Resume review for SA IBD internships (Junior target)

Greetings to the WSO community,

I started following WSO topics since Fall 2011. I have to say that I learned a lot about career opportunities in finance and was able to narrow down my career interests through browsing different topics. I have recently completed W.S.Prep. self-study guides and considering to purchase other courses.

Next month, I will be going through intense recruitment process for summer internships. I would be much grateful if you guys helped me to revise and critique my resume.

Best regards and thanks in advance,

buhgalter

P.S guaranteed banana points for helpful insight(s)

5 Comments
 
Best Response

I'm sure you can explain how you did 2 internships at once. But you need to focus your resume on your more recent internships - in fact they seem pretty sketchy since you have white space and vaguely describe what you did (you basically described your function). It seems you didn't do any real work there.

you may want to highlight a specific project you did there to make the interview go smoother - otherwise the interviewer will need to poke at you to figure out what you really did.

Personally I think name is too large and should use indented bullets

Overall - you need to direct the readers attention with the formatting. So far I have to dig out what seems to be most important on your CV. You are lucky you go to a good school because otherwise your CV would get tossed in the trash for not describing anything important.

So, think about your 3 most important things - one of them is your school - and then make those 3 most notable on your resume. so for example. if you want to emphasize you worked at a BB, although just PWM, keep it to 2 bullets since all you really want to communicate is the BB brand.

If you focus on your internships, try to make them bigger with more bullets so my eyes naturally shift there. Use projects and layered bullets to make it easy to understand you did M&A, etc.. because right now, like I said, I have to dig for what you did and every half second counts when you only have 5 seconds of review.

Finally the numbers thing is really important, your bullets are so weak - completed a training (wtv), assisted, and monitored is the same as tracked... start of strong with numbers. something like:

$50MM private placement for FDA pending pharmaceutical corporation - Measured 10.4x - 14.1 EBITDA entry multiple based off precedent transactions analysis - Modeled 3-statement projections ... blablablbla start strong with numbers and acronyms and shit that make it easier to read.

 

Thanks guys for the great inputs on this. Yes I did work two internships this fall. I worked around 75-90 hours per week and very glad that my IB internship is over. In total, I was involved in 4 projects (cap. raise, fairness opinion and m&a.) I wasn't sure about mentioning numbers as it's not impressive. However I guess I will try to tweak numbers and make bullets more specific to what i did as an analyst. As for my second internship as a research analyst, I have no way of mentioning number because I wasn't involved in asset management or deal making. Questions: 1. How many bullets should I have for IB? 2. I heard using sub-bullets makes CV look messy, myth? 3. Just to make it clear, should I just keep two bullet points on my pwm internship? 4. I am planning to add the fourth bullet point on my research internship - can it be about utilizing excel formulas (vlookup, bloomberg formulas of importing data, pivot tables, charts, etc)? 5. Should I mention W.S.Prep. self study course? 6. Any ideas about eliminating non profit internship?

 
buhgalterThanks guys for the great inputs on this. Yes I did work two internships this fall. I worked around 75-90 hours per week and very glad that my IB internship is over. In total, I was involved in 4 projects (cap. raise, fairness opinion and m&a.) I wasn't sure about mentioning numbers as it's not impressive. However I guess I will try to tweak numbers and make bullets more specific to what i did as an analyst. As for my second internship as a research analyst, I have no way of mentioning number because I wasn't involved in asset management or deal making. Questions: 1. How many bullets should I have for IB? 2. I heard using sub-bullets makes CV look messy, myth? 3. Just to make it clear, should I just keep two bullet points on my pwm internship? 4. I am planning to add the fourth bullet point on my research internship - can it be about utilizing excel formulas (vlookup, bloomberg formulas of importing data, pivot tables, charts, etc)? 5. Should I mention W.S.Prep. self study course? 6. Any ideas about eliminating non profit internship?

You need to elaborate more on your experiences. Two bullet points on your internship is not enough to convey to the reader what kind of value you added to the team. Since you're shooting for IBD SA next year, your investment banking internship should take up the bulk of the experience section, in my opinion. It's not about the number of bullet points, but rather having a comprehensive overview/description of your experience. As for sub-bullets, it's fine to have them. I personally have them for the specific deal experience that I worked on over the summer. For your PWM internship, I would keep it to a minimum. The BB name would add brand value, but I think the investment banking boutique experience is far more important. As for the research internship, sure, go ahead and add that. But remember, if you write this on your resume, the interviewer will expect you to know this and may ask you about it. For any training, such as W.S. Prep, I'd probably add that somewhere at the bottom, under Technical Skills. And as for removing the non profit internship, it's fine to have it on. But remember, think of your resume as real estate. You only have a limited amount of space, and it's important to emphasize certain areas in your candidacy more than others (i.e. your boutique IBD experience is more important than your non profit internship). I hope this helps man. Good luck and let me know if there's anything I can help you with on your resume.

 

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