Copy This Investment Banker Resume Template to Get Into KKR (Or At Least, Something Almost as Good)
We’re going to continue our series on investment banking resume templates and go through how you should write about investment banking experience in this article.
You can actually use a similar template for anything in finance, whether you worked on the sell-side or buy-side.
But you can’t use it for everything.
Who Should Use This (or a Similar) Template:
- Students who have had banking / finance internships (you will need to make some modifications, e.g. put Education at the top instead).
- Current Analysts and Associates.
- Anyone in other front-office finance roles who is now looking for something else within finance.
Who Should Not Use This Template:
- Anyone applying to business school – for that you want to present a more “balanced” picture of what you’ve done.
- Older, more experienced people – if you have worked on 20+ deals you will need a separate page for listing everything. This usually only happens at the VP-level and above.
- Anyone working outside finance or anyone interested in moving to something outside finance – the Peace Corps doesn’t care if you know what EBITDA means.
The Template, The Video, and the Tutorial
As before, here’s the template in Word and PDF format:
- Investment Banker Resume Template – Word 2003
- Investment Banker Resume Template – Word 2007-2010+
- Investment Banker Resume Template – PDF
And here’s the overview video:
- View Large Version
- Download Large Version
- Download iPad Version
- Download iPhone Version
- Download iPod Version
- Download MP3 Version
And if you don’t like any of these options, here’s the same tutorial in text format:
What’s Different In This Version
Actually, a lot of this is the same as in our university student template: the area at the top with your name and contact information, the overall format of the resume, and format of each work experience entry (name and position left-aligned, location and dates right-aligned, summary sentence, etc.).
What’s Different:
- The Order – Work Experience on top, Education below that and Skills/Activities/Interests below that. Note: If you were an intern and are still in school you should keep Education on top.
- The Focus – We are focusing much more heavily on your investment banking experience and have cut back on the rest.
Why?
- For buy-side recruiting, or even moving to another bank, this is all they care about 90% of the time.
- If you’ve had a banking internship, your full-time interview questions will be either technical or focused on your internship – or both.
Yes, you can include previous internships and jobs as well but you should make your banking experience take up most of your resume.
If you’re an intern returning to school, it’s fine to leave in previous internships but I would not devote as much space to them.
About the Banking Experience
You should give 1 or 2 summary sentences, and then go straight into your deal experience (or if you worked on the buy-side, “Investment Experience”).
The summary sentence should:
- Give the number and types of deals you’ve worked on.
- Say that you completed valuations, models, due diligence, research, and client presentations (or anything else – add and subtract from here as needed)
Research and qualitative items are OK to include but try to focus on clients / deals / technical work because those are what interviewers care about.
If you didn’t work on deals (if you were an intern) or didn’t do much substantial work, there are ways around it – which we’ll get into below.
Picking Deals / Clients to Write About
Once you have your summary sentence, you need to decide WHICH deals / clients / investments to write about.
If you were an intern, this is easy: take what you can get. Unless you were a miracle summer analyst and somehow worked on 10 transactions, you can usually point to a few major projects.
For those working in banking full-time, it’s more difficult to decide what to write about.
Some guidelines:
- Aim for between 2 and 4 deals total – just 1 looks strange, and more than 4 is excessive to get your points across. In THIS template there are more than 4 deals, but that’s because I wanted to give you examples of how to write about different deal types.
- Try to have a mix of “high-profile” or larger deals that catch recruiters’ attention (e.g. Microsoft / Yahoo) and deals where you contributed something more substantial (this one is more relevant for full-time bankers).
- M&A / Restructuring deals are better to write about than IPOs or other Equity-related deals. Debt Financings can be ok depending on what you did. Anything “unusual” like divestitures, distressed sales, etc. is also good to write about and talk about in interviews.
See Also: Private Equity Resumes for more on this topic.
It’s not the end of the world if you’ve mostly worked on IPOs. Despite rumors to the contrary, you can get into PE without having M&A or Leveraged Finance experience.
Whether or not a deal was officially announced doesn’t matter: just replace company names with industry descriptions (“Biopharmaceutical Company”) for unannounced transactions.
What to Do If You Don’t Have “Real” Deals
If you don’t have many “official” deals, you should turn whatever you did during the summer into “pending” or “potential” deals.
The more that happened, the better, but as long as you did something you can write about it as if it were a potential transaction.
Were you doing research on companies for a client or prospective client? Sounds like a “Potential” Buy-Side M&A deal to me.
Did the CEO approach you and ask your team to pitch for the business? Did you do a valuation and research potential buyers? That’s a “Potential” Sell-Side M&A deal, even if you didn’t do much more than the pitch book (if you’re paranoid, you can label this type of experience a “Pitch” instead).
You don’t need to list “deals” if it’s too much of a stretch – in that case, just go with a summary sentence and a few more descriptive bullets on what you did.
Writing About Deals
Within each entry, list the dollar/Euro/other currency amount – estimating if you don’t know for sure – and list the company that you were representing first.
“Media Company’s Acquisition of Software Company” would imply that you represented the Media Company on the buy-side.
Use “Potential” or “Pending” for deals that haven’t been announced or closed yet, and only give the names if it’s publicly known.
Aim for 1-2 bullets for each deal – if you can summarize it with 1 bullet, do that, but if you need more than that you could split up what you did into “qualitative” and “quantitative” parts and use a 2-bullet structure.
I’ve mentioned the “Specifics; Results” structure before and the same applies here – but you need to be careful about what you write:
- Focus on modeling or valuation work if possible in your “specifics” segment – due diligence or other qualitative work may be ok as long as you can make it sound good in an interview. Try to link anything qualitative to how it was used in the transaction.
In the template here, the banker is using the buyer list he created for the Restructuring deal as the “specifics” and then giving the “results” by writing that it was used in Chapter 11 proceedings to show that the price was fair.
(“Fair” may sound ridiculous to you if you haven’t worked in finance before, and it would take me about a page to explain the term here – but for now just keep in mind that the work he did was used in court proceedings, which makes it good to write about.)
- The level of detail for each deal depends on how much space you have and the rest of your resume. If this is your first and only full-time work experience, be as detailed as you can, but if you have lots of other solid entries then you don’t need to write a Wikipedia page about each entry.
In this template, the banker has gone into detail on some deals and hasn’t written much about others – which is fine.
- Be very careful about your “results” for each deal. If you write something like, “Negotiated 10% lower purchase price,” you’re going to get called on it in interviews because Analysts and Associate don’t “negotiate” anything (except for food prices at closing dinners, maybe…).
If your work impacted the deal, that’s fine – but be careful with your wording and make sure that you frame the results as you having “supported” the senior bankers.
Also, don’t feel pressured to include false “results” – if all you did was create a presentation, just write that rather than pretending you made $10 million for your firm.
What to Do If…
Here are answers to some other common questions:
You’ve Had Multiple Investment Banking Internships
You can still include the other internships, but cut back on how much you include, and keep the focus on your current or most recent one.
You Had Experience in Private Equity, at a Hedge Fund, or Something Else Outside Banking
Still include a summary sentence but write about “Selected Investment Experience” instead and list the investments / potential investments you worked on.
Focus on modeling, due diligence, and how your work impacted the deal process (if that’s what happened).
See the video for more detail and an example of how to do this.
You Can’t Fit Everything On One Page and You Don’t Live in Australia
Decrease the font size, cut out experience, or do whatever it takes to get it on 1 page. 2 pages is still not appropriate in most regions, unless you have dozens of deals and need separate page(s) for them.
You Didn’t Have Any “Real” Deals
See above.
The Rest of the Resume
Again, it’s fine to leave in other Work Experience but you shouldn’t focus on it quite as much – which is why this section has been reduced here.
Education should be shorter if you’re working full-time – no one cares that you were on the Dean’s List. GPA and standardized test scores are fine to keep in. If you’re still a student, you can keep this section more detailed.
Skills, Activities & Interests should also be shorter (it’s named differently here as well) because people care even less what activities you were in once you’ve been working for awhile.
Again, students can keep this section more detailed but don’t go overboard.
Caveat Emptor
So that’s a quick overview of what’s in this template and how to use it – please do not just copy this blindly unless you want to get a lot of questions you can’t answer in interviews.
Use the basic format and style and adapt it to what you actually did.
Note: Also, I assume no liability in case this template does not, in fact, get you into KKR.
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Hello and congrats on a great site! i’m currently working in PWM as a financial advisor at Rothschild in Paris. I’m looking to transition into a sales/broker position at a large bank to access a more fast-paced environment. I have 2 questions:
1- is this doable? I guess everything is, but is it realistic?
2- Would this template apply to my situation?
And I was wondering how PWM is seen in more “elite” finance groups? Do they see it as a better than nothing experience or is it seen as a “low-end ” job?
Thx a lot and carry on!
1) Yes, but it’s heavily dependent on networking.
2) Yes, because you definitely want to focus on your client experience in PWM.
Bankers usually don’t think too highly of PWM, but that is mostly because bankers tend to be annoying and arrogant… it’s certainly better than non-finance roles, though, so I wouldn’t worry about it.
Does this resume format also apply to individuals (who recently started a FT job) but are looking to recruit again for more high level jobs (IBD,S&T, Consulting…etc.). I have recently started with a valuation shop and have been here for couple months but am looking to find jobs that could better position myself for b school. Please Advise. Thanks.
Yes, that would fall under category 2 above “Anyone in other front-office finance roles who is now looking for something else within finance.” – just position your valuation experience in a similar way to what I have here.
Hi i’m currently a rising senior in my penultimate year in a target Australian university and i’m interested in breaking into investment banking.
I noticed in this and a previous post that within Australia it is acceptable for resumes to go longer than a page long. What else do bankers generally like to see on resumes and cover letters in addition to the usual stuff mentioned in your post?
Thanks!
There are at least 10 articles on this site on resumes and cover letters, and more than that in the Q&A… I would start there and read everything under “Core Content” to get an idea…. look at the university student resume template and use it, you can make it longer and more detailed though.
Rather OCD question here:
I’ve been helping some friends who go to Wharton undergrad prep their resumes for FT on-campus recruiting since I’m graduated now and presumably “knowledgeable” about recruiting. One of them has asked me about rounding his GPA on their resume from a 3.33–>3.4?
When I rounded my GPA before I went from 3.56–>3.6 but that was okay only bc it was above 3.55 in my opinion so I told my friend no. But when I searched your site I found a comment saying that it was okay to go from 3.44–>3.5? Does a similar rule apply here?
Usually they only check GPAs right before you begin working… by that point, who remembers what you said in interviews or wrote on your resume?
Honestly I’ve seen people get away with BSing a lot more than a simple GPA rounding… I really don’t think rounding 3.33 to 3.4 is a huge deal, and I don’t even think it would help much with recruiting.
Sorry if I’m beating a dead horse here, but I was a little worried about the GPA I put on my resume (I’ll be a junior this year). I have a 3.86, is it still ok to round it to a 3.9 or is it less acceptable as the GPA gets closer to a 4?
I know you must answer questions like this all the time but I would like to put 3.9, just not if it will make me look dishonest.
Go ahead and put 3.9 but it makes 0 difference in terms of anything…
Hi I,
I’m currently just finishing an IBD internship at a leading european bank. The office I’m working in only just opened, and our team is very small. Hence most of the work was been origination i.e. pitchbooks.
Therefore I’ve only worked on one live transaction, but have done endless numbers of p books/industry research – Is there someway I can go into more detail on the work I did for these p books, as some of it was quite complex and for reputable companies – I’m sure if I was here for longer many of them would turn into mandates. How exactly would I word this experience without sounding like I’m just making p books?
Cheers,
S
just say each one was for a “Potential Sell-Side / Buy-Side M&A Transaction” or say each one was a “Valuation” and then go into more detail on what you did. In the description, focus on the valuation work and/or anything industry-research-related that sounds good.
I have an offer to work at a boutique I interned with and don’t know if I should take it.
Its three senior guys pretty much running deals that usually fall under $50MM/$100MM so they don’t have any junior guys.
I would be the only analyst and during my internship got to write the offering memorandum and management presentations.
I don’t know if I should take it since there would be absolutely no modeling experience involved, the deals are small so they let the market decide, i.e. determine best price from bids.
I would pretty much write the CIM, management presentation, teasers, time lines, interact with executives of client companies, develop a pitch or two very rarely, but not modeling.
If I want to ultimately lateral into a larger firm would they be receptive to someone who developed only qualitative, soft skills as an analyst with not modeling experience?
They have some solid dealflow, there just really small transactions.
If that’s your best option then I would definitely take it.
Yes, working in Morgan Stanley M&A would be better, but this is far better than being unemployed / working outside banking.
You can still lateral elsewhere if you don’t have great modeling experience, though it certainly helps.
Hi Brian,
I have 2 questions for you:
- Should you put your GPA of 3.3 on your Resume if you are looking an internship at bulge brackets?
- If you have had a summer internship at a Boutique during the summer 2008 where actually few deals were going on and you were only there to have an overview of the M&A’s world…how should you turn it in your Resume?
Could they ask you during an interview technical questions whereas you haven’t done anything technical during your internship (only drafted company’s profiles, research, plugging numbers into Excel)?
Thx
1) Yes.
2) They will still ask technical questions because it was an i-banking internship. Instead of writing about deals, I would just write a few summary sentences and make each one about a different project that you were working on.
Hi,
I’m having difficulty deciding whether to keep my CV to one page or 2. I’ll be applying to banks in London and my career service at Uni (UK) always said the norm was 2 pages – However after reading this and a lot of posts on other US forums it seems that 1 page is the way to go (especially considering how little time bankers have to read CVs).
Of course the problem is if I send a 1 pager and everyone else sends 2 pages I’m at a disadvantage by having less content.
Do you have any experience with how I banks in the UK view CVs, and should it be 1 or 2 pages?
I would keep it to 1 page, “more content” does not equal “better CV.”
People tend to have a lot of fluff that doesn’t make a difference one way or another when it gets to be 2 pages…
Hi Brian,
Thanks for answering our questions. I was wondering if you could tell me something. If I have already interviewed and been rejected at a BB, what do I say when other firms ask me if I am ‘interviewing’ with anyone else?
Thanks.
Just say you’re interviewing with several other bulge bracket firms but don’t know the results yet
Hi,
I’m currently working in financial due diligence at a big 4 accounting firm, and have worked on a major debt refinancing and several buy and sell side deals, mostly from a qualitative DD perspective. However I have also done some very detailed forecast (but not valuation) modelling. I’m looking to break into an IB M&A role – what aspects of my narrative above do you think I should emphasise, and what are the weak points I should be aware of and try to address?
Thanks for your help – great site !
I would focus on the modeling work and maybe write about 2 modeling-type experiences and 1 DD experience. Both are important but ultimately bankers will care more about modeling skills – the #1 question they have will be “Can you handle the hours?” so be prepared to answer that one.
Thanks for your response! In your experience, do many people from big 4 corporate finance/financial DD service groups make the transition to IBanking? The hours we work are typically around 60-80/week during deal execution (but I’m yet to pull an ‘all-nighter’!)
It’s possible but to be honest, it’s not very common – banks recruit primarily from business schools and undergraduate… you can do it, but someone still in school will always have a better shot at getting in.
I recently worked for a company that was acquired by a large private equity firm. The company’s name didn’t change, but it is now owned by this PE firm. Is it appropriate to write the name of the company on my resume as:
Company X (acquired by Private Equity firm Y)
or just as Company X ?
It’s fine to go with the first one
Thanks for the reply. Amazing website by the way.
Hi Brian,
I follow you on twitter and really like this portal. I have been wondering over last few weeks with finding a good audience to sound off my doubts. I guess I have it now!
To begin with, I am working full time with a boutique IB. I graduated last year from one of the IIMs and an undergrad degree from IITs. I also have pre-mba full-time work-ex.
High points – I am the only one among my batchmates who has actually closed a deal, only deal for my firm in last 8 months.
I am looking to move into buy-side, I know its little tough given the environment. I have been lucky also to get few interview situations in last 4-5 months. Though none of them actually worked out!
The issue is I fret little too much about technical knowledge of sectors I have worked on and the real problem is the feeling that I lack a story or seeing myself not able to chitchat, say getting friendlier with the interviewee.
I have also tried networking, easier said than done – last fall I exhausted all on my lists and now it looks embarrassing to write back to them.
Also, it looks with these kind of interview experiences – I think its best to save networking when I will be confident of my technical knowledge and soft skills.
Do you think you will have some ideas/advise which can be of help here?
Thanks,
MJ
Those are very broad questions but I would try to talk to some friends in the industry and see what you might be doing wrong with networking / telling your story… it’s really hard to tell you how to “be more friendly” online via comments, but you need to practice getting to know new people, meeting strangers, etc. and finding common interests. It’s not that hard with practice, but you need to do it consistently and then run it by other friends in finance to see what they say.
Hey Brian,
There is a start-up networking event happening in my city on Saturday which will be well attended by a lot of VCs.
I think it will be a great opportunity to network, however, I haven’t really been to such conferences and have no idea if you can really network their for potential opportunities.
So, two questions: First, will it be a suitable place to schmooze for figuring out potential opportunity/build network.
Second, any suggestion on how do I steer the conversation to finally make my objectives clear. Obviously, I will be introducing myself through my existing firm and hence it can be little dicey.
Thanks – MJ
Eh it’s probably not the best place to find a job, but it doesn’t hurt to try.
I would try to speak to as many people as you can for a few minutes, get business cards, and then follow-up with everyone and set up 10-15 minute calls or in-person meetings… toward the end of those conversations you can ask about recruiting.
Thanks Brian – I was suspecting so!
Thanks Brian – Guess ‘meeting stranger’ piece should be put in to practice and hopefully I’ll learn something out of it.
Meanwhile if you get to learn something from your industry friends do let me know.
hii… im now a sophomore year student in imperial college in london… i did have a working experience in china this summer in an investment company. but all i did was learning basics in trading equities, like analyzing trends nd reading newspapers to think about what policies affected what, it wasn reli much on contacting clients nd working on deals. However there was a signal of bear market back in this augusts nd many investors were scared nd many funds faced pressure, so i did participate in persuading clients to rearrange portfolio instead of quit on the market..
so my point is that how can i write my experiences into the CV.. it seems quite far away from those u mentioned in the article. firstly my experience was much more like trading … secondly i wudn call it an intern, its more like work experience..but i did learn alot basics from it… like Dow’s theories..etc… cos im a non finance major….
Just write a few summary sentences instead and write each task in a separate bullet. Try to write about specific trends/policies you analyzed.
Brian,
Thank you for the guide. I got my undergraduate degree in May 2009 and since July I have been working at a boutique. Things have gone sour company-wise and it is time to seek other opportunities. I am using the Investment Banker resume template.
My question concerns my title. My given title was “Associate”, but my duties and tasks were more as that of an “analyst/intern”. As I was not a true “Associate” (in terms of experience and responsibility) if I state “Associate” on the resume would the “mismatch” between title and stated experience harm my chances? Would I be held to the Associate standard?
How important is this a factor, or is it just a trivial concern? I am sure the boutique wouldn’t care what I put down.
Thank you.
Honestly I would probably put Analyst in this case if the boutique will back up your claim.
Thank you for your response.
I know I said that the boutique wouldn’t care, but if they did, then I would have no choice but to put down “Associate” as my title on my resume. In this case, do you have any advice when speaking to recruiters/interviewers? What is the best way to present the situation?
Thank you.
I would just explain that you were treated like an intern but that your official title was Associate – but you weren’t a “real” Associate, so it was misleading. I would also not even mention your title to recruiters at first, just present it like an internship.
This is great. I am a 2nd year analyst thinking of getting into the private investments arm of a pension fund.
I was wondering, when I label my current employement on the resume, do I specify my employer? or do I keep my current employer anonymous until I receive an interview? similarly, for transaction experience, do I list specific companies or is it sufficient to list “worked on $500 million IPO” etc. until I receive an interview?
Thanks
Specify the employer name, but do not list actual company names unless it’s a closed deal, public knowledge, and everyone knows about it.
I have made an 18 months internship and was not paid at all during that time. I must now say that my last salary was zero dollar. How do I get to explain that ?
Um, don’t mention that… if they ask just say you were paid on-par with the industry average
Hey M&I, a couple Qs. I am currently working as a M&A/PE grunt for a local bank that calls itself a “merchant bank.” I haven’t seen this being used in resumes, so would it just be easier to say “investment bank” instead? Would others looking at resumes suspect I am bluffing my PE experience if I simply list it as an “investment bank”?
Also, how detailed do you suggest each entry should be? I mean, would others understand if I say “financial projections” or do I have to say “projected out revenue, COGS, etc.”
Thanks much,
Mack
Merchant bank is actually quite common to use, if you have PE-like experience you should write that rather than investment bank. Don’t list common items like revenue / COGS, only go into that level of detail when it’s something uncommon, e.g. you looked at a scenario where a company was going to build 5 power plants vs. 10 because a government regulator stepped into squash the deal at the last second or something like that.
Thanks for the quick reply.
How would you define PE-like work? I imagine you are referring to things like LBO and IRR analysis, but to be honest, most of my time spent on PE and IB are the same: grunt work. That said, can I still spin it as PE-work? And would it actually be advantageous to list “Merchant Bank” rather than “Investment Bank” when applying for IB?
Thanks,
Mack
Yes, basically LBO-type stuff, due diligence, and so on. If you’ve done any work with investments or portfolio companies you should still list merchant bank as it may help a bit
Hi,
I am 40 years old, have an accounting degree and an MSc in Finance and graduated about 16 years ago. I have worked at various investment banks over the past 14, years mainly in the risk dept for equity derivatives. I would like to move to an African focused PE firm. As my qualifications are somewhat dated, what course or professional qualification would you recommend that might make my cv more appealing. And the dreadful question – is it too late for me to try to move into PE?
Thanks
David
It would be very difficult at this point unless you found a new upstart firm that is really interested in your background. At this stage no qualifications will really help – just focus on networking
Hi Brian,
Great site. How does one go about negotiating an unpaid (or paid, that would nice as well) internship with the likes of KKR, Blackstone, bulge brackets, in the UK? I am networking mainly through alumni of my schools (Ivy, Oxbridge), and per your UK related advice, mainly through Americans. My grades weren’t that great when I was an undergrad, there was a reason but would rather not elaborate, senior year was the best (so at least was an upward trajectory). I met with an alum in London that is a lawyer that works with HFs, PEs, VCs, etc and has a lot of contacts, but I need to clarify what I am interested in (i.e. an unpaid position would be more accessible and could lead to a full time offer). How do I negotiate that or an off-cycle internship, in a down market, and in London?
Thanks for your site, I used the networking ninja and ibanking interview guide to get started, and they’ve been reeeally helpful, esp for getting my story straight (I studied biology, so this was crucial).
Unpaid internships are extremely uncommon at large PE firms / bulge brackets due to legal reasons (e.g. they will get sued if someone finds out) – I wouldn’t even try. Ask for a real internship instead and say that you really want to gain the experience.
I would also strongly recommend not aiming for just the top banks, because there’s a lot of competition… much easier to get informal internships at boutiques.
Your’s is the itnelliegnt approach to this issue.
Hi Brian,
I am from a wholesale banking background. During my 6 month internship I have worked on 10+ sell-side M&A transactions for small businesses (1M-50M). None of those deals have gone through (deal broke down on pricing, unable to find strategic buyer etc). Should I briefly include all those deals? Thanks.
Regards,
Arun
Include the best 2-3 deals.
I’m a first year at a BB. So far I’ve only worked on equity raises. What should I do?
List them on your resume and focus on spinning them and making it sound like you did a lot of modeling work as part of the process rather than just qualitative work.
Thank you for this awesome website! I am about to graduate from a less known business school. My old resume have gotten me a couple of internships with IBs in Japan and China and I have experiences in quite a few M&As and IPOs. I will be updating my resume based on the format given here.
I have one question: Should we really list our interests on the resume? I mean I’ve been taught not to and it just feels weird for me to list “Cycling, Surfing, Cigars, Models and Bottles” on my resume.
Please let me know why you think we should include Interests on our resume. Thank you!
Because they want to work with a real person, not some math nerd with no social skills who is only interested in how to use Excel. Read the rest of this site.
Hi M&I,
Thanks a lot for putting up this site! I am recent graduate currently working in the loan syndication team in an international bank in Asia. My major at uni was engineering, so my knowledge in the financial service sector was very limited before I started working. However, as I learnt more about this sector, talked to different people and did my own research, I realized that I have far more interest in investment banking than what I am doing now. Besides, I really don’t like my current company, which has a very local working culture.
I noticed that there is current job opening for experienced hire in major investment banks, and would really like to give it a try, although I know it might be a bit too early for a job switch, since I have only started for less than six months. Also, given the fact that I am not required to do any financial modeling at work(I am more like a loan sales atm), I may never get the chance to develop the skill set for IBD (and also the fact that I really want to leave this company..), I figure that rather than wasting my time doing sth I don’t really enjoy, I should just give it a try. May I have your view on my current situation, please? Also, if there is anything I could add onto my CV/ write in the cover letter, that could at least get me an interview, please? Many many thanks!
I would just go for it if you want to make the move, no point in wasting more time there. Forget about the CV and cover letter and start networking with people in that department or getting introduced somehow.
Thanks for the reply! Well, the thing is, I would like to switch company as well as the job, and I find it less easy to get to know people who work in IBD in other banks. Besides, my friends who work in other ibanks are still first year analysts, I did ask for referral, but I doubt the chance would be high.. Shall I still apply for the vacancy online, or shall I wait for more opportunities to come through networking?
Networking is always better, you could still apply anyway though for now.
Hi,
I’ve begun networking with multiple banks in Asia, and I’m close to getting my resumé (or CV) read by several folks (probably on the more senior end). I’m coming in with several years’ experience in risk consulting, so it’s not a banking CV, but it will be read by bankers. How should I be structuring it? Since it’s non-US, I’ll begin with work (my experience is also more relevant than my educational background). But anything else in particular? I’m presenting it as 15% activities and 85% achievements/notable deals. Thanks man!
That is fine but if you’ve already been working don’t list too many activities… maybe a few lines at the bottom that’s it. Focus on the “deals” that look the most like IB experience.
Sorry, by activities I meant that I’m providing a short description of my job and sector (it’s not quite cookie cutter). This is actually for S&T, not IB, and I’ve realized that I can’t dress it up all that much because what I do is much more of a fit with IB than S&T. I basically just followed your advice and focused on networking… and hopefully they’ll take the view that I’m fundamentally competent.
Hi,
Thank you for this platform.I did my MBA Finance and passed out in 2003.I got a opening in a KPO and have been there ever since.Though its essentially a data typing job for the SEC.I also had an education loan to pay so I stuck to the job though its really monotonous and frustrating.I also did my law school side by side and passed out in 2009.As of now I am really confused about what to do though I feel investment banking or corporate law are the best bets.I am finding difficult to break into both of them as I lack experience in either.
Do Suggest the right course of action.
Best Regard’s
Contact alumni from your MBA program and see what they think about those 2 options… make sure they have actually worked in the industry first.
What about study abroad experience? How could I list my experience abroad so that the IB structure of the resume is not jeopardized?
Follow the instructions on the university template and list it under Education at the bottom
Hey Brian,
Long-time reader of your site, and currently a 1st year analyst in a FIG group of a lower-tier BB. The majority of the 2nd year analysts in my group do not have offers for any buy-side jobs (only 1 got PE), which concerns me. I’m meeting with a buy-side headhunter later this week, and was wondering if I should mention that I’d be open to jumping to a better BB if it will help my buy-side recruiting after a year or two. Do you think this is a smart move, or should I just make the most of my experience here? So far I’ve done a bunch of busy work, am on a potential buy-side transaction, and in the middle of an IPO for a well known asset manager. I enjoy the culture here, but am afraid I may not get enough good experience. Thanks much for your advice.
I wouldn’t bother because you might not even get better deal experience at a “better” bank – it’s very random and dependent on office politics, the senior bankers in the group, and so on. Also, headhunters are usually not a good bet for moving to another bank – networking is better there.
Thanks for the great site and thoughts.
I am currently with one of the top 10 London law firms and want to transition to investment banking.
1. Would this template work for me?
2. What should I focus on if I had not much experience with valuations/modelling etc? Just DD? Anything else?
3. I have two years of experience in M&A and ECM plus I speak two foreign langauges, which particular department should I aim at?
4. Do you think an MBA will be helpful to make a move?
Many thanks for your advice.
1) Yes but you may want to keep it to 1 page.
2) Due diligence, negotiations, anything related to corporate finance or securities even if it’s not quantitative. Possibly tax-related issues as well.
3) I would go for M&A since languages are more useful there; for ECM it doesn’t matter quite as much since everything is done in English due to a global investor base.
4) Marginally helpful but not necessary, esp. if you have been working for at least 2-3 years.
Hi M&I
Thanks a lot for the info you’ve put up on this site! I have been reading the above article, and have a few questions about how to structure my resume. I graduated in summer 2010 and started my full-time job in a lower tier investment bank as a loan sales. After working for half a year, I realise that my interest actually lies on IBD, and sector teams particularly appeals to me. Hence, I am thinking about updating my resume in order to show to people through net-working, but given that I have only been helping to distribute plain-vanilla corporate loans (some with a bit of structure), and to prepare Info Memos/market materials/pitchbooks etc, there isn’t much to say about any particular transactons that I have been involved, how shall I structure my resume to look impressive in this case? Shall I follow the undergradute format or the experienced professional format? Would really appreciate your input on this, many thanks!
I would go with the undergraduate format since you’ve been out of school less than a year. There are some good sales to IB resume tips here:
http://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/sales-trading-to-investment-banking/
Nice Blog
J.P. Morgan launched a new intranet site today focused on exit opportunities. It includes a resume template with a striking resemblance to the one on this site. Is their a connection?
If you’ve “prepared valuation materials using public company comparables, precedent transactions and DCF/LBO, etc.” for all 4-5 transactions that you list, is it better to make that as one of the lead-in bullets before “Selected Transaction Experience”?
My fear is that, even though it’s true, it ends up looking repetitive. Maybe a summary bullet such as “Valued businesses and assets utilizing comparable company and precedent transaction analyses, analysis at various stock prices, and leveraged buyout and discounted cash flow models” would be better – although I suppose this wouldn’t be true of ALL deals on one’s resume. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
If that’s the case then you can just focus on different aspects for each deal, i.e. for one you can write about the valuation, for the other you can write about the merger model you built and so on.
Hi Brian,
Had a question re: giving a broad overview sentence about the firm’s specifics. For instance, I’m a college kid interning at a MM private equity firm this summer – should I include a summary sentence about how large they are/what type of firm they are as a bullet point or should I just put that in the title/description as:
Firm XX – MM buyout/growth firm focused on companies with x revenues
PE summer analyst
Which do you think would be more appropriate? THanks for your help and keep up the good work.
Include the description in the summary sentence instead
Hi Brian,
I’m currently a summer analyst for a private equity team that belongs to a major investment bank in China. My goal is to leverage this experience into a full-time job offer with a major investment bank that is based in Hong Kong.
I’m advanced in Mandarin but given that I’m not of Chinese origin, should I mention how some of my work involved translation or research in Chinese?
Thanks!
Sure that’s a good idea if you’re confident about your language skills
Hi M&I,
Thanks for putting up this forum and sincerely appreciate your patience in answering every single query.
I just have a quick one for you.
I am working in a mid market (USD 20-40mn ticket size) Asian PE firm. While we are mostly growth capital oriented, but I desperately want to move into the bigger league of buyout funds.
Do you think its realistic? Any suggestions? We have looked at couple of small buyouts (<USD 100mn equity check), but nothing materialized.
Once again many thanks and congrats on setting up this useful platform.
It’s possible but honestly pretty difficult unless you have solid access to headhunters and/or friends/alumni etc. at these larger firms. It’s also hard if you haven’t closed (m)any deals yet because they will test you heavily on your deal experience.
Thanks M&I,
I have completed 4 transactions in last 2 years, but all minority. So, u r saying that none of these deals will matter to a buyout fund since they will only see whether I have completed any control tranasctions.
Those are fine but not as directly relevant as real buyouts or 100% acquisitions
I had a summer internship at a Brazilian Middle Market PE firm, but went into S&T right after my graduation…for 6 months now. I want to land a full time job in PE (no IB experience). Should I list my PE experience on the top of the resume despite not being the most recent? And do you think it’ll be hard to re-break in after going into S&T?
Yes, still list it at the top. Harder after S&T but not that big a deal since it was only 6 months.
Was recently promoted to associate at BB. How can I get a PE associate position since I will be considered as a carrier banker. I don’t want to turn down my promotion.
Aim for really small firms, otherwise you’ll be seen as too experienced since the big places prefer to recruit IB analysts
Hi Brian,
You provided us different kind of resumes where you always mention that “if you are applying to a Business School, you want to give a less finance-focussed view of yourself”.
What does it mean exactly? Should we be less technical regarding our finance experience? Put a little more emphasys on education and skills/languages/activities sections?
Last question, as you probably expect it :) , could you provide ua a CV template that we could use for our MBA/MSc applications?
Thanks
Yes just focus less on finance jargon and deals and more on leadership, how you worked with clients, soft skills, etc. For MBA applications you can use this template, or the other one for the more experienced candidates (just do a search for resume template).
Thanks so much for your great work. If you could offer some advice it would be appreciated.
Graduated in May and if I trim down the education section resume looks very empty. Should I keep in leadership experience? Also, since my graduation was not long ago and I have not started working yet should I still put it on the bottom?
Thank you!
Yes keep your leadership experience. If you have something great to write about re your professional experience put that first. If not, put your education info first.
I work in a target group at GS/MS and am currently starting to interview for PE. My GPA is not awesome. Will it look strange to not include GPA on the resume after 1 year of full-time experience?
Yes. I don’t think your GPA matters so much since you already have one year of full time experience. As long as you have good reviews, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. But I’d still suggest you to put your GPA on your resume.
Great site & tips. Thank you for this Brian.
A quick question, for an experienced hire, is it appropriate to point out my investment track record?
My track record is 20%+ on pre-2007 deals (I was an analyst + associate), but I haven’t closed any deals since, so no losses either. I’ve been in real estate private equity since I graduated 7+ years ago.
I thought of putting one-line about it at the end of my transaction list. What do you guys think?
Yes. I think you should flag your track record.
Thanks Nicole
If I have only worked as an analyst at a no-name boutique for a few months (but with good deal experience) but went to a big brand name university before that, should I still put work experience above education if I want to lateral elsewhere after a few months to a year of experience?
How much of a hindrance does having only deal experience in one or two sectors have if I want to lateral to elsewhere with a generalist/different sector focus?
Also, if I have worked on quite a number of deals but mostly in the $15m-$30m range (at no-name boutique), do you think I stand a chance of getting into well-known mid market PE firms? Is good deal contribution over a few deals the key in general for MM PE recruitment?
Thanks.
Yes.
I wouldn’t call it hindrance though you’ll have to spin how you can transfer your deal experience in those sectors to the ones w generalist/diff sector focus
Yes, good deal contribution is important though again it depends on how you spin your story and what you have learned/skills you gained from your experience