Here's my resume, guys. Just finished my junior year at a non-target in the Midwest.
http://www.razume.com/documents/26050
I need to know how to get more finance exposure. Yes, I know cold-calling and all that, but how should I phrase my past experience in terms of relevance to finance? I might take the CFA 1 this winter but I have to prepare for GRE too (econ grad school a possibility)
I'm currently doing research at a defense contractor.
Did research at my school.
Worked at a large IT consulting firm; our team's client was a Big Three automaker.
Worked at a Chicago start-up, worked with Kellogg grads.
Be harsh, tell me what to say and what to do. I need to get into finance and ideally, in the long run, into PE or HF. I don't mind folliowing a circuitous route if necessary.
I know it's cliche by now, but just rip my resume apart.
I'd invite you for an interview based on your resume.
I would too. Resume's get interviews not jobs.. This one will probably get interviews with a little tweaking. I'm no good at tweaking resumes though.
Me too. You should get interviews, but you're interpersonal skills need to get you the job.
Ok that's good to hear! I don't doubt my ability to nail those interviews, though my previous finance-related ones often centered around my lack of finance experience (I still got them or got far but they were non-traditional roles, like FOHFs, econ or other boutique consulting)
Question:
I may get a publication on oil reserve strategy this summer if I focus on my internship, and also need to study for my GRE over the next couple months.
Is the marginal benefit of the CFA 1 in december great enough to possibly justify a hit on the quality of my internship/publication/GRE score, if I study for that starting now too? Should I maybe just do the self-taught modeling course advertised here instead? Is that even worth it?
I expected every other word to be a number for a math major. Quantify that shit.
Nice GPA for uChi.
He doesn't seem to be from UChicago since he said he goes to a non-target.
I think you can make the formatting better - your use of bullets seems a bit odd. Also anywhere you can further emphasize analysis or incorporate more finance language into the description might be good.
Interesting resume, not what you usually see on here.
My attempt to incorporate the M&I project-focused resume advice. It does look odd, I agree.
The National Lab internship sounds very impressive but the first line is somewhat generic. Are you just adding impressive sounding phrases such as game theory without understanding the concept in depth? Perhaps be more specific... entire resume seems full of keywords (strategically placed ones for scanners and may not appear genuine).
Can you improve your technical skills section considering your quantitative background.... VBA, C++, Matlab, R?
Agree with the above comment about the bullet points. Not sure the second line is necessary
Remove interests section
Also consider making two versions, one for PE and one for HFs. PE would obviously more finance/IB related whereas HF for trading would be more comp/math orientated. Go to a job site and see the skills necessary for analyst, junior trader, assistant trader, etc. and then customize your resume. I can say right away that for a quant HF you're going to need VBA, advanced stats, R and possibly C++ if you're doing support. If you're going to model then Matlab is going to be important as well. For a more qualitative fundamental driven HF a research background more related to PE would be sufficient without all of the software knowledge.
Lastly, does your school have a Bloomberg Terminal or at least a Reuters computer that you can get comfortable with and add it to your skills section?
The description of the National Labs stuff is taken directly from the job description itself; I'm not far along enough to have meaningful information about my research yet, but it does draw substantially from those areas. As for other keywords, I think I can make some improvements but at least my econ RA stuff is too varied and complex, I feel, to be anything but generic.
Removed.
I don't know if I want to or should try and compete for heavy quant positions, esp coming from a non-target. I will have a full year of probability and stats, C++ and other application focused courses after next year, but for now I'm heavy on the abstract.
Matlab and C++ are definitely doable, that's good advice. But better than studying for CFA? And the finance dept has a ton of Bloomberg Terminals, I'll definitely try. It's too bad I'm out of town this summer.
It depends on what role you would like to pursue. If its traded related then Matlab and VBA will be important. If you want to work as an analyst doing fundamental company or industry research then a CFA will be more valuable.
Obviously you can do financial modeling in Excel (PE) but if you have to analyze derivative contracts and so forth then you need those quant tools and a CFA will be largely irrelevant.
Just my two cents but customizing the resume to target a specific industry is worth the effort. Of course there exists an opportunity cost when it comes to learning certain skills. Acquiring the CFA designation is no joke.
Regarding Bloomberg just spend like 10 hours on it and you will know your way around. See if your school allows to set up your own account. There are training videos and quiz certifications. Beyond learning to navigating the basics also learn how to import data into Excel (or the industry Excel worksheet formats). When you know what you want to do you can learn how to use the calculator tools. They will come in handy if you're doing derivatives work.
I hope you're just hiding most of the interesting stuff (possibly for lack of relevancy), that looks pretty sad for a chicago pure math dude.
Lol I'm a non-target, not at UChicago. But yeah I feel that differential equations or my econ courses are more relevant. I literally had a portfolio manager at a FOF spend five minutes telling me that my courses were 'insane' and that I'd be too bored in the job, back when I only listed math.
First things first, that is a shitty GPA for depaul. honestly, your peers can barely spell and so ideally you should be in the 3.9+ range. a resume reviewer mentioned the same on WSO a couple months ago.
also, what was your SAT score?
^ So following that logic if differential calculus is a "101" course, a topic that may seem advanced for us laymen, then how is a 3.7 GPA bad (for seedy underbelly)? What's a 300 level class?
Anyways GPAs are bs. I got better grades in grad school and the undergrad school was "easier".
Math classes have a tendency to have absolutely black magic type grading as you get higher up the ranks. As you start hitting PHD classes, it's literally impossible to fail. Hell, earning a "C" almost requires you to put effort to get one.
I'm not sure about where he goes, but at my college, the first semester course for a pure math major was Real Analysis (we skipped all calculus courses). We don't have well defined 300 level courses since we don't take conventional courses.
It's actually easier to get a bad grade in a trivial math class (b/c of things like stupid curves, annoying proffs who overcompensate in grade deductions) then some of the really upper ones.
And I agree about the grades are bs part. Or it could just be that I've got sour grapes.
Both of our arguments are based on insignificant sample sizes although I would claim that the GPA inflation debate is more universal. Nevertheless, I cannot comment for grades when it comes to upper level math courses. I took an advanced regression class as an elective and dropped it after a dismal midterm test (73). I wasn't trying to get a B- for a pointless class. I can't generalize the grading system for math majors across universities.
I also know PH D candidates that never finished, mainly in economics. Mathematics may have had something to do with it but I'm not 100% sure. I think we come from different academic backgrounds. I didn't do the Ivy route... but I heard that grade inflation in the Ivys is the most rampant. You have to make those grads competitive!
^I did Political Science and Economics. I didn't get to econometrics during undergrad but grades generally good stricter with progression. Different experience I guess. I think in your case every class was relative. I would prefer an absolute rating based on historical performance but whatever.
During grad school I found basic economic courses a lot tougher. Simple optimization (calc) questions were everywhere. Grad level micro was ridiculous imo. Of course it depends on the school, program and the professor.
Grades do generally get better but I wouldn't label it all inflation. For instance, no one got less than a B in my grad measure theory course or third-term real analysis, because there were only around 6 people in those courses anyway. That kind of self-selection and the inability of professors to apply curves on such small classes pretty much guarantees good grades.
That said, my GPA was brought down by irrelevant pre-med courses and first-year calculus. I was an idiot freshman year.
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