If you’re applying for quant jobs at banks, hedge funds and prop traders, you’ll find that having a PhD can be a help for some firms and a hindrance for others. When it comes to compensation, however, there’s some debate among recruiters as to just how valuable a PhD can be.
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For newer-breed firms like Jane Street, a PhD won’t necessarily be a game changer. One quant headhunter, speaking anonymously, told us that firms like Jane Street prefer to hire undergraduates, and have “almost no PhDs.” Jane Street seems to endorse that sentiment; in a video on its YouTube channel last year, one of Jane Street’s quant researchers said the “majority of researchers at Jane Street don’t have PhDs.”Â
Conversely, hedge funds seem much more appreciative of PhDs, as do banks. Having one is no guarantee of a job, however; a former Goldman Sachs quant strat told us that getting a PhD actually hindered his job search “because you don’t have the experience to justify the seniority.” He had to go back to school and obtain an MFE before he could find a job in quant finance.
Ben Hodzic, head of North America for recruitment firm Selby Jennings told us back in 2021 that PhDs make you a “far more marketable candidate” and show that a firm “won’t need to do much handholding if it hires you.” Trading firms averse to hiring PhDs would argue that this independence is a bad thing; James Holland, director of recruitment firm Quant Capital wrote for us recently, saying that newer firms “want to fit people into a mold that they create” and that PhDs can be more stubborn when adapting.
A London quant recruitment firm founder, also speaking anonymously, told us it’s not specifically your degree level or even field of study that matters most; it’s “how academically competitive” you are. Firms are looking at where you’re studying, your GPA, what position in your cohort you graduate, and extracurricular achievements such as winning mathematics Olympiads and trading competitions. While top firms might have specific preferences, “the true thread is that these candidates are intellectually extraordinary.”
If you have no strong preference for where you want to work as a quant, multiple additional years of study and thousands in teaching fees might not sound too attractive, but is the extra compensation when you finally graduate worth it? The recruitment firm founder suggests not, saying “freshly minted PhDs aren’t necessarily compensated higher than non-PhD Quants on the buy side.” If a student is academically competitive at an elite level, the founder says they can earn “anywhere from $300k to $500k to start” from bachelors level upwards.Â
Another quant headhunter based in London says its “not uncommon for graduates to get paid over $500k” if they’re truly elite, but says that top level PhD quants earn the most. He says top quant graduates with bachelors degrees can earn up to ~$650k while PhDs can earn closer to $850k. “I know one candidate, who had a doctorate and few internships, who earned $2m in their first year in the US,” the headhunter told us. He also said that “doctorates tend to get more compensation in the long run.”
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