Big 4 Audit to Equity Research Transition - Non-Target Resume Critique
Hi All,
As the rest go, please be brutally honest - I've revised this format pretty significantly from previous resumes. I recognize that B4 Audit doesn't transfer directly to ER - besides knowing financial statements and notes/disclosures themselves - but I'm hoping that my writing/research ability as well as reaching out to a few connections will help. In the meantime, I'm working on switching into TAS/FDD as this is the closest thing I think we have to ER and I can at least overlap it more in speaking to it.
Two additional notes - 1. 2011 is blank because that's when I did my B4 internship and 2. The reason I did not go immediately into ER is the lack of options (read: none) at my school. I thought going into B4 audit specifically into Asset Management would get me the experience to move over, but obviously have found this not to be the case. Trying to make the move now sooner rather than later.
Some specific questions, some of which I've highlighted on the resume:
- Should I include my peer rating at company (high performer)?
- Suggestions on how I should talk about writing for Seeking Alpha? I am going to include one/two of my most recent articles with my applications, and create a third offline 3-4 page research report on a new company as all of my SA research is biotech based. I've done banking/coal mining research offline, but didn't know where to include so kept it under the SA heading... Maybe I should just take the formal report(s) and publish them to make sure the statement is accurate? Otherwise I think I'll have trouble pigeon holing myself to positions that they would be looking at MD's/bio majors for.
- Since I am experienced, do I keep the GPA?
Thanks all for the help!
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Resume for ER.pdf 96 KB | 96 KB |
| Resume for ER rev. 1.pdf 96.55 KB | 96.55 KB |
Hi enterprisingER,
I am in a very similar situation to you, so I'm basing my comments on the posts I have read in other threads in an attempt to help.
To start, the hyphens in between dates are inconsistent. There is no space in between the years you attended school and the separating hyphen, but there are spaces separating the hyphen in between your asset management dates.
This may just be me being an idiot, but at first glance I read your major GPA as a 3.3 out of 3.7. I eventually figured out that it referred to a 3.3 ACC and 3.7 FIN GPA, but someone taking a quick glance may think the same. Something I might do is list "Finance GPA: 3.7 / 4.0" and get rid of the lower accounting GPA. If you insist on showcasing the 3.3 ACC GPA, consider separating them with a comma rather than a slash and add an 's' to the end of GPA to clarify both numbers are GPAs.
For your audit experience, it's great that you list all of the things the job entails, but what I think banks will be looking for is a results-oriented/quantitative perspective on these bullet points. A good example of how you did this is the last bullet point of your security analyst entry.
As an example, let's take the following bullet point under your Big 4 experience: "Analyze fund financial statements, including Statement of Assets and Liabilities, Statement of Investments, Statement of Operations, and Statement of Changes in Net Assets for reasonableness." That's great, but so what? Every auditor can claim this. What did you do that made your firm money, saved your firm money, or distinguished you? Is there a certain problem within one of these statements you may have resolved? New procedures you may have designed? It's these differentiating factors, I think, that will appeal to a bank more than the generic auditor responsibilities.
Overall, I think some of the verbiage used comes off as too "accountant." Being one myself, all of the sentences make sense to me, but I feel words like "reasonableness" are used more by accountants than anyone else. ASC 815 and 820 are standards an accountant will certainly know, but a financier may not be so familiar with. How about elaborating on your work with 815 in a finance-oriented line about derivative valuation? Rather than saying 820, how about discussing what you did to fair value the illiquid securities?
It's clear you have a demonstrated interest in finance. I'm not sure how valued reverse chronological order is on a resume (which I see is what you have), but you certainly have experiences on that resume that will be much more valued than your Big 4 experience. An example- the Seeking Alpha and security analyst role you had during that MBA class seem much more applicable to what you would do in an equity research role. If I were you, I'd consider changing the order to present the more relevant roles first, and dedicate more space to elaborating on these rather than the Big 4 experience.
I hope these comments help. Best of luck!
TL;DR- fix consistency/clarification issues, fix accounting lingo to finance-oriented verbiage, reorganize to highlight experiences more directly relevant to ER
Thanks for such a thoughtful reply. I've made the typesetting revisions you mentioned (lose some integrity focusing on redacting everything). I too thought the GPAs looked funny, and had a hard time trying to be brief, yet clear, so thanks, I think I got it looking better now. Folks can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think noting the two separate specializations is a good thing, and leaving out the accounting GPA would raise eyebrows that I don't need raised in my position.
I'll get a revision up tonight for the rest of your thoughts. I've been accustomed to always presenting chronologically, so it'll be good to try something different I suppose.
Good luck in your search BBHopeful!
Updated resume with revision 1, not sure about order of experience (maybe keep Seeking Alpha first but switch big4 w/ university?), but willing to take any more suggestions. Thanks!
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