I applied online. I interviewed at Validus Risk Management (London, England) in Apr 2026
Interview
Interview call after submitting application. From the beginning the interviewer was rude and condescending. (I have applied for hundreds of different jobs.) It says all I need to know about a company if they are combative and disrespectful on a call, when I’m the talent they’re fighting for! I was asked what I was passionate about and following my answer, which I obviously adjusted slightly to the job brief as every candidate would, I was accused of using Ai to produce an answer just because I spoke technically. Maybe the interviewer wasn’t as intellectually or academically astute as me I am not sure. He then proceeded to tell me I had ‘one last chance to be honest’ about my passions because, and I quote, ‘when he was my age he wouldn’t have cared about business operations at all’. I left the call completely confused that maybe this was some sort of twisted test of resilience, but turns out it wasn’t. It was a power trip. Hope this review has enough passion in it for them.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What are capital markets
What are you passionate about
The process started with an HR call, followed by a video interview with team members. The interviewers kept the conversation fairly casual, though at times it felt a bit less professional than expected. Overall, I felt the interviews went okay. However, communication dropped off afterward, and I did not receive any follow-up or final decision, which was disappointing.
I applied online. I interviewed at Validus Risk Management (London, England) in Jan 2026
Interview
Received answer shortly after sending application. The whole process was very smooth, fast and, at each stage, expectations were very clear. The first interview was with the TA specialist Hana Danko. Over a 30-minute Teams call we discussed my background, experience, role and team overview. It was a very pleasant call. I had all of my questions answered and next stages explained. The second interview was with head of the quant team. Again, very nice conversation covering my professional experience, technical background and role fit. After the second interview, I received a case study to complete at home and upload to Github. It was open ended and the aim was to expose me to the types of problems a successful candidate would face on the role. I was called in shortly after submitting the case study to meet the team in their London office over a 1 hour interview. During the third and final interview, I presented my case study and participated in a technical discussion with the team, covering principles, and general reasoning questions. The team was great and engaging. A couple of days later I received the call informing me the role had been taken. Overall it was a very positive experience and easy to navigate.