Cover Letter + Resume Advice

Mod Note (Andy): the link for the free WSO IBD resume template is here.

Resume Advice

1. DO NOT GOOGLE "Resume Templates" or "How to make a resume"

All of the hip / new age resumes get thrown out as fast as they come in. Investment banking is not an industry where people are impressed by your resume creativity. It just makes it harder for us to digest and process your information. The resume advice on google is downright terrible and is not intended for an investment banking audience. Don't listen to it. Seek advice from experienced people you trust. Older students are more than willing to help if you just ask. There is no reason to re-invent the wheel with resume templates, ask your older friends.

2. Proof-read your resume for formatting / grammar 1,000x.

Investment bankers are the most anal breed of people you will ever meet. If you do not have enough attention to detail / drive to format your resume properly, which you have hours to do, I am not going to trust you to do this job.

Print your resume out and look at it. It is much easier to catch formatting mistakes when you print something out.

- Does everything line up properly.
- Are you consistent in your bolding / italicizing
- Are your dashes all the same size
- Is your resume all written in the same tense?

These things matter and are the fastest way to get dinged.

3. Tailor your resume to the group you are applying for.

If I work for an industrials group and you have Tech all over your resume, I am going to assume you want to do tech and you are applying as a backup plan. It is difficult to have one resume that you blast across the street because every group is looking for somebody with different qualifications.

4. It is imperative you put your GPA on your resume.

Even if you are a chemical engineering major and your GPA is a 3.0, I would rather see it so I can take your major into consideration. I'm honestly very understanding if you have a technical major. If it's not there I will automatically dismiss your resume.

5. Don't put an "Objective" section on your resume.

You don't need it. It's non-differentiating, and a waste of space. I know why you are applying

6. Be ready to defend everything that is on your resume.

This should be a given but people seem to fuck this up every day. If in your interests section you write hang-gliding, and then I ask you about it you better damn well be able to speak to hang-gliding. Otherwise it undermines everything else on the page.

7. Start your resume's early!

These things take hours and hours to perfect. Many people think you can just sit down in an hour and bang out a perfect resume but that is simply not the case. To get it right takes time. Do not wait to start until the day before the job posting.

8. Don't put "Founded Investment Banking Club" on your resume. Just don't do it.

Cover Letter Advice

Contrary to a lot of people, I DO read cover letters and weigh them heavily. I dismiss candidates every day who have decent resume's because their cover letters are disastrous. The truth is that after I have gone through a stack of resume's and pull out 20 decent candidates. I need to find a way to get to ten and cover letters are a seemingly more thoughtful way of getting there than other methods like flipping coins which I kid you not people have to do at some point.

1. Get my name right.

You would not believe the number of people that misspell my name, or get my gender wrong (i.e. call me Ms. instead of Mr.) If you are writing to a particular person, make sure you do a quick Linkedin search to double check you have their information correct.

2. Have a decent heading.

Use aesthetically appealing font. Make it appear professional. Ask older friends you trust for cover letter templates. You are not re-inventing the wheel, there are templates out there. That being said, again, DO NOT USE GOOGLE.

3. Keep it short.

The reality is you don't have that much to say and it's okay. I honestly don't expect you to really be able to differentiate between my bank and somebody else's. From somebody new to the industry they are all the same. The best thing you can do is name drop people you have talked to. That way I know you have done your homework and I can ask the person you talked to how your chat was. I think cover letters are better when they are focused on your past work experience as opposed to general and arbitrary sentiments about how you are "hard worker and team player with a strict attention to detail"

4. If English is your second language, or you just write like crap, have other people proof read for grammar and word usage.

At some point, the cover letter is just a writing sample. If you cannot communicate in proper english you will not be able to do this job. A lot of analyst work is re-writing shitty associate chicken scratch into things that actually make sense. You need to be able to write well.

5. Tone down the verbose language.

It is fake and makes you seem like a loser. All you want to do in a cover letter is come across as a thoughtful and genuine person. Just be honest. Nobody is a rock-star at 22. You should aim to come across as humble but confident.

 

I echo blackice's sentiments. That's real bad if throughout 4 years of college you couldn't even maintain a 3.0--unless you were caring for a terminally ill family member while working full-time or something. A 3.0 in today's grade inflationary environment is super easy to achieve, even with hard quantitative majors whose major classes are usually curved to a 3.0. 4 years is a long time, and not able to scrape together a 3.0 is a troubling sign

 

I completely agree, I actually maintained a GPA in the mid 3.0 range since my junior year but last semester I had personal family issues I dont want to mention on here as well as working part time, ECs, etc that resulted in a tramatizing effect towards my GPA (mentioned that in my resume subtly). However, I do have several IB internships and contacts that I hope will get passed the screening stage.

 

I don't want to sound like a jerk, but I think you should heed my advice. I've read a lot of your posts and, I think with no exception, every post had blatant spelling and basic sentence structure errors. I think you had mentioned you have a 2.2 GPA. I really think you should focus your efforts elsewhere if you want to break in, namely getting some kind of Masters finance-related degree. As it stands, you literally have no chance to break in with 2.2 GPA from a non-target NYC school (I'm assuming a CUNY school?), internship experience notwithstanding. You need to crush a grad program and show your competency to even have a shot at trying to backdoor your way in to finance. Again don't take it the wrong way, but I think this practical approach is the only viability with your profile.

 
Best Response

No offense, but you kinda did sound like a jerk when you mentioned my sentence structural issues. It made you sound a bit condescending. Just saying. When I wrote some of those posts was while I was in school or busy doing something at the library. I still have hope, I will take your advice as sound. It will also use it to motivate myself further. I will NOT take the Masters in Finance approach, because ideally I would rather prefer an MBA in case I want to make a career change after banking. I know some people at my school that were able to get FT IB positions where their GPA was slightly higher than mine. So by no means I will stop and I will continue networking and continue posting here for help. Thanks for your advice anyway.

 

Don't knock out the idea that a MSF defeats the ability to obtain a MBA later down the road.

You might have to take 4-6 years rather than 2-4 of work experience to make up for the opportunity cost and years lost with MSF, but don't totally discredit it.

"It is better to have a friendship based on business, than a business based on friendship." - Rockefeller. "Live fast, die hard. Leave a good looking body." - Navy SEAL
 

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