How To Craft Your Resume For Each Of The Wall Street Banks

Thoughts on the article? Is it good or accurate advice? Terribly off? You tell me - I just thought it was interesting and could help some people here

If you want to work in banking but are uncertain as to what the biggest banks look for when they hire, we may have some answers for you.

We’ve combed through the eFinancialCareers database to look for the commonest features of people who work or have worked in nine of the biggest banks in the world (Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, UBS, Credit Suisse, Bank of America, and Barclays). Our database has over 1m résumés in total, but we focused our attention on the 90,000 CVs that have been uploaded in the last three months.

We screened these CVs on the basis of educational establishment, industry qualifications, languages spoken and sportiness. The results were fairly predictable – Goldman Sachs employs the most highly educated bankers from the biggest name universities. But there were some surprises. These included the fact that the most sporty bankers seem to work at UBS and that a very high proportion of the CVs in our database are from speakers of Mandarin or Cantonese or Hindi. At Citigroup, for example, a massive 37% of our CVs are from people who speak one of these three languages.

Based on our analysis, we’ve suggested what makes employees at each bank distinct.Our findings are not scientific. The results may be skewed by the prevalence of a large number of Europeans (and Mandarin speakers) on our database. Nor have they been validated by each of the banks concerned, and sometimes the variations between banks are small. Nevertheless, this is what we think our figures suggest.

Goldman Sachs: Big name universities, big time qualifications, multi-linguists

Surprise, surprise: Goldman Sachs employs the most highly educated bankers from the biggest name universities, with the greatest ability to converse in different languages.

Of 1,762 resumes loaded into our system over the past three months with the words ‘Goldman Sachs’ written on them…
■9% were from Oxford or Cambridge or the London School of Economics
■9% were from the Ivy League (here defined as Harvard, Yale, Wharton, Columbia, Princeton, Dartmouth, Duke)
■25% were from Mandarin or Cantonese speakers
■29% had a Masters or MSc qualification
■16% had passed a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) exam
■13% had an MBA

J.P. Morgan: Meritocratic mavericks hired from off the beaten-track

If Goldman Sachs is comparatively keen on elite universities, the same can’t be said for J.P. Morgan.

Of 1,996 resumes loaded into our system in the past three months with ‘J.P. Morgan’ written on them…
■5% were from Oxford or Cambridge or the London School of Economics
■4% were from the Ivy League

We infer that J.P. Morgan is less educationally elitist than Goldman Sachs.

Morgan Stanley: Ivy League sports fiends

Like Goldman, Morgan Stanley likes big name universities. According to our database, it also has one of the highest proportions of sports enthusiasts.

Of 2,392 ‘Morgan Stanley’ resumes loaded into our system in the past three months…
■8% were from the Ivy League universities
■7% were from Oxford or Cambridge or the London School of Economics
■7.3% were from people who specified an interest in sport on their CV (as compared to 6.3% at JPMorgan and 5.2% at Barclays, for example).

Citigroup: Hindi, Cantonese and Mandarin speakers with top qualifications from top universities

Unsurprisingly for a highly global bank with operations in more than 140 countries, CVs from ‘Citigroupers’ stand out for their internationalism.

Of the 2,114 recently uploaded CVs in our database with ‘Citigroup’ on them…
■37% were from people who said they spoke either Mandarin, Cantonese, or Hindi
■29% had completed a Masters or MSc course
■7% were from Oxford or Cambridge, or the London School of Economics
■8% were from the Ivy League
■5% mentioned ‘sport’, suggesting people at Citigroup aren’t too sporty.

UBS: Sporty German and French language speakers with PhDs

There are no big surprises for UBS either: the Swiss bank likes well-educated French and German language speakers. More startlingly, people at UBS are disproportionately into sport.

Of the 3,432 ‘UBS CVs’ recently uploaded into our database…
■21% were from French speakers
■12% were from German speakers (versus, for example, 9% at Goldman and 1% at Citigroup)
■7.4% included the word ‘sport’
■29% had a Masters or MSc

Credit Suisse: German and French language speakers with PhDs

Credit Suisse CVs are remarkably similar to UBS CVs, with one distinction: Credit Suisse bankers seem less partial to sporting activities.

Of 2,977 CVs with the words ‘Credit Suisse’ uploaded to our database…
■6.2% mentioned ‘sport’
■20% were from French speakers
■11% were from German speakers
■28% had a Masters or MSc

Bank of America: Hindi speakers and some Ivy Leaguers

Our CV database suggests Bank of America is particularly keen on hiring Indians or people who speak Hindi. Compared to J.P. Morgan, it also seems to hire a high proportion of people from the Ivy League – albeit fewer than Goldman Sachs.

Of 2,015 recently uploaded CVs in our database…
■13% were from Hindi speakers (versus, for example, 8% at Morgan Stanley and 10% at Goldman Sachs)
■6% were from the Ivy League

Barclays: Educationally ambivalent – seems to hire from a broad range of universities. Not big on the CFA

As a major UK bank, you might think that Barclays would hire a lot of people from elite UK universities like Oxford and Cambridge and the London School of Economics. Actually, this doesn’t seem the case – or at least not to the extent you might expect. Similarly, comparatively few Barclays CVs mention U.S. Ivy League Universities.

Of 4,056 ‘Barclays’ CVs loaded into our database…
■Only 11% mentioned the CFA qualifications (versus 16% at Goldman Sachs)
■Only 6% were from Oxford or Cambridge or the London School of Economics (versus 9% at Goldman Sachs)
■Only 3% were from U.S. Ivy League Universities (versus 9% at Goldman Sachs)

Deutsche Bank: Highly educated Germans and Hindi speakers with a thing for sport

Entirely predictably, our database suggests that Deutsche Bank likes to employ Germans. Less predictably – although Indian CEO Anshu Jain may be a leading indicator – it also likes to employ Hindi speakers. And bankers at Deutsche seem a little more sporty than others.

Of 3,367 CVs loaded into our database citing ‘Deutsche Bank’…
■14% were from German speakers
■12% were from Hindi speakers
■7% were from sports enthusiasts
■29% were from people with a Masters or MSc.

Via eFinancialCareers: http://news.efinancialcareers.com/uk-en/140515/perfect-profiles-for-car…