Five Ways To Make Your Resume Sink Faster Than The Titanic
With recruiting season upon us, I’ve seen a huge increase in resume review volume and general questions on resumes lately. Despite my previous articles on investment banking resumes and private equity resumes, I still see many basic mistakes that can be corrected quite easily.
1) Got Pages?
If you’ve got multiple pages, I’ll tell you one thing you don’t got: an interview. Because if I see more than one page on your resume, it’s going straight to my “not” pile.
I don’t care if you have 10+ years of experience in consulting and finance and even started your own clock manufacturing company; if you’re applying to junior-level positions and your resume is over a page, it’s unacceptable.
I’ve reviewed hundreds (possibly thousands) of resumes over the years and have yet to see a single example of an Analyst or Associate applicant who truly needs more than a page.
In fact, I’ve even reviewed VP-level resumes and in most cases, multiple pages are still unacceptable.
Only if you’re a Managing Director or C-level executive would a multi-page resume be appropriate.
If you can’t reduce your resume to a single page, you need to cut out less relevant experience. If you’ve already worked at Blackstone, no one cares about your part-time job at the library… trust me.
2) Objective: Get Rejected
Whenever I see an Objective section on a resume, I mentally replace “Obtain an Investment Banking Analyst position” with “Reject me! I really don’t want this job!’
Objectives are redundant because everyone knows what your objective is: to get a job in finance.
If you’re from a non-traditional background - a Ph.D student who wants to move into M&A, for example - you might think an Objective is “necessary” to show recruiters what you’re doing.
If you’ve done your job correctly, though, you have already presented your story in-person to recruiters and to your contacts at banks, so there’s no need to reiterate it on your resume. And you should have already “bankified” your experience such that it’s clear you’re not looking for a post-doc research position.
Your experience and interactions with industry contacts should demonstrate what your objective is.
3) Fluent in English
I see this one mostly with international applicants. If your resume is in English, please don’t remind us again that you’re fluent in the language.
For most finance jobs you need to be native speaker-level in the language you’re working in; the precision required is simply too high for anything but absolute fluency to suffice.
If your resume is in English, I assume you are fluent in the language. By writing it on the resume, you raise questions over how good you are and whether or not you know enough to write 50+ page documents.
Of course, if your resume is in Chinese or Arabic or Spanish and you’re applying for a local office that uses a language other than English, feel free to write this.
4) High School Valedictorian
I don’t care whether you were Urkel or whether you were Fonzie in high school, and no one else does either.
Maybe if you’re still a freshman or sophomore and you’re applying to banks you can list high school information. But for anyone older, avoid listing high school information like the jocks avoided the nerds in high school.
It takes up valuable space and prevents you from writing about what really matters - work and leadership experience, and why you’re fit to be a financier.
If you went to a prestigious high school (Andover / Exeter) with many alumni in banking, you might want to list high school information for networking purposes, but in all other cases avoid it.
5) Proficient in Word, Excel and PowerPoint
This is another case where I do a mental replacement - I swap “Proficient in Word, Excel and PowerPoint” for “Proficient in Breathing Oxygen” and then wonder what the person was thinking.
Of all the gaffes listed here, this one might be the most common in resumes I’ve reviewed. This alone is not enough to “sink” your resume, but I do think you look silly listing programs that virtually everyone who has worked in an office before knows how to use.
If you know a programming language such as C++ or Java, go ahead and list those; advanced statistical and financial analysis programs are also fine to list.
Just as with “Fluency in English,” I assume you are “fluent” in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. So don’t re-assure me.
Like this article? Subscribe via RSS and start understanding investment banking.Get into Investment Banking via Email:
Tags: investment banking, investment banking resume, understanding investment banking
Coming Soon: Breaking Into Wall StreetRelated Articles:
Inquisitor, perfect timing on posting resume advice… I’m working on mine right now! Could you please elaborate what constitutes good leadership experience for a rising sophomore? I’m looking to get leadership positions at finance clubs at my school. In the meantime, would recruiters view 4 years of instructing in Taekwondo as a good leadership experience? Thanks a lot, I’m enjoying your site tremendously.
That’s hard to answer because it depends so much on what you’ve done… honestly leadership positions at clubs are almost meaningless, it’s more about work experience and what you’ve done there. You can list the taekwondo but I would focus on internships and trying to get in as many as possible.
What about listing SAT Scores, AP Scores and SAT II Math Scores, are those also to be avoided from listing under high school stats?
I would list SAT scores but put them under college instead and write them next to GPA. SAT II and AP are not necessary.
Really good ponts inquisitor. However, I speak more than one language and I think it is appropriate to put English even if it is your native tongue down and never had one interviewer mention it, but I understand how it could be viewed as obvious. Is it really that big of a deal though?
Also I think one thing after working at investment banks was embarrassed by was some formatting errors that I made (and luckily, I think at least, they were overlooked) on a specific resume I sent out to a few places one time. The spacing, size of font, bold, alignment is important I think especially if you are interviewing for a job that requires ultra attention to detail. (i.e. one dash of a bullet point is short but the other one is long). Ok anyways my 2cents.
Great post as usual. Thanks for the insight.
Oh there will be more parts to this series, I see so many resumes every day it would be hard not to write about
On the languages, it’s not really THAT big a deal, but again I do think it looks a bit silly to write. I speak other languages as well but I only list those… just seems odd to write English.
btw congrats on 1000.
Thanks. Now, to 10,000….
Thank you for yet another great post. Can you tell me whether a page means 1 side or 2 sides?
1 side
I’ve enjoyed the higher frequency with which you’ve been writing. Keep it up!
Actually I have always written exactly 2-3 times per week with a few exceptions since starting the site…
Is a one page CV enough for a PhD as well? What do you think about articles in journals, scholarships, teaching activity, should I include them?
Yes, I’ve reviewed about 10 PhD resumes lately and I’ve made all of them 1 page or less.
Articles/publishing and such - you can list them, but minimize and focus on teaching/leadership/team experience instead.
I’ve been doing an internship in e/r this summer, and that’s pretty much the bulk of my finance work experience as a rising senior. the rest of my resume is pretty irrelevant because i used to be a marketing major, so they’re all in marketing…so what should i do if my resume doesnt fill up a page? would the not directly relevant experience matter at all?
No still include it but minimize it and focus on the equity research internship. You want to spin the marketing experience into sound like project/client-based work.
At what level would it be appropriate to NOT list SAT scores on a resume? I have a pretty good SAT score, but it’s not terribly impressive. I have a pretty good math score with a 760, so I feel like that would be somewhat useful, but my verbal is nothing more than a bit above average. Would it be worth it to put down my score just for the math?
You should actually always list SAT scores unless you’re an MBA or have 5+ years of experience… just one of those things banks like to see.
Inquisitor:
The vast majority of your info is helpful, however, I would just like to say that I applied to a boutique I-Bank with a two-page resume. I was called the following day to set up an interview. I have heard the one-page advice before, but I tend to disagree with it due to past successes. Just a note, otherwise I like what you’re doing here!
Some boutiques may not care and there are always exceptions, but in general in finance you should have a 1 page resume.
I have a pretty good SAT score but a much better ACT score, do investment banks see the ACT as equivalent? In other words, should I list just the ACT score?
I would list both.
About the native language thing, is it really true that you need to speak English at a native level to work in a London (or other major city) office? I can’t speak four English words without showing a denouncing accent. Does this chop my feet on the spot?
Accents don’t matter that much… tons of bankers from international backgrounds and the majority of English speakers in the world have some type of accent so that’s usually fine.
However, you do need to be able to read/write/speak/understand everything a native speaker could - so if you have to listen to an investor call detailing quarterly earnings, for example, you would understand everything perfectly.
Banking is VERY language intensive and requires top-notch skills across the board.
2 questions:
1. Is the summer invst. Bank. analysts jobs just for “targeted school”, ” “juniors in college”? How bout recent college graduates? Where is the light for no so Ivish school kids? What should they do?
2. How should a science major (bio) with resume loaded with internships at medical school (ivy), college write a Invst. Bank. resume. Have some volunteering experience.
Thank you for your suggestions.
GIVE ME SOME DROP OF HOPE.
1) Internships are almost impossible to get for recent graduates… because you’re not a student anymore. You can still go for FT even if you graduated. There’s no magical secret - it’s a ton of hard work and persistence over months, networking with alumni and everyone else you can meet.
2) Focus your writing on your leadership skills and the “real-world” results of your research rather than the technical science side.
Hi,
In regards to SAT scores/high school results. What happens if your high school results aren’t really competitive but u got a 3.5gpa going to a top college. Will banks reject me because of this? thanks