Your quant recruitment specialists
In trading firms, hedge funds and banks, the people who build the models drive the returns, and Nexus IT Group’s specialized quant recruiters connect these firms with the quantitative researchers, developers and analysts who turn data and mathematics into profitable strategies. Demand for quant talent has climbed sharply as more firms compete for an edge, yet the supply of professionals who can combine advanced math, statistics and programming remains small. Most of these specialists aren’t actively looking for a job, and they field so many cold messages from headhunters that generic outreach rarely lands. Nexus takes a different approach to quant staffing by building relationships with professionals first, so they trust that any opportunity we send along will be an ideal fit for their career and their goals.
The challenges of quantitative recruitment
It is no surprise that a talent gap has opened up in the quant world. Quantitative finance sits at the intersection of mathematics, computer science and markets, and the professionals who work fluently across all three are rare and highly sought after. Firms need researchers who can design and test signals, developers who can take a strategy from notebook to production and risk specialists who can keep the whole operation within tolerance, often with very specific requirements around asset class, trading frequency and technology stack. In-house recruiting teams frequently lack the network and the technical fluency to evaluate these candidates or even to speak their language. Our staffing services connect you with specialized talent across quantitative research, quantitative development, quantitative trading, statistical arbitrage, derivatives pricing and the other disciplines you need to stay competitive.
Partner with Nexus for your next quant search
Whether you are a hiring manager with a difficult quant role to fill or a quantitative professional considering a career shift, we would love to chat about your needs and how Nexus can help. Similar to technology roles across industries, the quant sector is evolving quickly, and having an experienced professional on your side can help you successfully navigate this changing landscape. Even if you just want some insights into how our recruiters help connect talent with quant opportunities, we hope you will reach out so we can share our expertise and help your company or career continue to move forward.
Nexus IT Group will quickly staff your open quant roles with high-quality committed candidates
81%
of our successful candidates are submitted within one week
92%
of our candidates will accept your offer
96%
of our candidates are employed with your firm after 12 months
Four ways to hire quantitative talent from a head of research to contract model validation
Executive Search (Retained)
We run retained searches for quantitative leadership, including Head of Quantitative Research, Head of Quant Development and the senior researchers whose arrival changes what a desk can trade. These processes are confidential and slow by necessity, because the credible population is small and every one of them is already well paid. Our retained placements hold a 96% candidate retention rate.
Direct Hire
Quant researchers and quant developers do not read job adverts, and the ones who do are usually not the ones you want. Our recruiters work outbound into funds, banks, prop firms and academic groups, and we deliver a vetted shortlist within 4 days of taking the requirement. We screen on the actual research and production work behind a resume rather than on the strength of a mathematics degree alone.
Contract Staffing
Model validation, backtesting infrastructure and research tooling are frequently projects rather than permanent seats. We act as both the recruiter and the W2 employer for the contract term, which keeps co-employment risk off your side and lets you convert the person if the work continues. Our contract placements hold a 94.3% quality of hire ratio.
Recruitment as a Service
A firm building out a quant team needs researchers, developers and data engineers in parallel, and a subscription is far cheaper than four separate placement fees. Our Recruitment as a Service model covers candidate marketing, sourcing, screening and delivery. We generate an engaged pipeline for a named quant role in under 7 days.
The quant disciplines we recruit across
Quant hiring draws on a small and expensive population, split between research, development and the desk, and each of the three is approached differently.
Quantitative development
Risk and model validation
Pricing and asset class specialists
What our quant clients have said about working with Nexus IT Group
The great thing about nexus IT group is that it has a smaller family feel, but they are able to deliver IT candidates better than the largest IT staffing suppliers that we work with. They have delivered high quality cybersecurity professionals for several years to our firm.
I’ve been in Talent Acquisition for 15 years and have used many IT staffing firms over the years. I highly recommend Nick and nexus IT group over any other IT staffing services. nexus’ commitment to quality and delivery is top tier. They take the time to understand your needs, provide thorough screening, and make sure that candidates have a positive on-boarding experience.
Working with nexus IT group has made my job much easier. Having a recruiting firm who specializes in IT and within my industry, and who understands our specific culture and hiring needs has been instrumental in our talent acquisition talent strategy.
Capital One has used nexus IT group’s recruitment services for a number of IT positions at varying levels, over the past 4 years. We’ve had a high success rate working with nexus IT group which is a testament to the caliber of their work and their internal sourcing and vetting practices.
I’ve dealt with a lot of hiring firms in my 18 years in the investment banking profession, and the majority of them have been awful to mediocre at best. Dealing with Nexus IT Group, on the other hand, was a breath of fresh air. After only one one opening, I was blown away by the quality and quantity of resumes I received. Nexus IT Group pays close attention to my demands and requirements. As a result, the individuals who were referred to me were excellent fits for our open positions. I appreciate the personal and professional expertise you offer to the process.
SAIC provides government services to several federal agencies across the US. We needed to recruit several new cybersecurity talent for our growing practice area. Travis quickly understood our business and the requirements of each cybersecurity need. nexus IT group showed patience, flexibility, and expertise in the search process. If you’re looking for good cybersecurity recruiters then you can’t go wrong with nexus IT group.
It is hard to put into words what nexus IT group has done for our organization. nexus IT group knows exactly what we look for and they get the right candidates 99% of the time. Anyone looking to hire tech talent would be lucky to have nexus IT group on their side. They have great work ethic, responsive, and a wide array of market knowledge.
We’ve enlisted the help of a number of IT recruiting firms in the past. Nexus IT Group has contributed to the success of many great hires by working professionally, diligently, and efficiently. We contacted Nexus IT Group after being introduced to them, and we were instantly impressed by their promptness and ability to focus on our needs. We received 3 resumes the same day and 3 more the next day, and we were able to hire four people in less than a week. We added an additional individual through Nexus IT Group a few weeks later as a result of vast network, service and professionalism. I highly recommend working with Nexus IT Group.
Our quant staffing skills keep our clients coming back
Quantitative Researcher
A systematic equities fund managing several billion in assets came to our quant recruiters after a six month internal search had stalled. They needed a researcher who could build and validate alpha signals across global equities and who had published work to back up the resume. Quant research talent at this level rarely responds to job ads, so our team built a targeted outreach campaign and went directly to the small pool of qualified candidates. We sourced 214 candidates, narrowed the field to our top 9 and submitted 5. The client interviewed 4 and made one hire who is still with the fund today.
Quantitative Developer
A proprietary trading firm tasked our quant recruiters with finding a C++ developer who could work shoulder to shoulder with researchers and push strategies into a low latency production environment. The role had been open for months because most strong candidates were happily employed and well compensated. Our recruiters crafted a compelling story about the firm’s technology and the autonomy of the role, then ran a multi touch campaign to reach passive talent. We contacted 318 developers, submitted 6 candidates and the client hired 2.
Algorithmic Trader
A futures focused hedge fund needed an algorithmic trader to own a book and refine execution models across multiple asset classes. This was a confidential search, so discretion mattered as much as speed. Our quant recruiters used a tightly targeted sourcing strategy to protect the client’s name while still reaching the right people. We screened 187 candidates, presented our top 4 and the client extended an offer within three weeks of kicking off the search.
Head of Quantitative Research
A growing multi strategy fund asked Nexus IT Group to identify and hire a Head of Quantitative Research who could build out a team and set the research agenda. Leadership searches in the quant space are challenging because the candidate pool is small and every name is already well known to competitors. Our recruiters ran a discreet executive search, sourced 142 candidates and submitted 6. The client hired one leader who has since grown the research group considerably.
Nexus IT Group recruits nationwide including these cities
Frequently asked questions about quant recruiting
To nexus IT group, placement is an art that requires the proper alignment of talent with opportunity, experience with need, personality with environment and aspirations with value. The quant hiring space is a fast-paced, highly competitive recruiting environment that offers big opportunities for quantitative candidates. Our full-cycle recruiting system is a 51 step touchpoint process from start to finish. Our engagement process starts with a discovery call to understand the needs of the role. With this series of questions our quant recruiters are able to build a sales cadence that we will use to deploy a multi-touch recruiting campaign precisely and accurately to hundreds of candidates who fit the expectations of the role. Once our targeted search is underway, we spend a series of 3 calls getting to know each candidate’s needs, wants and future career interests. Once we have created a shortlist of qualified and fully vetted candidates, we will deliver our top 3 to 4 candidates to the quant hiring manager. Once the interview process starts we work with the candidate and the hiring team to make sure communication is responsive and transparent. Once a candidate is placed, we stay in touch with the placed candidate for 2 years just to see how things are going.
Our candidate sourcing can be described in 3 words: Identify. Engage. Toolstack. Typically, the best job prospects are the ones who are passive. This indicates that they are not actively seeking employment. As a result, they are not surfing the internet in search of online job postings. Because they are not viewing online job postings, we have developed a robust and 100% outbound recruiting strategy. We begin our sourcing strategy by creating a candidate persona. Once we have successfully created the candidate persona, we then create a content strategy that will attract top talent in the quant space. Once we have developed our cadence we use a number of sources to scour the web and get our message in front of the right candidates. Strategies include searching our database, sourcing for referrals, sourcing from specific organizations, LinkedIn, GitHub, Kaggle, academic and alumni networks, quant conferences and many other specialized quant communities. We craft highly personalized messages that drive above industry reply rates. Our recruiting strategy is to begin conversations with passive candidates to learn about their future career interests, needs and wants, then align those needs with current and future openings through a high-touch approach.
Quality of Hire is very important for nexus IT group and our quant recruiting team. Currently our quant specific recruiters hold a 95.74% quality of hire ratio. This is measured by any contractor who successfully completes their contract, or a direct placement candidate who is at our client for at least 6 months of duration.
Currently our 1 year retention rate with our quant clients is running right at 96.42%.
The quant hiring environment is very fast-paced, so our team of quant recruiters are trained to work quickly and accurately. The time required to send qualified candidates to the quant hiring manager varies based on the position you are seeking to fill and the challenges we will face, such as lower than market compensation, bonus or equity concerns, slow feedback and onsite expectations. We can deliver applicants on the day of contract signing, within a few days or within a few weeks.
We have spent a great deal of time recruiting in the quant space and have had the distinct pleasure of collaborating with a number of impressive funds and trading firms looking to sharpen their edge. From our perspective, quant is where rigorous research and real markets meet, and helping a sharp researcher or developer find the team where their work will actually move the needle is what makes this work rewarding.
Quant recruiters specialize in a specific market sector. Every day, our quant recruiters contact a specialized set of quantitative candidates working in research, development, trading and risk. When starting a new search, our team has a pool of personally known candidates to call immediately. The point is that specialized quant recruiters sprint out of the gate more effectively than staffing firms that go back to the drawing board for each search.
When employers receive a resume from a quant recruiting firm, there is a high probability that they are already familiar with the individual. Our clients trust that we have thoroughly screened the candidate over a series of multiple conversations, and that the candidate will be worth the hiring manager’s time to interview.
Another benefit of using a specialized quant recruiting firm is that you will experience less of a “resume broker” relationship and more of a “sector expert” relationship. We spend countless hours every day conversing with quant prospects and quant hiring managers, which keeps us in the know about the quant space. Quant recruiters can provide insight into the landscape of employment, equity, compensation and the most recent candidate hiring and retention challenges. Ultimately, quant recruiters have access to a concentrated pool of candidates, which results in increased efficiency during the hiring process and the ability to establish long-lasting relationships with the industry’s top talent.
Though we have several different practice areas such as government IT staffing, devops staffing, cloud staffing, digital marketing staffing, data science staffing, private equity and software development staffing, our quant recruiters are hyper focused on clients in the quantitative finance space. Our quant recruiting team has successfully worked with clients ranging from emerging managers and proprietary trading firms to large established funds and banks.
Whether you are recruiting for a Quantitative Researcher, Quantitative Developer or Algorithmic Trader, our recruiting solutions have you covered. Our hires range across just about anything a firm would need when building a quant team, including leadership roles like Head of Quantitative Research, Director of Quantitative Trading and Quantitative Portfolio Manager, all with a niche focus in quant staffing.
Our quant recruiters use a series of stages to make sure we minimize candidate fall out during the recruiting cycle. Our recruiters perform an in depth conversation where they work to uncover the needs, wants and desires of a candidate’s next career move. We ask candidates specific skillset questions. If the team feels that there is a fit, then another person from our team will speak with the candidate. If the 2 nexus reps feel that there is a good fit, then we ask the candidate to complete a 4 question feedback form so we can better understand whether the role is a good or a great fit. Once we receive the candidate’s feedback, we perform a “Lockdown” conversation where we ask a series of questions around counteroffers, interview stages, target compensation expectations and much more. If this goes well, then we will submit the candidate for client review.
First, it is incredibly difficult for quant hiring managers with little time to receive responses to job ads. Second, an increasing number of professionals do not respond to recruiters, particularly in the quant field. They prefer to hear directly from the quant hiring manager, which brings us to the third challenge: recruitment is a full-time, highly specialized profession that quant hiring managers do not have time for.
Our quant recruiting fee is 22% to 25% of the candidate’s first year base salary. We do our best to find a payment structure that works best for your team.
Our quant recruiters are paid by the companies for which they place candidates. Your quant recruiter does earn a commission if you are hired, but the commission is paid by the company that hires you. Our recruiting fee is not taken out of your salary, and it does not lower the salary that you would be offered. Another misconception is that if you are presented by a recruiter and another candidate is not, you would be at a disadvantage because you have a fee associated with you getting the role. In our experience companies are seeking the best person for the job, and they are not concerned about a fee being paid at that point. Candidates who work with recruiters actually tend to make more than those who job hunt alone.