Investment bankers will spend a maximum of 30 seconds to check your resume or CV and within that 30 seconds it’s much easier to stand out in a negative way then a positive way. So, in this article I am going to show you how to make the best resume & CV possible using our template which you can download for free.
Click here to download the Word version
Click here to download the PDF version
We will go through everything from proper formatting to writing your experience in a way that will make you stand out as a better candidate using specific investment banking keywords and insider tips and tricks to get your resume and CV read first and get an interview. And the best thing it, its quick and easy.
Before we get started on creating your resume and CV, let’s take 5 minutes and look at how bankers and HR staff members will treat your resume when they receive it, so you can get a better understanding of what bankers and HR are looking for in an ideal investment banking resume.
How Bankers Review Resumes & CV’s
Typically speaking in a batch of 100 resumes, 30 of them will have obvious errors which will automatically get binned, 10 will automatically get first round interviews because they are very strong candidates. Then the remaining 60 who are in the “maybe” pile will be screened for to fill the remaining 20 available interview slots.
This is the hardest part because most of these CV and resumes are near identical with nearly the same education and experience. The screening here will be done by HR and sometimes some bankers do get involved in the recruitment process if it a smaller bank and this is how we literally eliminate candidates; Poor formatting, Bin. No clear finance interest, Bin. Members of the investing and trading club, Bin. No experience working in finance, Bin. Missing grades or gaps, Bin. Seems very entrepreneurial, Bin.
There are 3 main things you have to keep in mind
- Avoid red flags – red flags are things on your resume and CV that will lead whoever is reading to think you’re not completely serious about investment banking. So, the moment we see extra emphasis on your business that you started, we’re going to think that after 6 months of banking your just going to leave and pursue another venture. Or if you list being a member of the trading, investing, marketing clubs then it signals that your interest lies in other avenues and you’re not just applying into investment banking, but you’re also applying for wealth management and marketing role.
- Generalising -Your resume has to be investment banking specific and that means using the proper terminology, formatting rules and structure. Your applying into one of the oldest professions in finance which is investment banking, and it’s a very conservative area which means everything has to be black and white and structured in a way that is easy to read, what you might think is right isn’t always right. But don’t worry in this article and video we will go over how you can “bankify” your resume to make sure you stand out in the right way and land your first round interview easily.
- Assuming and omitting things– the person reviewing your resume and CV might not be familiar with your abbreviations or education standards, so don’t use codes, abbreviations when describing important things. For example “BAC+4” in France means a masters candidate, I know this, but if the person reading your resume or CV is not French then that will confuse them, you have to clearly label everything in simple and plain terms on your CV and resume. Also, omitting your grades, its an automatic red flag, if you don’t include your grades, have missing dates, gaps on your resume or transferred school more then once. Sometimes there are real reasons for these things, but you can not lie about your grades or make up work experience to fill in the gaps, because believe me we’ve seen it all and were pretty good at identifying when someone is lying or not.
For those with our investment banking interview and recruit guide, you would already have access to multiple investment banking resume, CV and cover letter templates and a list of keywords which you should try and use to make your application stand out when describing your experience.
Creating an Investment banking CV and Resume
The very first thing that should be apparent on your resume should be your name and contact details, and it should ideally be centred.
Your resume should be in a certain order. If you are still in school or have recently graduated then your education should be at the top, followed by your experience and other activities. If you are an experience candidate applying for an associate role then your experience should come up first and then your education and finally your extra-curricular activities. We are going to take a look at a recent graduate.
Education
In this section you should list your most recent undergraduate and graduate institution, dates and what you studied. You should also include your expected or achieved grades along with all relevant modules. If you are from a finance background then make sure to only include investment banking related modules for example; advance accounting or corporate finance… etc, and not introductory modules.
If you are not from a finance background, then you can add any basic finance / business related modules. You may also add any notable achievements or professional qualification such as the CFA, winning a scholarship or making the dean’s list in the education section, or if you feel they don’t fit then add them at the bottom in the skills and interest section.
If you have enrolled on our financial modelling course or attended valuation and financial modelling classes, then you can add them here.
Grades/ SAT’s/ GPA –If you are applying online then you will be required to fill in all of your grades. If you are applying via the traditional emailing or handing in your resume or CV then you should still include them if you’re are a student or recent graduated, otherwise bankers are going to think your grades are really bad. The only time where you can get away with not showing your grades if you have graduated and it’s already been 2 years and or have a masters, but you will still get asked during your interviews.
MBA candidates should include their grades if its really good otherwise try and hide it if you can.
Work Experience
You should list all of your internship and relevant experience in the most recent order. You should make sure to not leave any gaps when you are putting in the starting and ending dates, as well as the location. Remember that gaps are red flags.
Typically speaking you should get 3 / 6 bullet points for each work experience opportunity. Each bullet point should have between 2 / 3 lines of text. Make sure that your most impressive task show even though it might have been a small part of your experience.
What separates investment banking resumes from others resumes and CVs is how you describe your experience. Now we are going to begin tailoring your resumes and CV’s to highlight relevant investment banking skills and experience to demonstrate to whoever is reading your resume that
- You have the required skills for investment banking
- You are aware of the skills required for investment banking and thus knowledge about the industry and not going into this blind
- Using investment banking terminology which catch the attention of investment bankers reading your resume
The following is what’s going to differentiate you from everyone else and make you stand out. Keep in mind that bankers will only spend 30 seconds reviewing your resume so most of the time only the first two bullet points will get read and its important that you put the most impressive tasks and responsibility at the top of each internship / work experience section.
The point of these bullet is not to just describe what you were doing but to market you and your candidacy for a particular role. So, when writing your bullet makes sure they are interesting and relevant. For example, do not simply sate you were doing analysis. But what kind of analysis were you performing? What was the industry? What metric did you use and were did you get your assumptions? What was the due diligence and finding? What resources did you use to make it?
In the example I gave, I did not simply write “ I performed analysis” I broke it down even further, and even then I believe I could have gone into more details but for the purpose of a general template I did not want to make this a pure M&A or Capital market or restructuring resume and CV.
So, when you are writing about the valuation you performed think about the following; what was the purpose of the valuation? What assumption and methodology did you use? Did you start from scratch or updated a current model? Even if you did not build a financial model, maybe you reviewed a model? Make sure you use the keyword sheet we have attached in the investment banking interview guide to highlight relevant skills and tasks in a way that bankers will understand and make you standout.
It is equality important to highlight non-financial skills and experience here which analyst and associates must have in order to perform the role. One of the greatest skills is time management and being able to manage multiple projects at the same time. Mention explicitly when you had to work on multiple projects simultaneously or had very tight deadlines or dealt with client facing presentations.
Skills, Interest and other achievements
The last section is your skills and interest section and do not spend too much effort here because this will neither help you nor hurt you. Remember that your resume should ideally fit in one page so if you are running out of space then consider cutting here first.
Skills – Languages can be a relevant skill in investment banking because you may be dealing with an overseas client where your language skills can be an asset. However, do not say you can speak French if you can not maintain a fluent conversation with a French native. As a French national whenever I see someone who says they can speak French (many do), I will test their fluency in that language. Many of my colleagues of other nationality does the exact same thing. You are not required to have language skills to work in investment banking but if you are caught lying then that is a red flag.
Computer skills are another relevant skill which we look for. Now, you do not need to know how to code in Java, C++ or any other programming language but the kind of skills we are looking for is familiarity with Bloomberg terminal, FactSet or Capital IQ, investment bankers would frequently have to use those resources to get data for financial models and presentations. Excel, PowerPoint and Microsoft Word skills at this point is already assumed and if you do not know your way around Excel without a mouse and can not use shortcuts then consider enrolling on our financial modelling course where we go though how to use Excel is detail.
Interest – Do not just say you like to read, eat and travel because everyone can say that! Say what kind of books you like and by which authors. Have you completed a whole novel or are you purely a nonfiction person? Do you like street food or do you have a sweet tooth and can devour a pastry shop? Have you travelled to over 60 countries? Or do you travel just to try out the different street food each country has to offer?
Before I end this video remember to go though your resume and make sure you can talk through and explain every single line on your resume. Second, it is pointless to focus a lot of time and effort in making a perfect resume if you are just going to fail every single interview by not preparing for the questions and answers. Check out our investment banking interview and recruitment guide which will walk you through every step of the way to landing your role and show you questions and answers you need to ace your application, interviews as well as proving multiple resume and CV templates for you to choose from.
Exceptions
- Cultural – I know in some parts of the world putting your picture on your resume and CV is normal and a few other things. If you live in that region of the world then OK. But for North America, Europe, Middle East and countries. You do not put your picture, charts or graphics or any fancy writing to your resume and CV. Your CV and resume is not a piece of art so don’t be creative.
- Poor grades – can’t hide it… you will eventually be questioned about it. If investment banking really is something you want to do, then consider doing a masters or an MBA. Preferably an MBA so you can start from a fresh slate.
- Length of resume and CV – investment banking resumes should not be longer than one page, multi pages are fine for other industries but for junior level roles in investment banking one page is the standard. You can have an additional page if you are an experience banker and have worked on deals, this is known as a deal sheet. For example, my VP who had over 12 years of IB experience had a two-page resume and the second is a list of all of his transactions his worked on. Although, I have seen some associate role that have two pages, but those are exceptions.