits with the top twenty firms?
   • Has the industry grown or shrunk over the last five years?
   • How would leverage change your answer?

   Reported by candidates at Man Group (Equity Hedge, London, 2016). Source: Wall Street Oasis.

2. 083What is the angle between the hands of a clock at 3:15?Quant and systematicCorephone / first roundMan GroupEquity Hedge · London · 2016

   Say this

   7.5 degrees. The minute hand is exactly at 90 degrees, but the hour hand has moved a quarter of the way from 3 towards 4, which is a quarter of 30 degrees, so it sits at 97.5. The difference is 7.5.

   Then walk it

   1. Set up the units once and the whole family of these questions becomes trivial. The hour hand moves 360 degrees in 12 hours, so 0.5 degrees per minute. The minute hand moves 360 in 60 minutes, so 6 degrees per minute.
   2. Positions from 12 o'clock: minute hand is 15 times 6, which is 90. Hour hand is 3 times 30 plus 15 times 0.5, which is 90 plus 7.5, so 97.5.
   3. Difference is 7.5 degrees, and it is the smaller of the two angles, which is what the question means unless it says otherwise.
   4. The general formula worth memorising: the angle equals the absolute value of 30 times hours minus 5.5 times minutes. At 3:15 that is 90 minus 82.5, which is 7.5.
   5. The whole trap is the hour hand. Candidates say zero because they picture the hour hand parked on the 3. It is not; it moves continuously, and that is the entire point of the question.
   6. Say the answer, then say the setup in one line. In a phone screen this question is testing whether you can be quick and precise about a small thing, so do not over-narrate.

   Where candidates lose it

   Answering zero. It is by far the most common response and it comes from forgetting that the hour hand moves continuously. Also, say which angle you are giving, the smaller one, and do not spend ninety seconds deriving a formula the interviewer already knows.

   Expect next

   • When is the next time the hands overlap exactly?
   • How many times a day do the hands form a right angle?
   • What is the angle at 9:45?

   Reported by candidates at Man Group (Equity Hedge, London, 2016). 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.