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Business Insider
2 hours ago
- Business
- Business Insider
3 keys to success every Citadel intern learns their first week on the job
Interns of Ken Griffin's $62 billion hedge fund, Citadel, will travel to Fort Lauderdale on Monday for the start of their 11-week summer program. The 2025 class is the most exclusive yet — 0.4% of the 108,000 applicants were extended an invitation to the program across both Citadel and its market-making sister firm Citadel Securities. This year's class is full of high-achieving brainiacs — about 80% study computer science and mathematics at schools like MIT, Stanford, Cambridge, Princeton, and Harvard. More than a dozen were USA Computing Olympiad Platinum division participants, and dozens more were medalists at the International Olympiad in Math, Physics, and Informatics. Yet, not everyone will end the summer with a full-time job offer — the ultimate goal of the internship for many students. As part of our exclusive look into this year's class, Business Insider spoke to Matt Mitro, the head of campus recruiting for Citadel, about how an intern stand out at such a large hedge fund. He told BI about a few keys to success that will be drilled into the interns in their first week on the job, including learning to be "commercial" and collaboration. Mitro's keys to a successful internship Mitro said the first week is vital for orienting students and explaining what's ahead. They will participate in workshops, team-building exercises, and social activities — and hear from senior leaders and external speakers. They will also learn what it will take to succeed, including the hedge fund's focus on being "commercial." What does that mean? Mitro said it involves interns "understanding how their work applies in markets and also whether an idea they have can be put to use in a timely manner." Meaningful and effective collaboration is another "critical feature" of Citadel's culture and a characteristic the hedge fund is looking for in would-be hires, he said. "Some students may be used to working by themselves or in very small groups, but here, you rely on your teammates every single day," said Mitro. "We are constantly working within and across teams, and it's important to feel comfortable talking with others, relying on them, and asking questions. We're all available to each other." Mitro added that interns should try to be self-aware and reflective of where they can grow. Even at this level, they won't be perfect. "It's important for them to be very aware of their own developmental areas," Mitro said. "That could be communication or collaboration — how do I work with my colleagues? That commitment to self-awareness and continuous improvement is important."
Business Insider
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Meet the 0.4% of students who made it into Citadel's 2025 summer intern program — the firm's lowest acceptance rate yet
Ken Griffin's financial companies extended invites to less than half a percentage point of applicants for the firms' 2025 summer internship program. Read that again if you need to. Citadel, a hedge fund, and its sister firm Citadel Securities, a market maker, accepted just 0.4% of students who applied for this year's summer training program. It's a record level of exclusivity even for a pair of firms known for recruiting only the brainiest quants and traders. One reason may be the record number of applicants, 108,000 across the two firms — up 20% from last year. The group of more than 300 students will start their 11-week training next week. Citadel interns will kick off the summer with a trip to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Interns at the market maker will take a trip to Palm Beach, Florida, later this summer. They hail from 80 schools worldwide. BI got an exclusive look inside the demographics of the cohort, including which universities they attend and their areas of study. We also spoke with the firms' dedicated campus recruiters, Matt Mitro with Citadel and Fabian Figi with Citadel Securities, about the increased interest and how they evaluate intern success. The record low acceptance rate at Griffin's trading empire is just the latest example of how the path to a career on Wall Street has become more competitive. Investment bank Goldman Sachs also boasted of record low acceptance rates last year. Even campus finance clubs, which help students prepare for industry recruiting, have adopted cutthroat entrance processes. "Citadel and Citadel Securities in particular, and the quantitative finance industry more broadly, have become a destination for top students worldwide," said Figi, the head of campus recruiting at the market maker. "Our internship program is one of our most important pipelines of talent." A Snapshot of the Class The class has more than 300 students globally who will work in software engineering; investing and trading; quantitative research; equities; and enterprise. New York and Miami will host the largest intern classes ever for both firms. The interns come from more than 80 schools globally, but the ones that are most represented are: MIT, Stanford, Waterloo, Cambridge, Princeton, Harvard, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon, Yale, UChicago, UT Austin, Berkeley, National University of Singapore, Columbia, and Oxford. 80% of the US interns study computer science and mathematics at their respective schools. The class includes more than a dozen USA Computing Olympiad Platinum division participants The class includes dozens of medalists from the International Olympiad in Math, Physics, and Informatics Increased interest Mitro said they've seen an "exponential increase" in application volume over the years, and attributes this year's record high in part to the firms' becoming "better understood" on college campuses. "We are thinking about where students are engaging and we're trying to be present with them. That's a big initiative for us," he said, adding, "So you are seeing things like our senior-most leaders on campus spending time with students and talking to them so they can get to know us on that level." The outreach comes as more hedge funds establish pipelines to recruit talent directly from college campuses in addition to investment banks, which is where they traditionally recruited junior talent. Citadel launched a program called CAP in 2020 to fast-track college juniors into associate roles within a year and a half. Balyasny, a competitor, recently started a new stock pitch competition aimed at recruiting sophomores for summer internships, and eventually jobs. In that vein, Griffin recently visited Stanford, the University of Cambridge, and Oxford University. This spring, Citadel Securities' CEO, Peng Zhao, attended events at Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley. Other student programs the firms have established include a "trading invitational" for undergrads to get a taste of the life of a quant trader, and a new "macro central bank challenge" where undergrad teams propose a monetary policy recommendation and present findings to judges. Return offers & intern evaluation Next week, the 2025 class will embark on a summer in which they'll be asked to have almost immediate impact on the business and be a sponge of constant performance feedback. In evaluating their performance, the execs said they try to be clear about what success looks like from the start of the program. "Each intern has a weekly one-on-one check-in with their manager, and there are also a couple of checkpoints in the middle of the program and another at the end where they get very robust feedback on how they're doing," said Mitro. "By the time the program is over, every intern should have a very good understanding of where they stand and there shouldn't be any surprises." When it comes time to decide whether an intern gets a full-time job offer at the end of the summer, decisions are a "team effort" based on feedback from multiple leaders, including CEOs Griffin and Zhao themselves. "We have a rich and rigorous evaluation process that includes not only our intern managers but a variety of other voices as well," said Figi. "Every intern project is reviewed by multiple leaders, and Ken and Peng are involved in offer outcomes too." The execs said they don't anticipate changing their return offer rate at the end of the summer, even in what has been an uncertain and turbulent market. "We're not limited in the way other firms might be in terms of what we can offer to graduates," said Mitro. "Fortunately, that is not going to be an issue for us and it's a great position to be in — for our firms and for those who are interested in joining us."
