Well turn the question on its head and ask what can you bring to a hedge fund to allow it to be more successful. That's the test we use.

Hedge funds are similar to start ups in that they are small businesses where everyone needs to pull their own weight and be able to handle their own area without supervision as everyone is busy enough handling their own area of concern.

Or put another way, say the firm has 10 people and each share equally in the year end bonus pool. If the pool is $100 then each person makes $10 in bonus.

Therefor you must be able to increase the bonus pool by atleast $10, to $110 in the next year or two, in order for the firm to break even by hiring you.

So what do you bring to the table that allows the firm to increase its profits? how good are your networking, math, C or C++, optimization skills, what market structure insights do you have?