IMC Quantitative Trader Interview Guide
IMC's published Europe process moves from application review to assessment and/or interviews, followed by first and final rounds. The exact tests and sequence depend on your role and office.
Content and official sources reviewed · · Official sources and scope
On this guide
What does the IMC trader interview process look like?
IMC's Europe recruitment page outlines application review, an assessment and/or interview, first rounds, final rounds and an offer decision. It also says the process depends on the role. Treat that as a useful outline—not evidence that every quantitative trader applicant receives identical tests, round counts or timings.
For preparation, connect the maths to a decision: compute an expected value, explain a probability update, make a two-sided quote and change your reasoning when new information arrives. Prepare motivation and collaboration examples alongside the technical work, rather than treating them as a final formality.
Evidence and scope: the official sources below concern IMC Europe and a named Amsterdam graduate vacancy. Other offices and recruiting cycles can differ. Worked problems and practice plans are original EverythingQuant recommendations, not official IMC questions or a guarantee of what will be asked. Unverified candidate accounts are not used to define compulsory stages.
Process at a glance
- Apply to a specific role — Check location, degree and graduation requirements.
- Assessment and/or initial interview — The format depends on the role; do not assume a particular test vendor.
- First-round conversations — Be ready to explain motivation, experience and problem solving.
- Final-round conversations — Your invitation determines the mix of technical and behavioural sessions.
- Prepare for the next confirmed stage — The published Europe outline is a reference, not a promise about every office.
Background and eligibility: check the specific vacancy
The reviewed Graduate Trader vacancy in Amsterdam for 2027 targets students in the final year of a relevant quantitative degree. It describes programming as a plus and does not require previous financial-market knowledge. That is a statement about this graduate vacancy, not permission to ignore another job's degree, graduation, experience or work-eligibility requirements.
EverythingQuant recommendation: look for evidence of quantitative reasoning, decision making and teamwork in your own background. A mathematical project, programming task, competition or team activity can provide a useful example if you can explain your contribution. You do not need to invent trading experience to discuss an honest learning process.
Application: turn experience into evidence
Read the role and office carefully before submitting. For a technical project, explain the problem, your approach and a result you can defend. For a competition or team activity, explain a decision you made and how you reacted when the first approach failed. Use clear descriptions rather than relying on impressive-sounding terms.
Prepare a short answer to “Why trading?” that connects to the actual work: making decisions under uncertainty, responding to feedback and improving a strategy through evidence. Then explain why the specific IMC role interests you. A generic answer about compensation or liking maths does not show how you understand the job.
Assessments: verify the format before practising it
Your invitation controls the test, not a vendor name in an old guide
The reviewed official recruitment outline allows role-dependent assessments; it does not establish one compulsory global Saville or Neurolympics battery. Read the assessment email for topics, timing, tools, retake conditions and any official familiarisation material. Ask recruiting when something important is unclear.
If the screen is quantitative, practise accuracy before speed, then work under comparable time pressure. Classify errors as concept gaps, arithmetic mistakes, misreading or poor time allocation. If it is a cognitive or game-based task, follow the provider's instructions rather than assuming a general maths tool reproduces its scoring.
EverythingQuant does not present its Optiver tools as exact IMC assessment replicas. Use general probability practice for transferable skills; only use a format-specific resource when you have confirmed that its format is relevant.
Recruiter and screening conversations
Motivation and understanding
Prepare to explain what interests you about trading and what you understand about the role. Give a concrete example of learning from feedback. You can be interested without pretending to know every product or trading strategy.
Experience and next-stage expectations
Know the details behind each claim on your application. Ask what the next discussion will focus on, whether any preparation material is provided and whether coding or a specific exercise is involved. This helps you allocate effort without guessing the entire process.
Technical trading interviews: probability and expected value
IMC Europe's official trading interview preparation guide (PDF) discusses probability, expected value, conditional reasoning and market making. It emphasises explaining and adapting your reasoning. Use that as a guide to preparation skills, not a disclosed question list.
Worked example: price a simple game
EverythingQuant exercise: pay 3 units to enter. Roll a fair die twice, independently. You receive 12 units if at least one roll is a six, otherwise zero. Is the game favourable in expected value?
P(at least one six) = 1 − (5/6)² = 11/36.
Expected payoff = 12 × 11/36 = 11/3. Expected net profit = 11/3 − 3 = 2/3.
The fee is paid in both outcomes: your net result is +9 or −3, not +12 or −3. A risk-neutral break-even entry price is 11/3 before other costs. Positive expected value does not guarantee profit on this play or any finite set of plays.
Explain the assumptions: fairness, independence, a fixed entry fee and a payoff you receive only once. Then ask what changes if the rolls are dependent or the rules allow you to stop after observing the first roll. State the new model before calculating.
Original preparation example, not an official or reported IMC interview question.
Use mental arithmetic to support an explanation
Practise fractions, percentages, rough bounds and simple expectations aloud. Check whether your answer is plausible before committing to it. If an exact calculation is awkward, explain a sound approximation and its likely error rather than producing an unexplained number.
Market making: quote, explain and update
A bid is the price at which you are willing to buy; an ask is the price at which you are willing to sell. A preparation exercise should make you explain both your value estimate and your uncertainty. IMC's Europe preparation material explicitly discusses market making, but that does not mean every office uses an identical trading game.
Worked example: new information changes fair value
EverythingQuant exercise: a contract pays 100 units if event A occurs and zero otherwise. Initially, P(A) = 1/2, so its expected payoff is 50. For illustration, quote 48–52: buy at 48 and sell at 52.
Now observe a positive signal. You are told P(signal | A) = 0.8 and P(signal | not A) = 0.2.
P(A | signal) = (0.8 × 0.5) / [(0.8 × 0.5) + (0.2 × 0.5)] = 0.8.
The updated expected payoff is 80. Keeping an ask of 52 would ignore the new information. An illustrative updated quote is 78–82, assuming the same uncertainty allowance and no inventory or other costs. The four-unit spread is chosen for the exercise; it is not a uniquely correct or optimal spread.
A strong explanation separates what changed—the information-based estimate—from what has not yet been specified: position limits, trading costs, uncertainty and the counterparty's information. You cannot infer a numerical probability update from “someone bought from me” without a model of what that order tells you.
Original preparation example, not a recreation of an IMC simulator.
Explain risk and inventory separately
After several trades, state your position and what further trading would make it larger or smaller. Discuss how you might alter quote levels, spread or size to manage risk, and which assumptions justify the change. Avoid treating every trade as evidence that your fair value was wrong; inventory pressure and new information are different reasons to adjust a quote.
Public catalogue · account needed to play
Street Lights is listed as a free game but requires an account. Other games can require Premium. These are general estimation and quoting exercises, not an exact IMC simulator.
Behavioural and project discussion
Prepare three honest examples: a disagreement handled constructively, a mistake followed by a change in approach, and a difficult problem solved with others. Explain the situation briefly, then focus on your decisions and what you learned. Do not recite a story so rigidly that you cannot answer a follow-up.
For a project, know your contribution, your baseline and one limitation. Be clear about whether a result came from a controlled comparison, a simulation or an observation. The point of the practice is to communicate accurately under questioning, not to make every past activity sound like a trading strategy.
Later and final rounds
Use the agenda from recruiting to determine the number, length and format of your remaining sessions. Do not assume a universal all-day “superday,” mandatory simulation or fixed order of interviewers. Rehearse switching between a quantitative problem, a trading explanation and a discussion of your experience without assuming that all three will be separate rounds.
Ask a practice partner to change a condition mid-problem, challenge your quote or request a simpler explanation. When you notice an error, name it, correct the model and continue. Record what caused the error afterwards so the practice improves your next attempt.
A preparation plan for your actual stage
Before applying: check eligibility, sharpen your application evidence and learn what a trader does. Assessment received: prioritise the invited format and its deadline. Technical interview scheduled: combine probability problems, aloud explanations and quote-update exercises. Final rounds confirmed: rehearse the published agenda and your behavioural examples, rather than adding every possible topic.
For a short practice session, try one probability problem, one market-making explanation and one experience-based question. Review the mistakes before adding another session. This is an EverythingQuant practice suggestion, not an IMC-required study schedule.
Build my IMC Quant Trader roadmap
Public questionnaire
An account is required to save your roadmap. Premium unlocks the full schedule and Premium resources.
The roadmap action carries IMC + Quantitative Trading as context. Confirm your role and timeline in the questionnaire. The link does not silently update an existing roadmap.
When the maths itself is the bottleneck, start smaller rather than repeating timed mistakes:
Create an account for the first lesson
Free account required
Lesson 1 is available with a free account. You may be asked to enrol in the course first; later lessons have paid access requirements.
Preparation checklist
- I know which vacancy, office and next stage I am preparing for.
- I can calculate expected payoff and net profit without confusing the two.
- I can justify a probability update and explain which assumptions it uses.
- I can make a two-sided quote, describe my inventory and react to new information.
- I can explain my motivation, contribution and learning with specific examples.
Official sources and review scope
- IMC Europe: recruitment process — A broad Europe process; role-specific stages can differ.
- IMC: Graduate Trader, Amsterdam, 2027 — The listed job location is Amsterdam, despite the /us/ URL prefix.
- IMC Europe: Inside the Trading Interview (PDF) — Linked from the Amsterdam vacancy; especially pages 2–6 on quantitative reasoning, market making and behavioural preparation.
Sources reviewed on . Europe and Amsterdam examples are not a universal IMC process. Follow the current listing and your recruiter for another region or cycle. EverythingQuant is independent of IMC.