Resume advice

ibankers and people that are planning on becoming one i have a question regarding a resume..how should one put or underline on his resume that he/she is foreign? would the Skills: Languages Section be enough or they might just assume that ive learned those languages at school? My situation is that i moved to the US 5 yrs ago and i have done pretty well for a foreigner..i go to non target (SMU obviously) and got 3.4 overall and 3.7 finance GPA. But i feel like my resume will be thrown in trash bc they would assume that it's jsut another native and his grades arent good enough..and i would never get noticed..and just overall does being a foreigner give you an advantage or not?

5 Comments
 
Best Response

In the language section you could put in parenthesis native. Also, you could add foreign schooling or work experience.

During interviews, make sure you address the lower GPA. Being non-native is okay if you have an improving GPA, but if it is consistently at a 3.4 it would be difficult to convince recruiters.

My advice would be to network. Without a solid network, it is very difficult to enter banking from a non target. Reach out to people, tell your story. Being a foreigner alone does not give you an advantage, it is what you have done that gives you an advantage. If you had a rough freshman year adapting, but a strong sophmore year it would be helpful.

 

Being foreign an edge? -It depends-

If your english sucks, being foreign no matter where you are from won't help. I am originally from France, and I wouldn't have hired myself back in the days when nobody was able to understand my accent.

But if your english is really good, then it is something others don't have.

I don't want to discriminate either, but if you are Korean, Russian, Chinese, Indian, etc... You don't have an edge since there are a million people just like you in the US (My mom is Russian, and she definitely doesn't have an edge here ;)

 

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