...IB is not for you. I am sitting at my desk going through a pile of resumes for SA spots and I can not believe how horrible some of the formats are. These kids made it real easy for me to cut 100 down to 10. Ding. Ding. Ding.
I don't give a bakers dozen rips where you went to school or how much time you spent in China, if you can't format a resume you are hopeless.
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I HATE SHITTY FORMATS!!!!!!!!!!!
If an applicant can't get the simplest thing correct - they are just retarded, costing the firm time and money.
I agree - No sympathy there.
so funny that in banking you would receive weird formats. I could see say kids applying for graphic designer position adding some flavor to their resume / switching up the format, but banking resumes need to be standard standard standard
Formatting is not all for me but spelling mistakes are an instant ding. We kicked out the most amazing candidates for stupid spelling mistakes.
Pretty much agreed. Formatting is key to IB, if you can't or don't take the time to properly format your resume, will you really be able to format a pitch book? Simple.
Agree on the typos. I autoding for those too. But I am open-minded about formatting.
Mine is Times New Roman Drop Caps headers with a lot of horizontal page width lines.
OP needs to get over his frigging OCD.
I saw a candidate who had a solid resume and decent experience, but a terrible GPA (3.0) but his resume was formatted incredibly. Even the MD I was scanning resumes with said it was one of the best he'd seen. Kid got an SA and a full time offer.
We're going to need to see this CV.
+1000
you guys are making it more exciting than it is. keep it clean, nice phrasing and no spellling mistakes. After that it is about content
First, I think everyone could use a good shrink every once in a while.
Second, I was clearly venting a little bit when I posted this. There are plenty of clean, easy to read formats out there that I find acceptable. It's just when kids try to be fancy that ticks me off.
Ahhh banking, a "finance" job where formatting is the most important skill. Glad I never did that bullshit.
This thread is gay. A smart kid can learn formatting. Look at how a person has developed than if he choose a format that he liked and your picky ass didn't.
Let's see Paul Allen's resume.
Going to have to agree with LDNBNKR and IP.
Having screened through a lot of resumes when I was a first year, I get the mentality that you've finally made it to the other side of recruiting and now a big shot banker. Formatting is definitely a critical (sadly) part of our job, but sometimes you really have to realize the absurdity of it all. Bad typos clearly show a lack of detail and worth a ding, but mediocre. And also to be fair, I've seen a lot of top MBA resume formats and they're not the best...
You are just beginning to look at resumes for 1st round? Pretty late in the cycle..are you at a boutique?
I am. This is our 3rd wave of reviews; all but a few slots are full. It is surprising how qualified a lot of these kids are. It is a shame that so many intelligent applicants are going to be turned away. Hopefully it does not discourage and only serves as further motivation to those that do not land SA gigs.
from http://www.facebook.com/WallStreetOasis:
Urban Rainmaker: Resume's are for the corrupt middle class, trying to format themselves into something they are not. If you can format a resume, you are in for a boring life in the land of mediocracy. You think that by putting daisy flowers on the top of the page because the guy was daydreaming has got more chance of success in this wonderful random world.
Ignore this chimp, you will get no where with this. Put a million monkeys on a type writer and sooner or later one will write the llaid. Will he o another great book afterwards. Survival of the fit, be different, or be boring, sorry is this for a boring job? thats ok then
do you suggest posting a picture of us in the background of our resumes op?
what if we are black?
PM sent.
what about comic sans font?
I hope S&Ters are the same when reviewing resumes
There are many online resume generators. You would just enter the form and pick a design. Its that easy unless there are no designs you like.
Just a little note:
As someone who went straight to the buy-side I never had the anal attention to detail training of banking years, so when I emailed my CV over to a banker for distribution I thought it was perfect, others had had a look said it was bang on, uni CV services had seen it but no! She found about 5, very minor but still material, defects immediately.
My advice, get your CV checked by a banker first!!!
Is that a "No" to the Comic Sans?
Comic Sans is fine.
-Quicken Loans HR
Hah +1
Absolutely agree. Make sure you have your friends in banking check your formatting and content. When I was a senior in undergrad, I went through 30+ iterations of resume-review once I added my junior year internship. Yes 30. Don't leave anything to chance.
Attention to detail is not what will get you the job, but it certainly will disqualify you if it's not perfect.
i usually auto ding state school kids.
this thread proves banking is a joke. you're most concerned about formatting? are you fucking kidding me? i fail to understand why some really smart people i know decide to start their career in such a horseshit role
They do it for the great networking, the great branding, and the financial modeling experience, packaged all-in-one. Not saying its not a horse-shit role.
Honestly, it's logical for IB resume screeners to put a decent amount on weight on formatting (and especially on typos and mistakes). If you work in IB and put a typo in a pitchbook that isn't corrected before the client sees it, the whole book is thrown into doubt.
I hate when something so useless becomes incredibly important...
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