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.
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How many times should I put a resume out to a job site ?
Like, once a week ?
Or, once a month ?
Thanks, Scott .
Depends on which sites you are referring to. I personally don’t find sites that useful. I’d just call up the companies I’m interested in working for and ask them for a job
Try 10 times a day.
Hi, I’m a college freshman who is applying to a finance summer internship. Is it alright if I list a few significant accomplishments from high school? Like valedictorian, National Merit, NASA internship, etc. I’ve only been at college for a semester.
Sure.
The last job I applied for emphasized proficiency in Microsoft Office–Word, Excel and PowerPoint. I don’t generally say that I’m proficient in them, but I did list those along with at least one accounting program at the bottom of my resume. But this is only since the job description made it seem important. Do you think if the company emphasizes it that they want to see it on your resume?
Everyone can be proficient in Office these days. Most firms expect proficiency in excel from candidates
I’m a PhD/nonfinance. What if your work experience takes you to 2 pages? Is it still inappropriate? If I eliminate some nonrelevant descriptions, there will be gaps in my resume and isn’t that worse?
Try to condense your info and eliminate those that are over 5 years – your resume shd fit to one page
I found your article very interesting and straight to the point. However, if we send our resume through internet, it’ll be screened and we need to put “key word” in it such like fluency in english or proficiency in ms office, needn’t we?
thanks for the answer
adeline
No, I don’t think they would screen resume based on those key words. However, I believe they’d screen resumes based on your GPA
ah ok thanks! well that’s another problem. I’m not following an english type of studies: understand I’m doing a master in a french Business school (we call it Programme grande ecole). Therefore, my marks are on 0-20 points range. Do you know a method to transform them in a GPA ? I tried to find a sort of table but didn’t find it. Thanks a lot
I think readers would be able to provide you better insights
Try this (from wikipedia):
U.S. Grading Scale Scale U.S. Grade Equiv. 14-20 = A ; 12-13.9 = B+; 11-11.9 = B; 10.5-10.9 = B-; 10.1-10.4 = C+; 10 = C; 9-9.9 = C-; 8-8.9 = D; 0-7.9 = F;
I took courses in France and my school converted 16-20 as A, etc so the scale was bumped up a bit. It is far from an exact science.
Thanks for your input!
Thanks for developing such a great website. Can you provide a equity research university student template (I have 1 year eq reseacrh exp from India)
You can use the same template for experienced hires
Would this template still be appropriate for an internship application in sales & trading?
thanks
Yes, but highlight your experience selling to institutional investors if you want to do sales, and experience trading/investing if you want to do trading
Hi, thanks for all the tips! I wanted to know if I can use some of the same sentences and words used in a sample resume I found online (because most of it actually applies to what I’ve done in the past and doing right now). Please let me know. Greatly appreciate it. Thanks!
I’d suggest you to reword it based on your experience/your “wordings” because I believe quite a few readers will be using a similar template/language structure and there’s a risk that interviewers might be able to tell
If I am taking a break from school, should I still put my school on my resume? (I have attended two Universities but am taking a break. I am a sophomore.)
Yes and list the reason why you’re taking a break
I agree with the whole limiting your resume to one page. However, I always hear that employers want you to explain gaps in your resume. Or when filling out the application and it asks for the most current employment that may include three crappy short lived restaurant jobs just to get by and hardly any of actual resume experience and references are listed. Advice?
Yes, employers want you to explain gaps on your resume, and you usually do so on interviews. You might want to include brief explanations for the gaps on your resume too.
It’s interesting how every other site posts something contrary or somewhat similar to other sites like this on the subject of what to do and not to do on a resume.
I guess it’s one of those things where you try it and see if it works for that particular employer or not. I say that because I’ve attended resume workshops where they tell you to do some of the things some sites say would not do you well and vice versa and yet I’ve landed jobs nonetheless based solely on my experience not how well I wrote my resume.
It would appear that since you don’t know how the employer might react to any certain method that it’s safe to say the whole ordeal would be a gamble of chance.
The unfortunate side of this would be that if you use whatever suggested advice in constructing that would be wining resume is that it might not really do the trick and you are out of a good chance for a great job.
Hey you win some and you… yip you got it.
You mention at the end of the article that if we know C++ or another programming language, we should include it. I believe I am at a basic level of C++, but am reluctant to put it on my CV because i am not advanced. How advanced must i be for it to be appropriate to put ‘Basic C++’ on my CV?
If you are at a basic C++ level, I’d still put that on your CV.
Hello,
I love your website and your articles. They are really true guidelines for me !
Just a question: I am relocating from France to Singapore and I am looking for a job there. I asked to Alumni of my schools, headhunters and friends there and the resume in Singapore seems to be (almost always) more than 1 page (I know it is shocking for me to). Do you heard about that to ?
What do you think about that ?
Many thanks for your advices!
Haven’t heard about that. We recommend candidates to keep their resumes to a page as discussed on this article.
you just sound like an asshole.
That is because I mentioned my French origin.
You are the one who just butted in the conversation and called someone a name. I do not think Ludovic is the asshole here.
I liked your article! 100% agree with what you wrote. I am a VP with 15 years of experience and my resume is one page.
Rose, thanks for your comment and compliment! We really appreciate it!
“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.” I just graduated from Belmont High, a public high school that got #111 in US and World Report’s ranking of public high schools. It also got 4th in their ranking of Massachusetts public high schools. I am going to attend an Ivy league college; when I apply for my job after graduation, should I state I graduated from Belmont on my resume? If so, what information should I say about it?
No, I don’t think you need to unless you want to
I understand that putting “proficient in MS Office” can look stupid. Does this advise apply to UK too?
Also, is it worth putting MS Access on the resume? Or is that pointless too?
Thanks!
Yes.
No, having Access on there is fine
Well now I understand why so many great candidates don’t get the jobs.
They have people like you rejecting resumes based on silly criteria.
No one is trying to get a job as a resume writer, they are simply trying to tell potential employers why they would be eligible for the job.
The fact that someone is not proficient in coining a ‘great’ resume, doesn’t mean as much as you think.
It’s really a very narrow-minded approach to finding great employees.
I don’t think that your pointers reflect the vast majority of employers out there — there many employers who are more intuitive than you think.
I can tell you that the only turn off I have had is bad grammar.
I want to know if you have been valedictorian. It’s all very important to me, everything you have done gives me insight into who you are and your potential. How else can I know if I want to meet someone in person if all they have are just a few sanitized words on a piece of paper.
Tell me who you are — there are no rules. I wish more people would think like me — sure would make it easier on everybody!
Thanks for your input. Everyone has their own views & criteria. A resume isn’t the be all and end all but it certainly gets one’s foot in the door when chances of breaking into banking are slim (thousands of candidates applying for handful roles). The purpose of this post is to provide tips for people so they have solid resumes to break into banking. Having a solid resume will increase one’s chances of landing interviews at ibanks significantly. After all, interviewers won’t have the time to get to know all candidates and the most-common & time-effective way they can filter through candidates is via a resume or referral. Until someone gets an interview, that person won’t even have a chance to show that he/she is a “valedictorian” etc etc. Anyway, we have to agree to disagree on this one.
M&I – Nicole, are you from New Jersey?
Unless Hong Kong has conquered New Jersey and taken over the Eastern part of the US, no. http://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/about/#nicole
Why, did you meet this special lady Nicole from cute Jersey and think I’m her? ;)
Hello Brian,
Just one comment for you. Many people list Excel, Word, and PowerPoint on their resume because these are keywords that recruiters are looking for. Especially when the resume is being submitted online with many others as the recruiters sort resumes using keywords such as Excel.
-Dillon
Some Good Info. And your article is really funny! I have a view on the keyword part: (Lazy) Recruiters are increasingly putting in keywords to retrieve matching resumes. Maybe not “Word”, “Powerpoint” or “Excel”, but it is a good idea to put the skills you know (and you think are really relevant for your next job) on your resume..
Thanks for your input.
I have to disagree with you on two accounts.
First off, I ran into a an acquaintance from high school and we discussed graduate school applications. She e-mailed me hers, and I was shocked. She only has about two years solid experience in her intended field, took her eight years to finish college with a BGS, and random other jobs, all short-term. And her CV was 11 pages, including her high school accomplishments. I was shocked! I disagree with her that high school demonstrates any relevance to her CV due to her having at least a college degree now. Plus, it ages her. So after doing some research on CVs, this is how I came to your site.
I have about five years work experience at different places as I do defense research for think tanks. My native language is English, but I am also dual citizen. I also speak four languages. Half of my studies have been overseas, and I have three college degrees, one BA, two MA. I will soon be applying for a doctorate. The last consulting project I did, I tried the whole one-page résumé and had a recruiter told me in my field and with my experience and education, two pages is acceptable. She also works with C-Level Management in Washington DC.
I think you have a valid point in objectives. They are completely outdated. It’s like trying to get a date at a pub dressed, well, not dressed at all. The intent is obvious, and it’s casting a line without specifying which sort of fish you’re after.
In regards to being proficient in MS Office, I think for Americans they will slowly catch up, but certifications in things like Apple or ECDL is on the rise and hopefully will replace the desired need to state your estimated ability.
Thanks for your input.
Hello,
In terms of certificate and training, should I include stock trading course “technical analysis” when I applying for investment banking?
Thanks
Tanh
Sure, not sure if it is too relevant/helpful but you can include it if you want. I have not seen your resume before so not quite sure how big of an impact that will be on your cert/training
About the ms office thing:
I took the official courses on word, excel, acess and power point and have the official certificates. Shouldn’t I include them?
You can if you want but it makes 0 difference in competitive fields like investment banking. Most people assume that if you can breathe oxygen, you know how to use those programs these days…
Regarding listing proficiency in Excel, Word and PP, if they are taken for granted, why do banks ask for proficiency in these programs when submitting an application online? Same applies for language skills in fact – if it is taken for granted that you speak English fluently why ask for your fluency on their application page?
Because this is standard application procedure. Once you list them on the application form, we think it is redundant to list them on your resume again.
Fail employer who-throws-away-applications is fail.
That is all.