Silva Venture Group has launched the Analyst's Arena, a mock portfolio competition designed to recruit new hedge fund analysts.
In the hedge fund world, fund analysts are responsible for producing critical analyses that fund managers use to make multi-million dollar decisions for the portfolio’s positions. With this level of responsibility, hiring the perfect fund analyst is crucial to the success of the fund. The problem that funds run into is in sifting through the thousands of resumes they receive to find the perfect fund analyst; the proverbial needle in the haystack.
“The idea for the Analyst’s Arena just made sense in the context of recruiting our fund analysts,” says Anthony Silva, fund manager for Silva Venture Group. “In baseball, when the majors are looking for talent, they go to colleges and watch players actually play. In the world of hedge funds, we can’t just go to another fund and watch how the fund analysts perform. So we had to get creative with our recruiting process. What we need is simple: fund analysts who can read the market and react in high-pressure environments. And although someone can place these keywords on their resume that will catch an HR manager’s eye, you can’t get an idea of their true potential unless you see them perform. The Analyst’s Arena allows prospective fund analysts to prove to us that they can perform.”
The Analyst’s Arena gives prospective fund analysts the chance to prove their potential with a mock portfolio. The rules are simple: you get USD10,000,000 and 90 days to produce the biggest gain you possibly can. Participants can take long and short positions in US equities (a fund strategy that matches Silva Venture Group’s). At the end of 90 days, a member of Silva Venture Group measures the performance of the portfolios and the portfolios with the biggest gains are invited to interview. The firm takes applications daily and applicants can enter as many portfolios as they want.
