Copy This Investment Banking Resume Template to Get In (If You’re a University Student)
I get A LOT of questions on how to structure your resume, how to write about your experience, what to focus on, and how much to write.
Rather than writing a giant Q&A on all these topics, I’m going to give you a resume/CV template that you can just copy and modify for your own experiences.
You might be thinking, “Wait a minute, if you do this, won’t everyone start using it? Won’t my resume look the same as everyone else’s?”
The short answer is “No” – and to find out why, get the full template, and see the video tutorial, read on…
But I’ll Have the Same Resume as Everyone Else!
I expect that around 10,000 people will see this article in its first week of publication. It’s a bit depressing, but of those 10,000:
- Only around 1,000 will actually read this entire article.
- Only 100 will download the template and think about using it “some point.”
- Of those 100, 90 will forget they downloaded it and only 10 will actually use it for their own resume.
Even if someone gives you all the answers, only 0.1% will actually take advantage of it (this goes back to a consistent theme on M&I: don’t overestimate the competition).
And if you are worried, just change around the fonts, margins, or other formatting.
Ok, let’s get on with the template and video now…
- University Student Investment Banking Resume Template (Word 2003)
- University Student Investment Banking Resume Template (Word 2007)
- University Student Investment Banking Resume Template – PDF
Note: You should always submit your resume in PDF format unless they tell you otherwise.
Here’s the tutorial video (if you’re reading this via email, you’ll have to click through to view this article):
- View Large Version
- Download Large Version
- Download iPhone Version
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- Download the MP3
For those of you who don’t like to watch or who can’t watch, here it is in text:
Overall
Notice how this is very compact – investment bankers only spend 30 seconds reading your resume, so you want to hit on the key points rather than overloading them with irrelevant information.
Avoid 0.25″ margins and size 8 font unless you absolutely can’t fit everything – try to use 0.5″ margins at a minimum and preferably at least 0.75″ (like you see here).
Decreasing the font size is better than decreasing the margins if you need to fit more information on the page – but again, you should make sure everything you include is both necessary and useful.
We have 4 main sections: the Header, Education, Work & Leadership Experience and Skills, Activities & Interests.
All the entries are right-aligned for the dates and locations – to do that, you go into “Styles” in Word and create a New Style with right-aligned tabs (just watch the video to see how to do this, it’s really hard to explain in text).
1 Page Only, Please (With Some Exceptions…)
Before anyone mentions it – yes, I know Australia is an exception to this rule and resumes there often go on for 2-3 pages even for entry-level positions.
For the rest of the world, however, it’s a much safer bet to stick to 1 page unless you are applying to Managing Director-level positions (and if you’re reading this website, that’s not you).
Header
Center the header, make sure your name is in bigger font than the rest (so they remember who you are), and write your address, phone number and email address right below that.
There’s not much more to it than that – keep it short, don’t include stars or symbols, and please, keep photos of your pet rabbit off your resume (I’ve seen all of the above before…).
There are some regions where it’s acceptable to include your own photo here, so go ahead and do that if it’s common practice.
Note: Never include your picture on your resume in the US, even if one of your “interests” is “professional modeling.”
Education Section
If you’re still in university, this should always be at the top – I can’t think of a good reason why it would be anywhere else.
The key points: where you go to school, what your major is, graduation date, and GPA/SAT score. Honors, Relevant Coursework, and Research are actually all optional, but they’re good to include if you have something business/finance-related to write about.
You absolutely need to include your GPA, even if it’s “bad” (below 3.5) – otherwise they will think it’s “really bad” (below 2.0). SAT scores are more optional, but I would leave them in if they’re over 1400 in the old system or over 2100 in the new system.
If you’re outside the US, you would write your grades in your own system here – in the UK, for example, you might write “Earned 2.1 cumulative average.” Class rank is also fine if you don’t receive official “grades.”
If your GPA is poor then you can “hide” it by also listing:
- Major GPA
- 2nd/3rd Year GPA (this is more of a stretch and only works if you can show a strong improvement trend)
You can also list study abroad or summer program experiences here – these should be included as separate education entries if you have the space.
Don’t include high school unless you just got to college and have no real experience yet – or unless you went to a top school with a lot of alumni in finance (Andover / Exeter in the US).
Don’t include clubs, activities, or certifications here – those should be in one of the 2 sections below this instead.
Work & Leadership Experience – The Rule of 3?
You should aim for between 2 and 4 major work experience entries. Don’t make a laundry list of all 27 different clubs you’ve been in, because there’s no way you had major accomplishments for all of them.
Think about what a banker reading your resume would want to know – here are a few examples:
- You had an internship at an asset management firm and then at a hedge fund – and you also started your own business fraternity. Each of these should be an entry, and you should devote most of your space to the internships.
- You worked at a boutique bank over the summer, and have spent 20 hours/week on a Varsity sport at school – these should be your major entries (yes, sports are fine to list under “Work & Leadership Experience” but in this case you definitely want to focus on the boutique bank).
- You were in 4 clubs at school and also had an internship at Goldman Sachs (in any group). DO NOT write about each of these as if they were equal – Goldman Sachs is exponentially more important than your clubs, so spend half your resume on GS, pick the 2 activities where you contributed most, and write a few lines about each of them.
Together or Separate?
You’ll notice I grouped “Work Experience” WITH “Leadership Experience” here – that’s because you probably have a few internships and also a few activities you spend a lot of time on. Grouping these together under one heading saves space and makes your activities seem more like “work experience.”
But let’s say you had 4 investment banking internships (summer and part-time) – in that case, I would probably just call this section “Work Experience” and focus on the 3 most recent ones.
If you’ve had absolutely no real internships or other work experience, you should still call this section “Work & Leadership Experience” to give the impression you did.
Structure of Each Entry
There’s this idea floating around that you should have 3 work experience entries, and then 3 bullets within each one of them – in principle this sounds reasonable, but in practice it can be difficult to include exactly 3 bullets for each entry.
The better way to approach this: decide on a Project-Centric or Task-Centric structure for each entry, and then write everything based around one of those.
In both cases, you start out with a Summary Sentence stating what you did and the major results of your work (if you know them).
For an investment banking internship, the Summary Sentence might be “Worked on 3 live deals and created valuations using public company comparables, precedent transactions, and DCF analysis; worked with clients to develop management presentations and Executive Summaries.”
For a marketing internship, the Summary Sentence might be “Worked with 2 major clients in media & entertainment industries and developed advertising campaigns to promote new seasons of top-rated network TV shows.”
Project-Centric
The Project-Centric structure starts off with the Summary Sentence and then goes into “Selected Project Experience” (or “Selected Client Experience” or “Selected Transaction Experience” or “Selected Investment Experience”).
Use the Project-Centric structure for:
- Investment banking/private equity/hedge fund experience
- Consulting (any kind)
- Anything else involving specific clients or companies – equity research, wealth management, law, accounting, etc.
Pick the 2 or 3 best projects (for internships, these will likely be the ones you did the most work on) and then give a single bullet or two describing what you did for each one (more on that below).
Listing just 1 project or client looks weird – but don’t list 8 different projects either, as you want to focus on the most relevant ones.
If you’re listing these for an investment banking internship, you should use titles such as:
- Pharmaceutical Company’s Potential $150 Million Acquisition of Biomedical Devices Company
- Technology Company’s $250 Million Initial Public Offering
For anything on the buy-side (PE, HF, VC), you might use:
- Potential $1 Billion Investment in Manufacturing Company
And for experience outside finance, you would use similarly descriptive titles and avoid naming specific companies unless whatever you worked on was announced to the public.
Task-Centric
The Task-Centric structure is not that much different – we still have a Summary Sentence at the beginning, but we separate the work by tasks and responsibilities rather than by specific projects or clients.
This format is best for part-time jobs (you worked as a sales rep at Radio Shack one summer – not your “part-time job” at Lazard), activities, and anything else outside finance – like research or engineering.
If you can re-position what you did to make it sound like specific projects then you should definitely do so – but if it’s a stretch, don’t bother.
Kevin said this doesn’t work as well for management consulting, but it definitely helps with finance because bankers look at it quickly and say, “Aha! It looks like they worked on deals!”
Ready, Fire, Aim: How to Properly Structure Your Bullets
Each bullet you write on your resume needs to do 2 things:
- Say, specifically, what you did. Numbers are good, as is the proper lingo. “Valued client using DCF, liquidation analysis, and public company comparables” is better than “Valued companies.”
- Give the results of what you did – and yes, I know that you don’t always have them. Numbers are good, but even something qualitative like “Resulted in private equity firm proceeding with additional due diligence” is better than nothing.
The order here doesn’t matter that much, so go with whatever sounds more natural – if you give the specifics first you should use a semicolon to separate it from the results.
If you go with the results first, you should use “by” to separate each part, as in “Supported senior bankers’ effort to negotiate 5% lower price for client by creating merger model to analyze best-case, average, and worst-case scenarios.”
If you have an extremely lengthy description, then it’s fine to include the specifics all on one line and then make a separate line for the results.
Skills, Activities & Interests
Surprisingly, this is the one section where you see the greatest number of mistakes and outright silly writing. Let’s start with the list of common mistakes:
- Leaving it out entirely (only do this if you’re much older).
- Going on for too long (10+ lines).
- Failing to list useful/interesting Skills, like Language abilities, and instead listing every single club you were in since age 5.
- “Fluent in English” – Except your resume is already in English, so I’d be really concerned if you didn’t know the language…
- “Proficient in Microsoft Office/Excel” – This might have been impressive in 1992. Not so much today.
Keep this section simple and list any language proficiencies first, followed by technical skills (real ones, like programming languages), and then you can list your financial modeling/CFA courses next, followed by a line or two on more minor Activities, and then your Interests at the end.
This is a more subtle point, but when you’re picking your Interests try to list interesting Interests. Don’t just write “Running” – write that you “Competed in marathons in 13 countries across Europe and North America.”
Even though this isn’t “work experience,” the same strategies hold true – be specific, focus on what’s memorable, and try to go in-depth with only a few areas rather than giving a laundry list with minimal details.
Coming Up Next
This is just a template, and it’s just for university students. Future articles in this series will cover templates for MBAs, people who are already working, and then we’ll get into sample resumes you can use for specific situations – like an investment banker applying for private equity positions.
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Tags: finance internships, GPA, investment banking, investment banking resume, understanding investment banking
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Amazing Tutorial. Quick Question: As a recent graduate (trying to recruit again for the upcoming Fall), should I also follow this similar pattern? I have been in contact with some companies and they seem to be okay with the fact that I have graduated (this past spring) and will apply with the same “student” pool. Any help would be greatly appreciated. By the way, is Kevin going to post a similar tutorial for consulting? Or is this somewhat similar for both industries?
Yeah I would use the same pattern if you don’t have any (or much) full-time work experience.
Not sure what Kevin will do, but the ideal resume looks very similar for banking and consulting. Main difference is that my “Project-Centric” structure is not as helpful or necessary with consulting.
I badly can wait for this article regarding the guys who alread has 1year and a half experience with M&A.
Congrats… Your website is amazing.
M&A resumes are actually easier than university student ones… fewer decisions to make on what to include / not include.
this is great article! thanks for posting it. I have a quick question for SAT score. I have a high quant score 790 but a low verbal around 500 since I was intl student and I took it 4 years ago. But now I am currently studying in US for undergrad and my english is much better. so should I just list my quant score? also do i need to list gre, gmat score, or if i am taking actuarial exams? would these help too? Thanks a lot!
In that case I would probably not list your SAT score at all – just listing the math score will raise questions.
Listing GRE or GMAT instead is probably a better idea assuming your scores there are good (for the GMAT, over 700).
Hey, that’s my resume!
Great minds…
Great post, as usual. This is off topic, but I still have not found it somewhere. Can you write some sort of framework for what a good answer to “tell me about yourself is”. I’ve seen many different suggestions in different guides, and I’m still not sure what is a good answer. Of course each person will be different, but what would a typical structure of the answer be (for a college student going for a SA / FT position in IBD).
“tell me about yourself” = “walk me through your resume”
As 1st Year said, it’s just a “walk me through your resume” question. I covered the most common mistakes a long time ago but I might do something in the fall and give more of a “formula” (though to have the most success with anything, you never follow someone else’s formula…).
Should you include both your permanent (home) address as well as your college (mailing) address?
I don’t think it’s necessary because 99% of communication is done via email/phone. If you’re going to be gone for a long time and you’re expecting to get mail from them, just email or call them to let you know your address changed.
I don’t have any IB experience so I’m trying to supplement that by adding some relevant course projects I’ve completed to my resume. So stuff like “analyzed financial ratios of company A and made stock recommendation…” Is it even worth putting this on my resume, and if so, where is the best place to put it. Would it make sense to create bullet points under “relevant coursework”?
I would just put it under relevant coursework and briefly explain what you did. If something is major enough to be considered “work experience” then you could make a separate entry for it there.
If we manage a portfolio and devote a fair amount of time to it (~10 hours a week) and have had a pretty decent return, would that be eligible for the work/leadership experience section? Or is that better left for the Skill, Activities and Interests type section?
If you don’t have anything better (for example, all the rest of your activities are school-related and you have no real internships), then I would list it as a “work experience entry” – but if you already have solid internships then I would just put it in the Skills/Activities/Interests section.
I can’t download the templates haha. Taken it off or technical problem?
should be up again
One thing you didn’t mention: no one will really care if your resume looks similar to everyone else’s as long as it looks good. When I read resumes, the only time I really notice or remember the formatting is when it’s terrible. Personally, I would love it if everyone used this template.
True. Though if you saw 50 in a row using the exact same template, you might get suspicious…
Hi,
Thanks for all the posts…they help a lot.
My questions is: for Why XXX bank questions or Why XXX position questions, what are they looking for??
Thanks,
You need to tell them you’ve spoken with someone or know someone there, mention their name, and say that’s why you want to do it… written about this before numerous times and it’s in the interview guide.
Hi,
Thanks for posting the template, I think it really helped my resume. I have a question about having 5 different experiences in the work and leadership section. I know 5 (3 work, 2 student groups) is a bit overkill, but of the 3 work exp’s, only 2 are finance related and both only lasted for a week each (sophomore rotational program at a BB and a job shadowing-type internship at a F500). I want to emphasize them as much as possible though, but not at the expense of my student group experiences (my best two). I am leaning towards removing the F500 experience, but is the name brand enough to justify the space (2 bullets)? I also can’t remove the other work exp because it’s what i am doing this summer (math research fellowship). I would really appreciate any advice you can give me here.
Thanks in advance,
Max
I would still keep them all in in that case but maybe just have 1 bullet on the F500 experience.
Also, where would you throw in second majors/minors?
Add a line to the Education section and list it under GPA / SAT.
Does ‘Conversational Proficiency’ mean “I can do this entire interview in [language]” or “I can generally understand what you are saying and can explain myself sufficiently in [language]?”
When in doubt, be conservative. Usually they expect you to be able to answer basic questions if you list that – if it comes up, just explain you don’t know the necessary business vocab. to do an interview in that language. Just make sure you don’t write “Fluent” unless you can read newspapers and understand astrophysics lectures…
Nice post, I plan on using the resume with a few changes here and there. I was just recently accepted as a transfer student at a top university where these banks recruit, how do you think this would affect my chances. I am also studying engineering so I would be interested in joining the technology division. I have read some of your posts about how to get in as in engineer and I think they are quite helpful, however I want to leave my options open. I might eventually go on to grad school for a masters, would this affect it in any way.
One last thing, how difficult is it to get private equity analyst positions directly from undergrad, I don’t really have any finance experience, all I have been doing is research even though I am starting to find ways to gain finance experience.
Transfer will help you
PE without any finance experience is near impossible – you need at least an internship in PE/IBD to have more than a 0% chance. PE recruits 99% from former PE/IB guys
I really like this article, and this whole website in general is excellent. However, I do have a question about the education requirements. I have a high schools GPA of 3.5, and for the SAT’s I scored 560 on Reading, 510 on Math, and 510 on Writing. I am retaking them but don’t except any miracles. The bottom line is I am not the most book smart guy in the world, and I will not be attending any ivy league institutions.
I will most likely be attending a CUNY school, such as Baruch. I will not be leavening NYC because I know I will need to network like a mad man to get a job in I-banking without a degree from Harvard. Do I have any realistic shot of landing a job in I-banking with my educational background? Or do I have to make it big in finance as a salesman? Gordon Gekko went to a City College
Yeah I mean like everyone else with lower grades and a non-brand-name school, you will have to network like crazy to get in. If you’re fine spending several hours per day calling people and you don’t mind that kind of “work” then go ahead – going to NYU or another top school in the area would certainly make it a lot easier, but if you feel you can’t get your scores up to par and would prefer to network instead, you can go that route.
M&I or Anyone,
If your working on raising debt for lets just say a subsidiary of major company say Caterpillar for sake of argument, and its not finalized but you worked on it in your internship how would I account for this?
[Company Industry] Company – $xx MM Debt Financing (Pending)
When will templates for ppl already working full-time be posted?
let me know
It’s basically the same, except you flip Education and put it below Work Experience instead.
Since 90% of it is the same, I probably won’t do a separate article on it – I am going to create something on a template for current bankers applying to the buy-side since that can be a bit more detailed.
Great post! I had a question though. I’m at an economic consulting firm which provides economic and financial analysis for law firms, primarily those representing defendants. So I’ve, for instance, worked on a case relating to the collapse of a major hedge fund. How would I list that in the project portion?
Thanks!
$xx Hedge Fund Collapse – Economic Consulting Case
Where would one put information about, say, a senior honors thesis? Or is that not even something that’s relevant to I-Banking?
Put it under Education on a separate line
“Completed Senior Honors Thesis on….”
I would only include if its related to economics/finance/business or if it looks “interesting” (good discussion topic in interviews)
really useful post! i was wondering, when the first year analyst review the resumes to decide who to invite for an interview, do they look at the other questions that are included in the online application form? or is it only solely on the resume within 30 seconds? i am an applicant in the uk, and these questions are a common part of the online application process. thanks!
In the UK those questions are more important so I think they actually read them… resume/CV weighs more heavily of course, but those questions do come into play. I wouldn’t spend a lot of time on them, but make sure you give coherent answers.
quick question.
I had interned at Wachovia Sec back in 2007 before the merger w/ Wells Fargo.
On resume, should I put down Wachovia or can I go with Wells Fargo?
let me know..
either one doesn’t matter
Thanks for the tips about project/task centric formatting. You da man.
I was wondering though if you have more than one internship, but can only apply the task-centric formatting to the most recent internship (because of fewer responsibilities at the other internships) – do you still suggest to format the experience like that and for the other ones just have 3 bullet points? Or is it more important to be consistent and just have all experiences listed with the simple bullet point format?
yes it’s fine to do what you suggested don’t need the same format for everything
Great Article,
For experienced dudes, when putting Education on bottom section, do we leave in GPA or take out? 3.2 GPA non target here (not best i know)..
Since its been about 6 years since college grad does it make sense to take the GPA line out and just leave school, major, 1 or 2 associations?? Thanks.
I would leave out GPA if that’s the case, no point if it has been 6 years
Off topic.
Will there be a similar write-up of cover letter for University Graduates soon?
There is already an article on cover letters that covers all of this – there may be a template as well but I don’t think you would learn anything new with it.
Great post. What about if I only have one deal in my summer intern? Do I still use the project format? You said don’t just put down one porject there as it would be odd.
If you have just one deal I would list that with your other bullets rather than using this format. You can write about it the same way but don’t have a separate transaction experience section.
Make aussie template lol
Just add a lot of useless information to make it into 2-3 pages and you have the Australian template…
Can we use the project-centric form for 1 experience and task-centric for another one? Also, I had an internship in import/export with a commercial bank last summer. Should I try to elaborate on that, knowing it may be of less relevance to IB than consulting, accounting, and IB itself (for those who’ve had IB experience)?
Mixing the formats is fine. If you can spin the import/export internship to make it sound relevant, I would do so esp. if you have nothing better to write about it.
Hi Brian,
Unfortunately I’m one of those people who interned for a bank (Lehman Brothers!!) in the “Back Office”, IT to be exact. It was so mundane I cut my losses at the end, graduated with a 3.3 GPA (not great and non-target) and have just finished a masters in finance (with massive debts), which turned out better at a 3.7 GPA (but still non-target business school).
The problem is that if I’m applying to any investment bank, whether BB or boutique, is having an IT internship going to count against me? If not, do I try and spin what I did on my resume as best I can to relate it to the “Front Office”, or do I just demonstrate analytical ability?
Thanks,
Dave
I would try to spin what you did and make it seem relevant to the front office. Obviously you can’t lie about your title or anything, but try to make it seem like you interacted with front office people a lot, did a lot of analytical work, had some leadership roles, etc.
Hi,
I am applying for a position as Institutional Sale Analyst at a BB and I was just wondering if the resume is similar to a ‘normal’ IB position and if I should follow the same format as in the sample resume. I have had internships in engineering, should I include that as well or not because its not ‘relevant’ to the job(but I had to do a lot of people to people interaction) and that is important in sales.
I go to a ‘brand name school’ in my country (all leading national IBs and American banks like GS,JP, ML, MS etc recruit/used to recruit here). I graduated in electrical engineering with a CGPA of….2.59 and a final year gpa of 2.9. I know its incredibly low and I have 0 chance of getting in, but I want to apply nonetheless ( atleast I have the opportunity for applying by going to a target school so I don’t want to regret not applying). Should I include only my final year GPA or my CGPA?
I also led a team of 4 win the Business Case Competition at the university, with judges present from M/B/B and other consulting companies as well as HBS. Infact during the awards ceremony, the presenter remarked that “that’s how we would analyze the case in real life” before presenting the award. So should I include this under ‘work and leadership experience’? I know I can come up with enough bullet points, but am not sure if this award goes under the category.
I also have many other awards (this is what I was doing instead of focusing on my gpa
). Should I create a new Awards and Achievements section?
Sorry to bother you but I would much appreciate your help!!!
Thanks!
Yes, include internships in engineering but obviously any business internships should take precedence over technical ones. You need to include both GPAs.
You can include the case competition under work experience if you have nothing better. But honestly don’t go crazy with Awards, they are pretty much irrelevant.
With a GPA that low, you’re going to need to do a ton of cold-calling and/or very aggressive networking with alumni to get in – your resume should be your last concern.
I have 2 studies on my resume in physics that I didn’t finish, because I didn’t like it and the grades aren’t good. So I switched to Economics and majored in it. There I took off, with good grades. Should I include my physics history? It is somewhat relevant, because it is quite quantitative.
No, just include your overall GPA and Economics GPA.
It’s not that I didn’t finish the courses, but that I had to switch universities (Dutch system is different from US system) entirely. So also 3 different GPA’s, 2 for physics, 1 for Econ. So it bloats my resume (2 more universities), with not so good averages, and it is barely relevant, other than I have also knowledge in other areas that might be usefull for choosing a sector in investment banking
You should still list the other university, but you can just include your most recent/relevant grades
Hi, I have a question here.
What should I do if I don’t have much work & leadership experience?
All my part time jobs have nothing to do with banking.
This really bothers me since Im already a Junior.
Then spin some finance-related clubs or workshops you’ve done into sounding like work experience, or try to get a school-year internship. Otherwise you just need to write about what you have.
Does this article apply to people appyling to London as well as the US?
I know this seems like an obvious question but I wanted to be sure?
Yes
Hi,
wondering what I should put after Honours?
is it just yes or no?
? You just put what specific awards you won.
hi,
another thing I’d like to ask. I have internships that I wanna include:
1. part-time internship (work on some M&A deal) in boutique IB
2. full-time intern at startup as business developer
3. summer intern at a bulge-bracket, but back office
wondering how I should order these 3..(1 is most recent, 3 least recent)
should I put 3 bfore all the rest bcoz it has “great name”? or should I just list according to the date?
I would order them in reverse chronological order – even though #3 is a better name, it’s back office so not as relevant as #1 and #2.
quick question on the “student club section”, i went to a non US university where clubs and societies were not as popular so i dont have any experience of this
However i did do a very interesting FYP(thesis) which involved using complex mathematical and statistical methods to analyze stocks of banks… do you think i could replace the clubs section with this under work/leadership experience and elaborate on the project which is more relevant and a good conversation topic?
You don’t need a “club” section to begin with, but yes you could add in your project there
What tense should we use for currently held positions? Past tense seems to be the obvious tense for past experience, but what about a current position?
I would still use past tense to make things consistent.
Thank you for your post.
I’m in the Accounting master’s program but wanting to break into banking. Since all my school and work experiences are accounting, I’m in trouble to write a good resume for banking industry.
My experiences are;
1. An audit intern with one of Big 4
2. A webmaster/club member in a school investment club
3. Military experience
4. Multiple Finance/Accounting projects at a college/grad school
Do you think I should I include all of my experiences on my resume?
I would cut the webmaster experience and only list #1, #3, and #4 on your resume. For the audit / accounting experience spin it to sound more like finance and focus on any financial statement analysis you did or how your work impacted the company.
What if they tell you to send your resume via email? Should we use the ASCII version instead of the PDF attachment?
If it’s actually sending via email PDF is fine but for submitting online sometimes you need to paste in plain-text form i.e. ASCII.
How would you recommend formatting multiple positions within the same organization (such as two positions within one firm or student organization)? The first position name in italics, followed by the bullet points…insert a space and put the second position in italics, followed by the bullet points for that position? Thanks
That should be fine and that’s how I’d do it – leave the org name and place the same and in bold at the top, then separate position titles and dates after it, bullets, then another line, then the other position and dates and the accompanying bullets.
Thanks for a very informative posting. I have one question. How would you describe an unsuccessful M&A deal in a title for one of the projects that I want to list in my resume? Normally it would be [XXX's $XXM acquisition on XXX] but I’m not sure where I include the fact that the deal didn’t close.
The deal didn’t work out in the end, but nevertheless I have worked on it for an extensive amount of time and have a lot to show, I think. Thanks.
Just say “Pending Acquisition” rather than “Acquisition.”
Wouldn’t ‘pending acquisition’ misleading when the seller or buyer walked away at the end and the deal blew up?
Nope. How would anyone ever know unless it was very public (e.g. Microsoft / Yahoo)? Plus, deals come back to life all the time.
Thanks for your opinion!
Another question, M&I. I work at a boutique bank so some of our clients are small and not well known. In this case, rather just writing the name of the company, would it be better to write ‘XXX’s $100mm IPO (a software company)’? Or do I need to write the name of the company at all even if the reader would probably not know (just write ‘A XX-based software company’s $100mm IPO’)?
You could just write the name of the company and then in parenthesis put the industry name. But only do this if it has publicly announced going public.
Really helpful post!
Just wondering, sir. Does this template apply to a research analyst position? I am intending to apply to the equity research dept of a large investment bank. Does the 1-page template rule apply in Singapore?
Yes, 1-page applies anywhere except Australia. And it applies to equity research as well.
By the way, how do you think does an equity research internship experience going to help my application for an IB internship in the future?
Also, do you suggest listing the work experience in reverse-chronological order? (the newer the more to the top) or listing according to the relative strength of the experience?
It will definitely help, though not as much as IB/PE.
Reverse chronological is usually best unless your most relevant experience occurred 1-2 years before your most recent one.
If I am accepted in an equity research internship (in Singapore) and an IB internship but in an emerging market, which one should I take in terms of breaking into IB next time?
IB internship
any particular reason? what do I expect to do in an equity research internship? I have read in your web on what to expect from an IB internship..
any particular reason? what do I expect to do in an equity research internship? I have read in your web on what to expect from an IB internship..
Also, what kind of job should I be focusing on doing in an equity research internship?
Investment Banking is closer to Investment Banking than Equity Research. So your chances are better with IB. For ER internship I would expect similar tasks to IB but more writing of reports and such rather than working on deals. I would focus on the same things – make everyone like you, don’t screw up, and don’t try to seem smarter than the other interns.
Hi, very good guide! Brief question, how would you deal with GPA scores from different grading systems? Explain them somehow or leave it up to the recruiter? I got grades in three systems for instance, 1 (excellent) to 5 (failed) from Austria, the exact opposite from Finland and 6 (excellent) to <4 (failed) from Switzerland, which may be somehow confusing.
Just say what your grade is out of… so don’t just write “GPA: 5″ write “GPA: 5 / 6″ or you could convert it to the US 4.0 system and write in parentheses that you converted it.
Hi, great guide above!
I have one question though, under the section “student club”, I have no relevant student club experience at university which I can relate to the finance field.
Is it okay for me to put my high school club experience instead?
e.g. The Interact Club of School ABC
Vice President
Eh I would not put HS unless you’re 1st or 2nd year in university still.
Hi there! congratulations on such an awesome website!
Quick questions though.
I am about to apply to an IB division of a BB, and found out these questions on their application form:
1. Describe what would you consider as your greatest non-academic achievement and why (not more than 200 words).
2. Describe a valuable work experience where you were able to achieve your objective because you were persistent (not more than 200 words).
What type of answers are they actually seeking for? I am trying to relate whatever I’m about to write to numbers or other analytical ability, but am having quite some trouble with it.
Thanks always for your help!
By the way I am thinking of writing about my self-learned modelling skills, but not quite sure where to put it..
Also, in this kind of questions, should I actually tweak the facts a bit to “sell” me more?
Hi,
thanks for the quick response!
okay, so we exclude the club activity, can I replace it with another work experience?
however, the only problem is that my next work experience entry has nothing to do with the finance field, i’m a head chef in an Italian restaurant.
You could include something like that but I’d minimize it because it’s not that relevant.
it looks like u overlooked my post..
I am about to apply to an IB division of a BB, and found out these questions on their application form:
1. Describe what would you consider as your greatest non-academic achievement and why (not more than 200 words).
2. Describe a valuable work experience where you were able to achieve your objective because you were persistent (not more than 200 words).
What type of answers are they actually seeking for? I am trying to relate whatever I’m about to write to numbers or other analytical ability, but am having quite some trouble with it.
Thanks always for your help!
The answers don’t matter that much – just pick something specific and write a few sentences about each one. The key is specificity – you need to have 1 particular incident that shows each one… but these answers really don’t matter much vs. your CV / interview.
How would banks read a sophomore rotational program in securities at a BB given that I now want to do banking? This is my only experience in finance so I feel like it should be featured at the top of my resume…
Definitely put it at the top, it’s relevant esp. if you’re only going for internships.
do you think it’s a good idea to change the label “work experience” as “finance experience”?
No.
Hey Brian,
What do you think about having a “Highlight of Qualifications” up at the very top after the Name Section? Our university teaches us that listing maybe 4-5 bullets under there before everything else to catch the reader’s attention. However, obviously our univ template is not focused on IB. What’s your opinion?
thanks
Nope, never include a Summary or Highlights section on IB resumes.
Just curious about the idea behind this… Wouldn’t it make it easier for the recruiter to skim over it in “30 secs” or less?
No, because all they really care about is where you went to school and the names of the companies you worked at. “Team player” and listing other skills like that at the top is useless and they just ignore it – they want to see a high GPA and brand-name schools/companies.
When adding a current position on a resume is it ok to mix past and present tense. For example, I put together the 2010 operating budget for my current employer. This is in the past but many of my current functions are present.
I would use only past to keep it consistent
I got a 34 on math and verbal section on ACT but didn’t take SAT cause i was in the midwest for high school. Should I put that on my resume?
Yes ACT is fine
what kind of project should I be focusing on to write in the project-centric template out of my equity research internship?
Should I be focusing more on financial modeling? Because I don’t get to write much research reports during my last stint..
Thanks for such an amazing site!
Yes, either financial modeling or report writing.
Hi Brian!
I am from one of the top unis in Singapore (Singapore Management University). Unfortunately it seems like it is still hard to break into IBD (we have a handfull number of students who get into IBD, but only the top students).
Now I get a chance to go to Cornell University for an exchange programme (1 semester), however, I need to pay USD 18,000 on top of my education here. My parents are all for it, but I am kind of wondering the chance of breaking into IBD after I attend this kind of programme.
What do you say? Thanks!
If its just for that program, probably not $18K and definitely not worth it if you don’t get to participate in on-campus recruiting. If you do get to participate in on-campus recruiting it could be worth it but you need to ask them about that first.
Awesome website!
Just a question about putting start/end dates on the resume. I’m a student in a co-op program and have alternating semesters as study terms or work terms. So I did a co-op term at ABC Firm in summer 08, they liked me and wanted me back for summer 09 and I accepted. The thing is that I also worked (not a co-op job) during my study term at XYZ Bank in between.
Currently I have my dates set as [may 08 - august 09] for ABC Firm and [january 09 - april 09] for XYZ Bank on the resume. Notice the overlap? Should I break it up have two separate start/end dates for ABC firm [may 08 - aug 08, may 09 - aug09]? Sorry if it sounds super confusing, I don’t know how else to explain it!
Thank you so much!
I would just do separate dates [may 08 - aug 08, may 09 - aug09] as you have there
Hi brian, thanks for your article.
You mentioned that in Australia the resume is much different and can be 2-3 pages, do you know what they include?
because im in australia and i’ve got a 4 page resume with no formal banking experience, so after reading your article i’m deciding to rewrite it.
I’m not sure offhand, but I would probably just eliminate 1 page of older experiences.
Awesome website, thank you for helping us all out.
A quick question..where would we put our concentration? For example, I majored in Business Administration but have a concentration in Finance/IT.
Thank you!
Under or next to major separated by semi-colon
I do have a question about listing a certain type of leadership experience, which is a little out of the box and not really mainstream yet so I do expect some folks to raise their eyebrows at this.
Would it be bad or good to list MMO experience? Leadership in a top tier guild (officer status) for two years? I have noticed an article in a business mag (it was either Time or Newsweek) which said that jobs are starting to require on the fly adaptivity in leadership.
I would definitely consider leadership in MMO top tier raid/pvp experience as adaptive, and it does become difficult when leading 40, 50 or a few hundred people (in some cases) to success in some of these games these days. I would definitely say it is much more difficult than say “a quarterback” on a football team because you deal with many more variables which can go wrong at any time.
Variables can include communication, intelligence about the enemy, scouting, capabilities of your team vs theirs, how do you adapt in a fall, strategic placement, etc.
In case anyone is wondering, the game experience I am talking about is Eve Online.
DO NOT LIST THAT.
Seriously, do not do it under any circumstances.
Hi there, I do have a question about which format to use. I went to Suffolk University for undergrad, and what kills me is the cumulative (2.3) due to the first two years, 1.8-2.0 but last two years I got 3.0+ on average per semester and for my relevant coursework:
Business Finance B, Operations Management B, Multinational financial management B+, MIS A-, Intro in international business, International Management B, Export management B+, and principles of investments A-. business communication A-.
Now work experience wise I started senior year an internship which was mostly administrative/took on a few projects which were leadership in a real estate representative of the Boston MBTA (the only representative allowed.)
Following college I did State Street fund accounting for about 6 months (1.5billion+ worth of funds.)
Following that I went home to Romania for a little over a year to get married to my gf of 6 years and while there I was the person under the general manager for a family run ecologic dry cleaning firm overseeing 30 employees, handling everything from HR, to accounting/finance to whatever else needed to be taken care of, clients ranged from the parliament to hotels/restaurants, to collection points.
Coming back here april of 2009 I entered real estate after seeing how the job market was terrible in anything accounting/finance related (after 1 month looking) which I am currently doing pretty good in, I seem to get a lot of clients and I work on a lot of deals.
But I’d like to break into something finance oriented, Financial Analyst for a Bank or boutique boston Ibank. I am also working on GMAT (trying to go 700ish but that is hard) and have CFA lvl 1 scheduled for december 4th 2010.
What’s my outlook like for finance?
I’m not sure what your question is, but you shouldn’t be using this resume format… see the more experienced ones. I think the main problem getting into finance is that your background is just too random – at this stage a top business school is your best bet
Is there a way to send you my resume and give a look at it and let me know what you think?
I guess what I am getting at is that with my back ground I am trying to break into a boutique investment bank around the boston area, I know until I get my CFA level 1 exam and enter an MBA program (am shooting for northeastern/babson/bentley or BU/BC, I know those are good schools and not impossible ones to get in.)
I’m not offering resume editing at the moment, but you can ask Kevin and Jerry on Management Consulted (see their finance resume service).
What do you mean by top business school? Are you only thinking Harvand/Stanford/IVY? Would you Consider Boston University/Boston College/Babson University Great Schools?
Yes, Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, etc. The others you listed are not top schools because most banks don’t recruit there.