Mark Lewis, Inc has placed Senior Quants, Traders, Sales Professionals and FIX Programmers at a small group of the most sophisticated and innovative hedge funds, prop trading desks and trading technology providers in the world. We have been able to identify unusually talented candidates on a contingency search basis.
We also have worked with a number of hedge funds to outsource their internet recruiting activities.
Mark Lewis, a recruiting professional with eight years of experience, founded MLI in March 2001. Mark specializes in finding quants, traders, and technologists for buy-side financial firms and financial technology providers.
MLI is based in Chicago and New York, with a nationwide client base.
MLI offers the following services:
Contingency-Based Recruiting Outsourced Media Placement
Contingency-Based Recruiting
Contingency-based recruiting works through identifying and placing highly qualified candidates via personal networks. Some recent placements by MLI include:
Senior quant for New York hedge fund Equity derivatives C++ developer for New York trading software vendor Risk analyst for Midwest hedge fund Network security specialist for Midwest options market-maker Head of systems/networking for New York hedge fund Senior programmer for Los Angeles hedge fund.
Outsourced Media Placement
Media placement is an important recruiting approach for several reasons:
1) "Generic" positions can be filled easily via broad web recruiting 2) Difficult to get recruiters to focus on more "speculative" searches 3) Many contingency-based recruiters submit resumes sourced via broad web recruiting, but charge full fees.
Why should you outsource media placement? Because web-based recruiting can be a time-consuming and expensive process when performed in-house, especially if the recruiting schedule is erratic. Moreover, it requires specialized knowledge, including how to write ads and post them for maximum exposure.
Media placement requires businesses to sign up to multiple sites, negotiate fees for each site, and manage each site by optimizing and updating each position posted. Reviewing responses also requires sifting through many "junk" resumes to identify the few top candidates.
For example, if a company posts five jobs on a total of eight sites, the basic time required is 8-16 hours to negotiate fees. Listing fees will total at least $4,000 for three months of postings on the sites, plus administrative costs.
Each site will yield at least 50 posts per day for the five jobs. Spending the bare minimum of two minutes examining each candidate profile and resume will require 100 minutes per day, or 3,000 minutes per month. At an administrative cost of $40/hour, this will entail a cost of $2,000 per month, per site.
For eight sites, the monthly administrative costs just to review the responses come to $16,000. Including 2 hours per site for monthly optimizing and updating, the quarterly maintenance cost for eight sites is over $63,000.
MLI offers an attractive alternative that saves both time and money. For a low quarterly fee, list up to 8 positions with MLI at any time. We post ads, vet resumes, and screen for the top candidates, whom we then pass along to you. A successful search incurs a minimal placement fee.
Unlike web recruiting, where anyone can respond to a posting regardless of their qualifications for it, MLI guarantees that you will only see candidates that match your criteria.
Client Profile
Our typical client is a hedge fund or proprietary trading desk based in New York or Chicago. It is growing rapidly enough to fill 3 to 10 positions a year, and offers the good work environment and competitive compensation and benefits that attract top candidates.
Some typical clients include:
Hedge Funds Trading Firms Investment Banks
Guiding Your Search
To guide your search, we will help you specify the characteristics of the ideal candidate for your job opening. Among the academic background preferences you can specify are:
1) Degree level
2) Field of academic expertise
3) Other distinctions, such as attainment of high-level credentials or institutional affiliations
Financial experience preferences you can specify are:
1) Fixed Income, Equity, Options, Futures, Statistical Arbitrage
2) Sub-specialty, such as contingent claim modeling
3) Technology skills (C/C++, Java, VB)
4) Certifications
Fees and Terms
Contingency Recruiting:
25% of guaranteed first-year compensation Payable within 30 days of candidate’s start date, fully refundable if candidate leaves or is terminated within 90 days
Outsourced Media Placement:
4 postings at any time for $2,500 per quarter 10% of guaranteed first-year compensation in the event of a successful placement.
Our clients include, but are not limited to:
- Brokerage Firms
- Fortune 500
- Hedge Funds
- Investment Banks
- Start Ups
- Trading
- Wireless
We guarantee at least 2 qualified candidates for your positions within 1 business day.
