Resume Reviewing Approach - Efficiency

All,

When you are reviewing resumes for applicants by the masses, what are some tactics to make the process go more quickly/effectively? I am staring at a sea of very identical documents and I really want to give the right people the chance without reading every little description.

8 Comments
 

I am too....

1: GPA - I got above a 3.9 (non-target) and very biased towards people with a high GPA. So if you have below a 3.6 I put you in the "No" pile. My cousin works for a well known hedge fund and his motto is "hire intelligence". I follow that motto and this is the most important. 2: Experience - Would be nice to see a bulge bracket bank or other investment banking experience. I did not have that coming in however so I look for something that shows you have an interest in finance/economics. For me a <abbr title="private wealth management

">PWM

internship looks better than life guarding. 3 Overall Format - if your resume looks crappy then you obviously did not spend a lit of time on it. Next.

Start with 3.9 piles, then got to 3.8 piles, etc. Will save you lots of time.

 
vtech243I am too.... 1: GPA - I got above a 3.9 (non-target) and very biased towards people with a high GPA. So if you have below a 3.6 I put you in the "No" pile. My cousin works for a well known hedge fund and his motto is "hire intelligence". I follow that motto and this is the most important. 2: Experience - Would be nice to see a bulge bracket bank or other investment banking experience. I did not have that coming in however so I look for something that shows you have an interest in finance/economics. For me a <abbr title="private wealth management

">PWM

internship looks better than life guarding. 3 Overall Format - if your resume looks crappy then you obviously did not spend a lit of time on it. Next.

Start with 3.9 piles, then got to 3.8 piles, etc. Will save you lots of time.

You presume that GPA purely reflects intelligence/competence/literacy...what about the 3.8's and 3.9's that come with cover letters written at an ~8th grade writing level

 
Best Response
Cicero
vtech243I am too.... 1: GPA - I got above a 3.9 (non-target) and very biased towards people with a high GPA. So if you have below a 3.6 I put you in the "No" pile. My cousin works for a well known hedge fund and his motto is "hire intelligence". I follow that motto and this is the most important. 2: Experience - Would be nice to see a bulge bracket bank or other investment banking experience. I did not have that coming in however so I look for something that shows you have an interest in finance/economics. For me a <abbr title="private wealth management

">PWM

internship looks better than life guarding. 3 Overall Format - if your resume looks crappy then you obviously did not spend a lit of time on it. Next.

Start with 3.9 piles, then got to 3.8 piles, etc. Will save you lots of time.

You presume that GPA purely reflects intelligence/competence/literacy...what about the 3.8's and 3.9's that come with cover letters written at an ~8th grade writing level

You read cover letters?

 
bearing
Cicero
vtech243I am too.... 1: GPA - I got above a 3.9 (non-target) and very biased towards people with a high GPA. So if you have below a 3.6 I put you in the "No" pile. My cousin works for a well known hedge fund and his motto is "hire intelligence". I follow that motto and this is the most important. 2: Experience - Would be nice to see a bulge bracket bank or other investment banking experience. I did not have that coming in however so I look for something that shows you have an interest in finance/economics. For me a <abbr title="private wealth management

">PWM

internship looks better than life guarding. 3 Overall Format - if your resume looks crappy then you obviously did not spend a lit of time on it. Next.

Start with 3.9 piles, then got to 3.8 piles, etc. Will save you lots of time.

You presume that GPA purely reflects intelligence/competence/literacy...what about the 3.8's and 3.9's that come with cover letters written at an ~8th grade writing level

You read cover letters?

Evidently. I had a guaranteed stud of a candidate and saw that they mentioned another bank in the cover letter...biggest mistake in the book.

 
bearingSucks for him. Back to your original question I check GPA, work experience and leadership in that order. I am proactively looking for people with prior FO experience followed by either corporate or PWM type experience. I'm more lenient on GPA then some others as I follow the belief that experience trumps everything.

That's fair - I guess there's no science to it. What weighting do you give to experience from a couple years back?

 

Was coming from the angle that you have 100 resumes and 20 minutes to pick 5.

If I had more time I would give more weight to different things. But to defend the resume GPA point. I don't think you would be able to do well at a top University GPA wise without being a good writer (especially schools with Gen-Ed requirements like Physics and History courses). 3.9 ... ya ok you're not Hemingway but it says that you can take courses like History, which had a lot of writing at my school and still get an A.

Best analyst in my group was a 4.0 student with 0 experience and no leadership at school except being the best WoW player on his floor.

To the last question .. experience is experience and I think a couple years back is still def valid.

 

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