Rate my non-target resume
I am trying to break in anywhere IB from a non-target as a rising sophomore, luckily my school has a decent pipeline to BB and have made some pretty strong connections with only about 15 alumni coffee chats. I worry a lot about my resume having relevant enough experience to get my foot in the door as my search fund and IB internship were both remote and sourcing heavy. I would really appreciate any advice or criticism, just wanting to gauge at where I stand on breaking in.
Based on the most helpful WSO content, here are some key points to consider when evaluating and improving your resume as a non-target student aiming for IB:
1. Highlight Relevant Experience
2. Craft a Convincing Story
3. Networking is Key
4. Resume Formatting
5. Skills Section
6. Extracurriculars
7. Address Remote Work
8. Leverage Your School’s Pipeline
9. Prepare for Interviews
10. Resume Review
By focusing on these areas, you can strengthen your resume and position yourself as a competitive candidate for IB roles. Keep networking, refining your story, and showcasing your unique value!
Sources: Cover Letter + Resume Advice, Non-Target Recruiting Guide Part I: Resume and Networking, A non-target's failure, Simplified Guide to Breaking in as Non-Target (EASIER THAN YOU THINK)
Looks like a 10/10 but the non-target school is an immediate 10 point penalty resulting in a score of 0/10
Good luck lil bro
Its good, but try to use different verbs to start off your bullet points. You used developed 4 times, just make sure all of them are unique or else it gets a lil boring
Good catch, thanks
Maybe don’t put investing behind 10 other interests?
I wanted to honestly list my interests, kind of ranking them of most to least favorite
Really strong resume. Can tell you spent a lot of time with this.
Disagree with above - think investing is better in the back of interests. Having investing as your top interest makes you seem like a hardo. Interviewers want to know you have a bit of a personality. Fine to move it up a bit but I think it's good that you've got some character showing out. My top interest was IMDb Top 100 movies and I spent almost every interview getting to talk about my favorite movies for a few minutes - good to have something eye-catching at the top.
Your bullets should be more uniform. A few notes that will clean up your resume a little bit. Nitty things but little attention to detail stuff like this will help you stand out.
Really really strong resume, again. There aren't many banks that would look at this resume and not give at least an interview IMO, especially if you're networking.
1. This isn't how most people would expect to see it; I would keep them in past tense (OP is not currently screening 300+ companies, OP screened 300+ companies).
3. I've never seen this done, the most relevant and richest experiences (the actual finance roles) should have more bullets.
FYI OP, two of the bullets in your leadership section start with present tense verbs when they should be past tense (collaborate/represent).
I appreciate the advice
Agreed with starsinthesky’s comments, as well as everything else anon said
I suggested not having investing so far back, but now I’m thinking, maybe just delete it? Agreed that it’s good to higlight your other hobbies and extracurricular interests, but showing investing towards the end makes your interest in finance look like an afterthought
With recruiting being so competitive, we have to find any small reason to narrow the pool down
Drop the University consulting club experience and expand on your searchfund and investment banking internships. 3 bullet points 2 lines each to fill the space.
Drop the certifications & training line I think everyone has this certi and since you have experience its unnecessary if you were a non traditional background/no experience you would use this. Programs and honors drop since its redundant and again everyone has this.
Thinking about dropping the AI trainer and then adding where you placed on the Warburg Pincus - I've always though that if you didn't at least podium it's not worth talking about.
Strong background for a freshman good luck!
Also expand more on your bullet points surely there's more to what you've done than just one liners that don't go to the end of page.
I’ve made an effort to consolidate all of my bullets to one line for formatting and concision. It’s advice I heard from RareLiquid to make your resume easy to skim. Also, this isn’t the first time I’ve gotten advice to remove my university consulting experience. I am curious what the thought would be behind that.Thanks for the feedback tho, I appreciate it
You drop the consulting because you already have experience. You keep that on your resume freshman year to land an internship because you have 0 prior experience and require talking points. You have two ib internships that are already more than enough to fill up 20 - 30 minutes worth of space. Also because you're going for investment banking why would a banker want to talk about your consulting client interactions - like i can see how you want to be like yes I love client facing work that I'm making an impact, but that's third of the list behind your answers related to your internships?
Also fyi everyone is in the invesetment banking club, student investment fund, and consulting club. Not everyone though is in exec, so just being a member is just a lesser function than your student professional experience.
Formatting and concision is good for networking for investment bankers to skim when reading through emails, but its typically HR first who has their own HR ways of recruiting so you need to find a middle ground for both which is the first line has to be an impact line and then the second half of the second line needs to be just filler space buzz words.
Also follow the F format when it comes to making bullet points / resume and its good to go!
Align the word interests better
Title skills and course work “additional information”
Good stuff. Couple of small things:
- Left align bullets, maybe change to squares as well
- Take out your address, just leave the town / state
- Take out investing from interests
- I'd honestly remove BMC, but maybe take some WSO or WSP PPT/Excel/Financial Statement courses and add those in the certifications area
Overall, considering you are a rising sophomore, great work!
Thanks for the advice. I’ve heard mixed feedback about investing as an interest. Some say it makes me come off as a hardo and other says it’s a good thing to include. It is a genuine interest of mine and I am able to speak to it. I am curious what your reasoning would be behind removing that?
IMO it's not too hardo, but I know some people think otherwise.
Generally speaking, your interests section is something that you want to take time away from technical/finance questions in an interview, so i'd try to have them as far away from any sort of role in finance as possible.
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