More classics from resumes/cover letters

One other thing that's really not doing it for me is the proliferation of camp counselor roles. Yes, I realize that as a sophomore you may not have investment banking or even finance experience yet. But every inch of space on your one-page resume is valuable, and I need to hear about your amazing experience teaching subsistence farming improvements in Mongolia or working with AIDS kids in Ghana or volunteering in emergency room triage in the city's most underfunded hospital, not about how you took care of twelve nine-year-olds all summer when you were eighteen. This is a competitive process. If you are lame, do try not to show it. You still have a chance... as long as you don't show it.

And here's a guy with no GPA. If there's no GPA, we assume it's bad and you go into the No pile. We do not ask you. This guy got a perfect score on his SAT2 math and writing (but not verbal), and now he's got literally no chance because he didn't include his GPA. Sad.

Finally, I've got about a zillion Tri-Delts all in one block. It's like all the Tri-Delts got together and spammed us. They're all from the same city, they all have GPAs between 3.0 and 3.5, and most of their "experience" consists of things like "Sorority Continuing Education Chair" and "Organized Tri-Delt Fashion Show for Charity". It's like their worlds don't extend beyond their sorority. These girls wouldn't make it here if we hired them... which we clearly won't, because their academics suck.

Thanks for the laugh. I'm secretly crying inside about the fraternity one, though.

none of them mentioned a bake sale? surprising

And on the other hand, so you guys can see the rest of the story, here's what we like to see. Bear in mind that these are in their junior years:

-- 3.9 GPA, semester in Barcelona, summer at Merrill Lynch regional wealth management.

-- 3.88 GPA, 4.0 major GPA, fraternity treasurer, fluent in Hindi, internship in boutique consulting.

-- Valedictorian of high school class, working since age fourteen, 3.91 GPA, internship in regional UBS office, experience in Thomson ONE suite.

-- International and national chess champion since age thirteen, 3.73 GPA, must play chess intensely for 12 hours a day during competitions, full scholarship, law office clerk experience, founder of a small dermatological company with several patents.

-- 3.85 GPA, 4.0 major, 1500 SAT, tutored Corporate Finance 320, consulting internship.

-- 3.7 GPA, summer at Thomson in New York while running 90mi/week in prep for cross country season, internship at Smith Barney regional office.

-- 3.7 GPA, studying for Series 7, internship at regional Merrill Lynch office and Raymond James office, fluent in six major languages.

-- Top 5% at Trinity College in Dublin, certified airport controller (super-high intensity work), boutique bank experience, fluent in three major languages.

-- 4.0, ING regional experience, 1500 SAT.

-- 3.7, double major in business and econ, summer at Merrill, winter in the White House, two summers in the Senate, founded a major schoolwide investment organization that is still going strong, VP of finance for student council managing a multimillion budget.

-- 4.0, full scholarship, TA for Calc I and II, fluent in three major languages.

This is our current "Maybe" list. You can actually see the inverse relationship between our requirements for work and extracurriculars and our requirements for GPA. If you have more of one, you can get away with having less of another.

-- 3.7, double major in business and econ, summer at Merrill, winter in the White House, two summers in the Senate, founded a major schoolwide investment organization that is still going strong, VP of finance for student council managing a multimillion budget.

This guy or gal doesn't seem too bad...

Not at all. I'm actually about to go downstairs and meet the guy and I hope I like him, because I think he'd be great.

But to be perfectly honest, though I just made fun of the kid who worked at Cheeburger Cheeburger, I would bet that working in fast food, being polite to pissed-off people who are in a hurry, being treated like crap and underpaid, having to perform up to code with inferior products, insufficient oversight, and slacker teammates is a much better preparation for an analyst's life than fetching coffee at the White House. But the White House guy's going to get the job and the Cheeburger Cheeburger guy isn't. And that's life.

which reminds me, i know a bunch of people (including myself) who interned with the private client or wealth management division of BBs as sophomores cuz it's pretty impossible to get banking internships at that point... but the thing is with those internships you usually don't do anything too significant, in fact a lot of it is busywork. i'd assume interviewers know this, so is it ok to just be perfectly honest and downplay the experience during interviews?

to assume that the guy who put his portfolio returns in his cover letter (and handily beat the markets in all three years, assuming he's talking about '04-'06) must be an idiot. On what evidence? That he trades a PA? I haven't met anyone in finance who doesn't.

Great, make fun of the the kid with the crappy job. I only had crappy jobs, too, when I was applying. You know why? Because I am a first generation who couldn't use daddy's connections to get an internship as a sophomore. Because those are the only people who get internships as sophomores in ibanking. 90% of the people who intern as sophomores are connected.

Last year when I interned at a BB, there was a kid who was an intern as a sophomore, because his daddy was a big shot at MS and knew people. Here is his typical day:
9:30 Come to work, eat breakfast, read the WSJ till around 1:00, because no one gave me any work
1:00 Go eat lunch til about 2:00 because no one gave me any work
2:00 Get coffee, make some copies
5:30 Go home
And you know what? That kid is going to put "Summer internship at a BB" and wow you. You are probably reading his resume and being impressed right now. Next year when I am reading resumes, I would definitely choose the Burger guy over the worthless connected rich kid. And he will do a much better job.

they're completely unverifiable.

Yeah, Miss Ind, you're making a mistake with that attitude. I worked last year in a relatively laid back financial position (was the summer after my second year) and during highschool I worked fastfood, and can guarantee you that the fastfood job required much more of the skills (the ones you mentioned- face paced, stress management, getting yelled at) for BB IB than the laid back financial internship. It may not be intellecutally rigourous, but the candidates school/SATs/grades etc. should testify to that.

The fact that you even admit it's more relevant than the guy who got coffee for people int he white house makes me wonder why you'd still not take that person seriously.

I think you have to realize how many resumes her bank is looking through. They want the whole package and don't have time to think about whether the burger joint was a better experience than the financial services internship freshmen year. The fact is, companies in general like to see big name internships/work experience. And from what I understand, banks especially like reputable names.

Plus, how many resumes do you see with the White House and Senate on it? Quite unique. Everybody has worked at a restaurant/fast-food/catering

what's "PA"?

Mis Ind your a cold hearted bitch

personal account

i'd be much more interested in a couple good equity ideas discussed in a cover letter or interview than an unverifiable pa record

is there really a major difference when looking at a 3.6 versus a 3.7-3.8? I feel like those gpas are extremely subjective once they are in that range.

it's a hurdle

Re: being a cold-hearted bitch and having the wrong attitude, my team sifts through hundreds of resumes per session and has less than 20 seconds per resume to decide yes or no. Thus, all of us (including myself) have to divorce what we really believe from what the bank wants. It does us no good to bring in guys who worked primarily in burger joints, because the bankers who interview them will make fun of them and they won't make it through the first round. Beyond that, the senior bankers will come to us asking why we turned away all the candidates with "good, useful bulge bracket experience" and gave them a bunch of "fast food losers" instead. The system is massive and self-propagating. For me, a single powerless analyst, to try to undermine it or fight it would be like trying to hand out my paycheck to fight world hunger. My effort would be swallowed up without a single effect except my own termination of employment.

My point is this. We've all worked retail, and we've all worked food service. Me? My mom and aunt have been on and off welfare their whole lives. Do I let these bankers know that? Hell no. Do I put my mall retail experience on my resume? Hell no. Do I flash my South Decatur colors and walk in ghetto-fabulous in a pink tracksuit with my name in silver sequins across my ass? Hell no. You have to sell what bankers want to buy. It's all in the marketing. I'm trying to help those who need to learn how to do it.

This is the reality you face as an applicant. This is what really goes on behind closed doors. Understanding it is more than half the battle.

though maybe your bank (or maybe just the people who look at resumes at your bank) are way harsh. At least at my school, the alums are usually the ones who check out the resume drops from my school, and let's just say if you happened to be on a certain sports team/same fraternity or sorority/same extracurrics. as the alums reading your resumes, you have a good shot of making it into the 'interview' pile. I only say this in regard to my observation of
kids in my class who definitely would never had a chance if they did the same things and went to another school.

Just recalling my junior year pre-interview meeting with GS: a room full of econ majors who all had 3.9s and 4.0s and huge tools who 'started companies' and whatever. But when it came down to the Superday, none made it through to the final rounds.

Hey, Sshiah, that's exactly what I (and almost everybody else) did for our sophomore years. Of course we know that it's mostly busywork, but it would be going too far to downplay it. Everyone else plays it up, and playing it up is expected. If I was talking to someone formally (in an interview, not as a friend) who admitted that his internship was bullshit, I would wonder if it was even MORE bullshit than mine was, which would be pretty sad.

We expect salesmanship; we expect experiences to be puffed up. If they aren't, you may win the prize for honesty and straight shooting, but that (unfortunately) won't help you compete.

Take a look at this:

XXX Securities, Summer Intern:

-- Got coffee four times daily.
-- Made the advisors' daily appointments with utmost precision.
-- Filed customer data in the right folders with 99.5% accuracy.
-- Cleaned out filing cabinet.
-- Always knew where the Dow was trading.

Or this:

XXX Securities, Summer Intern:

-- Revolutionized data retrieval system, resulting in 30% more efficient retrieval process.
-- Studied for Series 7 exam (for exam date next semester).
-- Prepared all client presentations using PowerPoint while negotiating difficult Compliance deadlines.
-- Modeled client portfolios in Excel, including Black-Scholes modeling for efficient valuation of derivative securities within each portfolio.
-- Extensive contact with clients and senior management in both meetings and informal lunch and dinner settings.

Same job. Two very different marketing approaches.

You are the most pretentious bitch I’ve ever read in my life. You bash people on this board probably to compensate for your self-abased demeanor. You know you’re fat and you know you are an ugly bitch. Sweet, so now let’s post resumes on a board to show how stupid everybody else is.
Why would you piss on somebody because they worked at a fast food joint?
Why would you piss on somebody because they have a 3.4?
You suck. And the people that you work for probably think the same. Gosh, I hope I never run into you.
Wait, how will I know it’s you?
I will look for the ugliest bitch in the room.

Mis Ind, the fact that you don't give interviews to people has nothing to do with why you act like a bitch. Its because you write posts laughing and poking fun at these kids on some message board. They dont know what works and what doesn't they are just trying to get a job. You snide comments and bullshit marterdom only highlight the darker side of banking; dealing with people with inflated egos for 14 hours a day, when said individuals have no self awareness of how others perceve them.

PS: For the record my a good friend of mine landed GS with server at a burger joint on his resume.

Yeah, that's the thing. The guys with the 3.9s who started companies STILL don't make it through final rounds (only one in 300-400 resumes will do that), but at least they're good enough to bring up here. As an initial sifter, my job is to get the right warm bodies in the door and let the senior bankers sort them out. We have checklists to go down, and we don't have the time or energy to wonder if this guy's tennis IM or that guy's chess club is going to help them here. Because, honestly, they're almost certainly not going to work here anyway. I don't get to look at Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Wharton resumes (in fact, I only look at non-target resumes), so every single person I look at is a super-long shot to begin with. At least at this bank, you gotta be a superstar of superstars if you're from a non-target. The international chess prodigy with his own patents and company (and the guy with the White House/double Senate/multimillion dollar budget) may have a chance of actually making it through the zillion rounds to the offer if they've got great personalities and interview well. The rest are just padding. Harsh, but necessary. We have to give hundreds of no's for every yes.

Exactly. They are not even that funny. Funny would be something like Aleksey Vayner - fake, embellished stuff. 3.5 GPA in a frat - not funny. Some people don't have great resumes, but try to do the best they can.

P.S. I also got an internship with a BB with food serving on my resume. I m glad someone like you wasn;t reading my resumes

"You bash people on this board probably to compensate for your self-abased demeanor."

Sorry, man. Didn't realize your resume was in here. As far as I know, the only folks I dissed were anonymous applicants, not anybody on this board. Furthermore, I'm attempting to recreate the atmosphere of the resume-sifting meetings I've attended. I thought it was pretty harsh when I first started, but then I saw the sheer scale of applicants and the immense burden of sifting through them and realized what was going on. Not pretty, but effective.

Are you sorting through the resumes that were submitted online? If so, did a recruiter filter them first, or do you have to look through every online resume? I didn't think they actually gave the online ones to an analyst to look through. Or are you reading resumes sent through referrals within the bank? Or is both?

the way it works in general is ppl recruit on different school teams. so you see the resumes of the applicants from a given school, then sort, then interview them. i generally do the interviewing, not the resume sorting, but i've sorted before.

Actually, we let the schools do the pre-filtering. If we only invite non-target career centers to submit a certain number of resumes, they will definitely make sure we get their best and brightest. So we'll get 50-100 resumes from each school, and out of a few thousand total resumes we'll give three to five summer offers.

I'm not sure if anyone actually looks at resumes that are submitted via this company's website.

By the way, our summer program is one of the biggest on the street, but it's overwhelmingly populated with kids from target schools. Non-targets actually have a better chance when applying in the fall for full-time. Then we'll do one offer (eventually, after super days) out of a hundred to two hundred resumes.

Miss Ind is actually doing all the prospects on the site a huge favor by letting everyone know the realities of the elimination process. It can be a mean world out there, and most of her comments were actually pretty tame compared to some of what's actually said.
Her advice on the right way to market mundane tasks hit the bullseye, and believe me, there are ways to make any mediocre duties sound better than they really are.

Yeah, I'm kind of surprised that people here are so sensitive about their resumes. I know I'm usually the huggy-touchy one around here, and outside the office I am. But this is a brutal, nasty industry and I didn't imagine anyone would be surprised by the reality of the recruitment meetings.

Think about it. We are already busy, working all night on our actual deals, under constant pressure, and then we have to sit in a room for hours eating nasty cold pizza and sifting through hundreds of resumes from people who clearly didn't take the time to understand this industry or perfect their resumes. They waste the time of a dozen investment-banking professionals -- these kids who misspell the name of our bank, who've worked at their summer camp every year since they were sixteen, who declare themselves to be practically the masters of the universe at age twenty. It's not an easy job, and we need to let off steam.

Don't get me wrong. There are people that make me want to pick up the phone and call them and get their story because they're just so fucking cool. There's a kid who got his start shining shoes in Moscow after the fall of the Soviet Union and who brought his family over and worked every day of his life ever since, in warehouses and investment banks and everything in between. You better bet I want to take him to lunch and give him a job. But the Connecticut kid who "interned" at his mama's country club's summer camp for four years and addressed his cover letter "To whom it may concern:"? No. I'm sorry, he's just funny. I would rather bring in somebody who put "May-August 2002: Ghetto hustla supreme" on his resume. At least that shows gumption and a sense of humor.

i generally agree with misind. recruiting can be fun but it can also be a huge pain and a massive time sink.

The fact that you first started a thread to openly make fun of rejected applicants (and, yeah, you really only had 20 seconds to scan their resume before completely forgetting about them), and then turned around and said "It's unfair but I can't do anything about it", just shows how much of an insecure bitch and a hopeless tool you are.

MisInd, has the deadline for CS passed already or are you still taking apps?

Mean Reversion, my resume posts are practically a fixture here by now. I know strong words always kick up controversy, particularly in such an anonymous and quick-access environment, but this is the industry that readers (and presumably you) are hoping to become a part of. In IB you will be roundly made fun of from every quarter. They're going to diss your shoes, your school, your sport, and what you eat for lunch... and that's if you're lucky enough to cut through the hundreds of other competitors to get an offer. It's going to be good-natured if you make it, because those will be your new brethren, but the dissing will never stop. The ones who don't make it will never even be important enough to be dissed to their face... but the dissing can and does go on behind closed doors.

There's no crying in banking. Period. You shrug off the bullshit and keep rolling. You think our snap judgements have anything to do with these people's values as human beings? Come on. You need to comprehend the system if you're going to work the system.

Slypko, if you've done a search for my posts you probably know that I don't confirm or deny. If you're really connected and know tons of analysts on Wall Street it can be figured out (how many other people in my exact situation are there?), but what would be the point? I'm just a single faceless monkey in a very big jungle, no more or less useful than any other monkey. Just think of me as the girl in the next cube. For at least two people out there, I actually am.

Mis Ind might sound like a bitch, but she's only reflecting the reality of the analyst recruiting process. I'm an associate, and at my bank we do most of the initial resume sifting and have the same issue with time.

The truth is that there is a limited supply of positions and a huge demand. Frankly, being an analyst is not rocket science. In my opinion the greatest assets are a near OCD attention to detail and stamina. Anyone of above average intelligence can handle the rest. The fact that so many of you fall for the siren's song of quick money only perpetuates the quasi-abusive working conditions in the industry. With 100 resumes for every position, and 10 that could probably do the job well, why give a damn about hours or lifestyle?

I agree.

Miss Ind, thank you for the informative topic.

Mis Ind, admire your courage. Not much is let out of the crack in our door behind the brass plate.

Two yrs ago we got over 90,000 applicants for about 350 FT hires firm wide/world wide.

And it's not just applicants for banking where this process goes on--any firm, any UG school, any Grad school, any B-school. This is reality, folks.

Glad you have the balls to tell the bloody story straight. Pity those who don't have the courage to heed your words.

How about... 3.5 GPA, double specialization in Finance and Management Info Systems, semester abroad in Angers, France, semi-fluent in French. Low GPA because I like to party hard since I'm in a fraternity and I go to a shit unheard of public university.

This reminds me of an ex-boyfriend of mine who described himself in public once as "massively endowed" when he actually had around six and a half inches. Nothing to laugh at, of course, but nothing you want to stand up and shout about either.

6 and a half inches is a whole inch above the average I believe. I guess you like the big dongs...

i think this thread provides decent insight for the prospective bankers. for the protestors, it's true that bankers are harsh but it's stupid to make personal attacks or get pissed off at the system. it's just the way the process goes and if you find this to be too mean then you might need to find another industry. the bottom line is that something on your resume has to jump out - it can either be, holy shit this guy is one of the top ranked squash players in the country OR holy shit this guy can't spell ambition. one becomes known as "Squash guy" going into interviews and the other gets his resume tossed out. is it fair? no but it's also not realistic to interview 1,000's of people.

clearly, Mis Ind isn't an "insecure bitch and hopeless tool". the best thing that prospective bankers could do is soak up this insight, polish their resumes, and send it out to as many people/alumni as possible to get feedback. at some point in your adult life you will also have to filter resumes and you'll see the big picture.

Double post :(

...great Miss Ind, I am sure that those kids would be happy you tossed out their resumes if they knew that getting the job would have meant working with people like you. Also, I love a student who trades in college, i am a trader now and did the same thing when i was in college, and his returns are very solid...nobody who has ever traded on the buyside would laugh at that record if he can verify it. I would venture to say that he knows more about markets from 3 years of trading then you know from your 4 years in college+your whole banking analyst stint at CS. I also find it hard to believe that you ever had a boyfriend with a 6.5 cock and let him go, female bankers really need to take whatever they can get even if it is just slightly above the mean....

ahh stop the hate

Agreed. Thanks Mis Ind for a blunt, but truthful post.

If you think bankers aren't laughing or poking fun at your resumes if they have mistakes or if it's a ridiculous shot in the dark, you've got another thing coming. Shouldn't the unnecessarily harsh comments on this board (even about other bankers in lessr-tier banks) be some sort of indication to you that you will always be judged in banking?

Of course nepotism isn't fair... but those are the breaks. Just work harder to make the connections necessary to hopefully land those internships and be proud that you got in without daddy's help if you can.

"nobody who has ever traded on the buyside would laugh at that record if he can verify it. I would venture to say that he knows more about markets from 3 years of trading then you know from your 4 years in college+your whole banking analyst stint"

Hey, man, I'm an investment banker, not a trader. I don't know the markets. I drive the markets. I don't need to know where the market is trading because the market reacts to what we do, not the other way around. The WSJ doesn't even get around to reporting my work until weeks after I'm done with it. You buy (or choose not to buy) the crappy IPOs I sell on roadshows, but by the time you get the chance to place your order, I can barely remember what the damn company was called in the first place.

If you really are a trader, then you know that there's no love lost between traders and bankers. You think we're useless pedigreed overpaid leeches, and we think you're undereducated boors who just happen to have the right reptilian reflexes to make pennies on the dollar on stocks that move because we did a deal. The kid's big sin is not that he quoted big returns. The kid's big sin is that he tried to apply to investment banking by quoting his trader qualifications.

Just so you know I'm not coming at this from a completely uneducated standpoint, I worked on a family of funds and separate account management platform for years during college. My returns were similarly outrageous, primarily because I took enormous risks in the pharmaceuticals sector at just the right time, among other bets. In fact, the only difference between this guy and me is that A) I was trading with hundreds of thousands (still not so great) for a family of funds, and he was trading with thousands for his personal account, and B) I didn't say a damn thing about it in my cover letter for investment banking.

Again, my problem with this kid isn't who he is or what he does... it's how he packages himself.

This is what's wrong with our business.

...I never said I dont like bankers, I just think they are generally kind of harmless nerds/losers. Also i don't trade stocks and don't make "pennies on the dollar". Unless you work for the Fed, the Bundesbank, the BOJ, or the Bank of England I dont buy your IPO's. I am in no way reptilian, in fact i am positively and solely human. And I dont think you are overpaid because i doubt you make much money. I also doubt the whole story about trading money for a family of funds (whatever that is) while in college. Honestly i can't imagine anybody who runs money giving it to a college kid to "take massive risks" with. But whatever...I am just saying you reveal alot of your character by making fun of college kids who are trying to differentiate themselves. And i would put my workplace up against yours when it comes to the toughness of employees/sh&t you have to take any day of the week. For eg that 6.5 inch cock comment would be pretty much a standard topic of discussion on our desk.

"I also doubt the whole story about trading money for a family of funds (whatever that is) while in college."

Oh, I'll admit it's vaguely unlikely, but quite true all the same. It was a bunch of guys who hadn't made it on Wall Street who'd gone out to a minor US city and started a separate account management platform to serve all the clueless financial advisors who work for boutique firms that don't have their own portfolio advisory group. They had some success there because it was an underserved market at the time, so they decided to create a family of mutual funds (though I hesitate to use that term because the funds behaved more like hedge funds while legally being mutual funds). There was all of ten million in three mutual funds; that's how small they were. I was a young hotshot with a 4.0 and bulge bracket experience, the head honcho was head over heels in love with me, and I told him I'd make him money if he handed me a couple hundred grand to play with. He was the kind of loserly guy who bought a nightclub for $2m just because he wanted someplace that would set up a velvet rope around him and they don't do that kind of thing in that city. The current guys he had running his funds were just as untried as I was (hell, one of them was the guy who eventually became my fiance, and trust me when I tell you he was utterly clueless AND he was in charge of the energy sector, which he knew nothing about), and he thought I was a supergenius with mental powers beyond that of mortal man. So he cut me off a little chunk of one of his funds and let me play. I made him some money. That was that.

I'm also a world martial arts champion (that's the official title, though my circuit wasn't even close to incorporating the whole world), the youngest-ever recipient of a grant from the Academy of American Poets, and just turned down an offer for an overseas nonofficial cover position (the most difficult and demanding) with the CIA. The world's a funny place, huh? I'm really very accustomed to people thinking I'm an outrageous liar, but I've never had anyone disbelieve something THAT pedestrian. Be my guest, darling.