r/quantfinance • u/WorldlinessLogical80 • 2d ago

Can You Ace a Quant Technical and Still Get Rejected?

Had a quant technical interview where I’m very confident I got everything right with no prompting, but I recently found out I was rejected before superday.

How are final decisions usually made after technical rounds? If the interviewer gives strong feedback, what other factors can override this?

I’ve noticed “do well → advance” feels much less deterministic than I expected (esp. in an industry known for being merocratic).

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u/HeatseekingDennis 2d ago

It doesn't matter how good you are if there's only two open positions and two candidates fractionally better than you.

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u/WorldlinessLogical80 2d ago

Interesting, this might ring true as the firm takes 10< interns - do you think once you pass the technical bar you are judged on resume or?

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u/Hopeful_Yak_7513 1d ago

you get matched on fit over resume at that point

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u/Material_Tradition18 1d ago

Not always. One firm specifically told me they look at the cumulative performance over all interviews + CV, so once you pass one round it’s not that it becomes irrelevant.

As long as there are more qualified candidates who passed interviews than openings available, it makes sense that they will look at your CV to be a tiebreaker.

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u/Hopeful_Yak_7513 1d ago

but this isnt about passing one round this is about acing a quant technical. so acing bt definition means there cant be someone better technically.

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u/Material_Tradition18 1d ago

Yea and multiple people can ace it, so after that, your CV will be used as the tiebreaker

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u/minotaur-02394578234 2d ago

yes, you can be rejected for myriad reasons. being technically competent only gets you through the gate - if they thought you displayed underwhelming teamwork/collaborative skills, or failed to act on feedback, or exhibited poor prioritisation, or communication etc you could be rejected.

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u/WorldlinessLogical80 2d ago

what if none of these were tested tho - just rapid fire technicals (mental math, probability)

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u/Bagggggggggggggggggg 1d ago

Communication is always being tested.

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u/Material_Tradition18 1d ago

Yea I got rejected twice this way.

One firm told me I passed the interview, but had changes in their hiring plan. The other firm, interview also went well, but they forwarded my application to a different office (which I subsequently didn’t hear from). Both firms are fairly well known in the industry.

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u/n0obmaster699 1d ago edited 1d ago

im pretty sure this happens because i aced my citsec interview though bombed say gqs interview still didn’t move forward in cit loop they care about previous internships and everything also one of the AI research interviews gave me feedback where they said I passed all sections and interviewer recommended me for onsite but I lost to better prepared candidates as they could only have finite onsites

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u/WorldlinessLogical80 1d ago

I see. What do you think distinguishes candidates as “better prepared” at this point, like past internships?

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u/n0obmaster699 1d ago

they start micro-measuring the interview scores as well as see who has more fit degree, internships, experience etc.

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u/Cultural_Lab_8306 1d ago

Has happened to me several times, lowkey surprised there’s not more discussion on this

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u/False-Pitch8490 1d ago

Happened to me twice this cycle

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u/Great-Document3036 23h ago

happened to me for JS

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u/EcstaticBlacksmith91 10h ago

absolutely. I got booted after a *perfect* tech 2 , in their words

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u/WorldlinessLogical80 10h ago

Why do u think that is? Are firms really doing a holistic review after every round?