Depending upon their investment strategy, hedge funds typically fall into one of several categories. These include: Global macro funds (funds focused on global trends rather than movements in particular stocks); event driven funds (funds that attempt to profit from one-off events such as mergers and acquisitions or bankruptcies); or relative arbitrage funds (funds that aim to exploit differences in prices for the same products). A relative arbitrage fund would buy where it's cheaper and simultaneously sell where it's more expensive.

Investors often put their money into 'funds of hedge funds' due to the risky nature of hedge funds. These invest money across several different hedge funds with the intention of spreading the risk.

There are various hedge fund jobs listed in this sector, including analysis (analysing the companies, markets and financial products a hedge fund invests in); sales and marketing and investor relations (liaising with investors and helping sell the merits of the fund) and trading (executing the investment strategy and buying and selling financial products). Hedge fund traders are often pure execution traders, who operate largely according to an analyst's recommendations.

Positions in risk and in functions like HR and compliance are also available under hedge funds, in order to help businesses operate effectively.

Zurich in Switzerland and the Mayfair area of London are the centre for most hedge funds and hedge fund recruitment.. In the US, hedge funds are frequently based in New York and Connecticut. And Singapore is a growing hedge fund centre in Asia.

As a result of the growth in the hedge fund industry, it has become more open to institutional investors, which has caused an increasing overlap between jobs in hedge funds and those in traditional long only asset managers.