How to properly add boutique experience to a resume?
I'm current interning for a small financial consulting boutique (around 5 employees) and was wondering about how i should have it marked down on my resume.
Should I have it as: FIRM NAME
or
FIRM NAME, FINANCIAL CONSULTING
or
FIRM NAME (Financial Consulting Boutique)
or what would be best?
Thanks in advance.
How about just the firm name, and then in the job title area you put something like "financial consulting analyst" or in the description you get the point across...I think putting financial consulting after a comma or in parenthesis just comes across as desperate for recognition
True. It's just that my title is "Financial Analyst", which is a position that exists at almost any type of firm. My thinking if that if an unknown firm name is seen, and then below my title as "Financial Analyst", no one will have any idea as to what kind of place it is that I garnered that experience at.
honestly man, it should be fine. People do "XXX Securities, Investment Banking Department-M&A Group" then on the next line "Summer Analyst" all the time.
The "Financial consulting analyst" recommendation is a good option as well but I think thats getting a little creative with respect to your title. Maybe some bankers who are involved in the interview selection process can chime in.
They're not going to have an idea either way. This is a great opportunity for you to explain how much you did, since they won't shoehorn you into a specific role. I worked at a boutique investment bank and put:
FIRM NAME Investment Banking Summer Analyst
Don't do the bracket thing, i.e. FIRM NAME (boutique consultancy), it looks weird.
FIRM NAME Financial Analyst for a financial consulting boutique . . . [first bullet/line/whatever]
MMmonkey: Financial Analyst for a financial consulting boutique sounds a bit long.
CDN: The place has only 4-5 employees and so there isn't a specific department I can mark down. (with regards to Investment Banking Department, M&A, etc.)
Thank you both for your comments. And, as CDN mentioned, anyone directly involved in the interviewing process would be greatly appreciated. As well as anyone else.
Thanks again everyone - greatly appreciated.
My firm didn't have a specific department either, so I just added "investment banking" to the job title, since that's what we were doing. Naturally, I asked my boss if this was OK to begin with.
Once they read the bullet points on your resume, it's going to be obvious what you did/didn't do for them.
bump
Yeah interviewers care about bullet points/explanations. They can easily see through titles, especially in more boutique/private setting where they can call their juniors whatever they want. I think
Firm Position bullets on your skills
is the most logical and coherent way of presenting it.
"Investment Banking Summer Analyst"
Everyone understands that. I would not put anything in brackets, just put the firm name... that looks weird and makes people think it's a non-legit place (because why else would you have to explain what it is?)
Just write the name and explain in interviews, they will figure it out beforehand if they desire.
I would worry more about the actual structure of the resume - for more on this see my article on writing about deals/banking experience on a resume - although I say "private equity resumes" it really applies to any summer banking experience you need to write about as well.
If you do banking and then go into consulting or something different you may want to make the resume less deal-focused, but for any finance jobs it's all about the deals.
Thanks for chiming in, dosk. I have in fact read that link of yours some time ago (as well as most of your others). This firm is not an investment bank boutique, though. It is a financial consulting boutique that doesn't do any banking. Therefore I cannot put "Investment Banking Analyst" under the title.
What I have been doing is looking at financial statements of small firms and pulling information out, putting it in Excel, calculating ratios, and comparing/analyzing them.
This is why I'm not quite sure what to put as my title - and no one will know the name of the firm although if they do "see through to the bullet points" as was earlier mentioned, then I will have to concentrate on how to phrase my responsibility in the bullet points and just have 'Financial Analyst' as my title.
I'm not quite sure, though.
last bump
Updating Resume After Botique (Originally Posted: 08/07/2013)
I worked at a small boutique firm over the summer where I did a little bit of everything. My title was equity research summer analyst. Pretty much anything that someone around the office needed help with and it was not really structured. Now I am updating my resume and am having a little trouble deciding what to put down.
Basically the things I did were: some financial modeling, equity research, sell-side research, two presentations where i pitched a stock, and general research for analysts.
I want to cater the resume for a summer IBD analyst position next year and was wonder what your opinions are on what I should put on bullets and any keywords that might be important. Thanks..
You need to put in exactly what you would put in for any other job. You put in things that you did that created value for the firm you worked for.
Ex. instead of pitched stock. you could put "pitched a stock that obtained 15% returns in 3 months"
One rule of thumb that I use, is I don't put anything on my resume that one wouldn't assume that I did just by looking at my job title. If you say that you were an equity research analyst, everyone and their mother knows that you did financial modeling and equity research.
Boutique IB on Resume (Originally Posted: 09/02/2015)
Hi, I interned at a boutique bank (less than 10 people) over my sophomore summer and was wondering if you guys could critique these bullet points that will eventually go on my resume. Thanks for any help.
** Posted this in the resume forum but it's kind of dead there.
Bump
I am no CV guru but as a candidate who also interned at a boutique and got a few IBD FT interview invites from BB, I'd say this is too lengthy. I summarised what i did in 5 short sentences.
Points like the first one and "Screened a comparable companies universe in the digital media sector to find a potential buyer for a 15-22% growth equity stake in a $40mm enterprise value company" are way too detailed. Will it come across as a weakness of you not being able to get your message across in a concise manner? Just my 2cent. By the way im from the UK so may be it's a bit different here.
Good point. I just tried to be as descriptive as possible and included as many relevant terms as I could since I read on here that when bankers look at resumes they screen for key words. But if this is counterproductive, I can make it a bit shorter.
The first point is too wordy- cut it down. Second and third are both okay, although all of these should have 'effects'- what did your work actually accomplish? If anything came of all the stuff you did you should put it down. I don't think you need to write out LOI, but that's a small point. It might be better to cut the 5th point and put equity research analysis into skills, or something- I think this might be too much overall.
Boutique Resume Question (Originally Posted: 01/31/2013)
Long story short, I started as an electrical engineer at university, because that's what my parents studied. I dropped out for almost 2 years and worked at a video game development firm in their investigations department. I returned to university and graduated with a degree in Economics.
After graduating, I worked for a few months for a private wealth management firm, because the job was available and easily accessible via personal connections. Recently, I've relocated to an area of the country I prefer to live in for personal reasons.
That all being said, including the private wealth management firm in my experience is a no brainer, because of relevant work relating account valuations. But should I include my experience at the video game development firm?
Most of me says yes, because the work was analytical in it's nature as far as analyzing strings of code and making a decision on customer accounts. On the other hand, it's so far from the finance industry, I don't know if it's something that would be looked down upon.
why wouldnt you include this?
Gives something unique to your resume imo. Possibly even help you get into an industry group relating to gaming
Resume Question - No-name boutique bank (Originally Posted: 12/16/2013)
A no-name boutique bank I used to intern at, right after I left, got acquired by a BB, and it's now part of the BB's regional office. How should I spin this on my resume? To me, just listing "Goldman Sachs" knowing full well that it wasn't Goldman Sachs when I was there seems a bit disingenuous. So I'm thinking of listing the name as "XXXXX (recently acquired by Goldman Sachs)." What would you do? Thanks in advance.
If it is a subsidiary, you could put something like "ABC, subsidiary of XYZ"
It's not a subsidiary; the guys I worked with just assimilated into the BB's regional group, and their LinkedIn's all just say the BB's name. It's as if the boutique never existed, and its website is no longer up.
If the website isn't up anymore and it's as if the boutique never existed, you should probably put GS. Otherwise, it could seem like you listed a bank that doesn't exist. I know some people at McColl Partners (acquired by Deloitte Corp Fin) and Edgeview (acquired by Piper Jaffray) that use the new name now, so you probably can too.
New Firm Name (Formerly: Old Firm Name)
Best of both worlds.
I think I'm just going to put what Ruskii wrote. Thanks for the help, guys.
I'd flip it around: Old firm name (new firm name)
It's like winning a mini resume lottery.
Nah, it's the opposite. The firm is UBS. :(
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