I applied for the role of Junior Trader online in March 2019. I was promptly sent an email inviting me to come to their office to sit a test. The test was a 20 minute arithmetic test (no calculators) followed by a 20 minutes Options test. I was advised in the email that it would be helpful to do some study prior to the test. This included some reading on : The Greeks, Pay offs, Market Awareness and simple pricing theory. I booked myself in for the test using a link and gave myself one week to read up on the theory. I visited to the office in April 2019 and was met by one of the traders. After completing a few online tests prior to meeting anyone face to face at other trading companies I had applied, I did think this was a nice personal touch from Exponential. I met with Dan, he explained he was one of the Traders hired by the company two years ago. He told me about the growth and the culture of the company. He also told me about his day to day role as a trader, it was really good to be able to ask him some questions. He then gave me some direction on the test. He explained the marking system – some negative marking applied to some questions so it was best not to guess. I managed to complete around 80% of the arithmetic test in the 20 minutes allocated, it was tough though! Dan then asked me a few mental maths questions, I had to think on the spot, but think I did ok in these. Next was the options test, I had done the reading suggested which I was very glad of. I received a call about three days after the test to say I had made it to a second interview. Again I was talked through what to do in the second interview and advised to do some study. The second interview was more ‘presentation style’. I had to explain some trading concepts and was given various scenarios to test my decision making. At this point I got confused and made a few silly errors. When these errors were explained back to me, it made perfect sense. This interview I actually got to meet Ebon who is the founder of the company. He was very inspiring, modest and humble but you could see that he was so passionate about trading and really wanted to pass that knowledge on. I got a call after the second interview to say I hadn’t progressed to offer stage. This came as no surprise to me but I was provided on such good feedback and areas for me to work on in the future. Even though I did not get offered a position from Exponential I had a really positive interview experience and I really learned from that process. I got to meet some of the team including the founder, and also visit their amazing offices with harbour views. Their interview process is tough, but if you do your study and apply yourself it is well worth it.

The process took about 4 weeks, I made it to the second round and I was a bit too slow on a mental arithmetic problem so they turned me away. But it was a great process with good feedback and I would definitely apply again