Non-target resume critique! SA 2015. TY

Gang,

I am a junior going to a non-target on the east coast with a 3.5 GPA. I had a good internship in a boutique investment bank this summer, so I think that should help.
I am aiming for a BB investment banking summer internship. I know it is going to be a tough battle but I have already started networking and I am certain that I can get 1st rounds at one BB.
I would like to improve my chances of landing 1st rounds at other BB by having my resume correct.

Thanks in advance!

edit: I updated my resume with the changes you told me. Please check the grammar as English is my second language.

Thanks all!

 
Best Response

Well you're approaching it the right way. I'm sure you can get first rounds, but your resume isn't going to be the big differentiating factor. Anyways, it's very good. Here goes:

-Personally, I would prefer more detail in the investment club and the CFA challenge. I would make room by eliminating the University Donations Officer caller part--it's nice that you had a job but you want the resume to scream "finance" as much as possible. This is a matter of preference, of course, but I've been told by many people in the industry that it's better to have heavy detail than it is to simply list a ton of positions.

-There seems to be some space at the bottom--consider going up a font size? not sure what it would look like/if it would fit, but it seems odd to have a good amount of space at the top/bottom and have font as small as it is. You can change margins

-I prefer, personally, full years (i.e. 2014 vs '14). It looks cleaner and more professional in my opinion

Out of time for now, but I'll try to circle back with more later.

 
  1. “International student scholarship” – Capitalize ‘student’ and ‘scholarship’
  2. Switch the order of “Intermediate Accounting” & “Financial Statement Analysis’ to keep everything in alphabetical order left to right
  3. You have quite a lot of white space towards the bottom, so I think you can afford to increase your font a bit. (It’d be a little easier on the eyes too!)
  4. I would revise your 2nd bullet under the Non Profit organization internship to: “Managed project data, training programs, and budgets for Nonprofit organization’s database”
  5. The 2nd bullet under your Mining Internship – can you quantify (%) how much you expedited to the process by? Always try to quantify your results where appropriate.
  6. University Donations Office – same thing as #4. Use numbers in place of words so for example: (Raised over $5,000 in financial support from alumni)
  7. No need to put down the Excel or Powerpoint skills. Those should be a given
  8. Interests – capitalize each individual list item! Oh and you should check out my resume too, because when I first opened yours, our first two internship experience titles almost looked identical to me, haha.

Hope this helped!

-TGP

 

Nonprofit - second bullet sounds weird. If I'm interpreting it right, then maybe ", such as" will be a better fit in place of "like"

Bullet 3 of CFA Challenge, don't use "and then", maybe use "; moved on to present in front of a panel of CFA judges"

Investment club bullet 1 - did anything result from it?

Otherwise it looks solid. You can consider making your name bigger and bold so it looks more pronounced. Your judgment.

 

Hello Simeo,

I will give you a few suggestions, but the very best advice as a former writer of a major newspaper is to viciously hunt for your mistakes. A good rule of thumb is to find at least 10 typos or grammatical errors after the third or final draft of any document. Since this is your resume, I would say 20 typos. We all want our documents to be prefect so there is a mental challenge of finding mistakes when it is easier to believe that the document is fine. With that said, I would edit:

  1. 2nd line under Summer Analyst: delete comma after "transactions" and before "and"
  2. For your Accounting Internship did you translate documents "from" Spanish to English?

Regarding Content: 1. For your investment club state the type of industry research you conducted.
2. For the mining company internship, can you quantify the cost savings?
3. What type of student mentoring did you do? If you tutored anyone, I would say so.

Career Advancement Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Jefferies & Company 02 99.4%
  • Goldman Sachs 19 98.8%
  • Harris Williams & Co. (++) 98.3%
  • Lazard Freres 02 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 03 97.1%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Harris Williams & Co. 18 99.4%
  • JPMorgan Chase 10 98.8%
  • Lazard Freres 05 98.3%
  • Morgan Stanley 07 97.7%
  • William Blair 03 97.1%

Professional Growth Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Lazard Freres 01 99.4%
  • Jefferies & Company 02 98.8%
  • Goldman Sachs 17 98.3%
  • Moelis & Company 07 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 05 97.1%

Total Avg Compensation

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Director/MD (5) $648
  • Vice President (19) $385
  • Associates (86) $261
  • 3rd+ Year Analyst (13) $181
  • Intern/Summer Associate (33) $170
  • 2nd Year Analyst (66) $168
  • 1st Year Analyst (202) $159
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (144) $101
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”