PLEASE RIP MY RESUME TO SHREDS - ER SA 2021

Your classes do not matter because everyone takes the same classes. If you're an Econ major I know you have or are going to take Econ classes. If you're a Finance Major I know you are going to take Finance classes. It's redundant and takes 2 to 3 lines of space that can be filled with something else

Haha no worries man! I'm in the same boat - I go to a non-target as well, so I'm trying to help out anywhere I can.

Another change: open up a ruler on your word document for this change. When microsoft word creates bullet points, it automatically makes the bulleted sentences extend out 2 "ticks" past the bullet point on the ruler. This looks weird, it makes you have additional white space. Take every sentence, click near the start of the first word, you'll see the tiny black line appear around 2 "ticks" on the ruler where the sentence has automatically been spaced out to. Take this black line, drag it to 1.5 ticks away from the bullet point (NOTE: DO NOT MOVE THE BULLET POINT ITSELF, DRAG THE SENTENCE TO 1.5 TICKS AWAY FROM THE BULLET POINT). This will reduce white space and make the résumé look cleaner.

One more change: all of the "city, state" and dates need to be normalized. Don't make them bold, don't make them italics. Some people like the look of it because it looks symmetric: it makes sense, but nobody cares what makes sense. They care that your résumé looks the same as everybody else's. If it looks too different, they throw it away. Don't bold your locations, don't italicize your dates. Make these as plain vanilla and boring as everything else.

One more nitpicky change: remove filler words as much as you can. You want it to be quick and to-the-point. Recruiters at Goldman get 28,000 résumés for maybe 500 intern positions they're looking to fill. They don't want to waste any additional time reading bullcrap, so they glance over everything. The more to-the-point you can be and still pack a huge punch in your sentences, the better. If you add filler words (you have "the" a couple of times and "a" a couple of times), they won't appreciate it because those seconds build up into hours of reading. Try to make everything as grammatically correct as possible, but try to remove filler words.

So the whole font size thing was a suggestion if you needed help with filling all of the blank space. I'll breakdown my explanation for you right now since I wrote that when I was super tired and everything.

Here's a quick summary of the changes you need to make still, excluding the new ones I just mentioned: - You want EVERY BULLET POINT to extend as far to the right as you can. If you can make them extend to the very last letter without dropping to the next line, do it. If not, make it extend until there are maybe 3-5 letters left on the sentence without it dropping down a line. - Your margins are TINY. They look like you have so much experience that you couldn't fit it on one page, so you made the margins smaller to make sure you could fit everything on a page. Make them a standard size. - You want every bullet point to answer the questions "What did you do, how did you do it, and what value was created from it?" and make them as geared towards your future role as possible. Ask yourself, "did I answer these questions in each bullet point? How does this relate to equity research/investment banking/asset management/whatever else you do?" - You also want your experience section to be as big as possible compared to everything else, because it's the FIRST GLANCE that matters most, not that your leadership experience was related to your job. - Addtionally, you want your résumé to look AS CLOSE TO EVERYONE ELSE'S AS POSSIBLE. This is why certain changes (like the margin size) have been emphasized. Bankers/recruiters/anybody hiring you will want to know exactly where to find the information they are looking for. If your résumé looks weird compared to everyone else's (tiny margins, different style font, anything different, they will throw your résumé in the trash without ever looking at it).

NOW, I'll break these changes down in depth.

• You want the sentences in your points to extend as far to the right as possible because it fills in the white space. White space makes your résumé look like a joke. It makes it look emptier, makes you look like you don't have enough experience. Try to make EVERY line go as far to the right as possible, period. If you increase your font size, this is easier to achieve; always keep your résumé between 10-11pt size font (10.5 is a pretty good size), always keep it Times New Roman, ALWAYS keep it to a single page. You don't HAVE to increase your font size if you can make it look good without this, but I honestly think you might benefit from it if you struggle with it. But no, don't just increase the font size of certain sections (you're right, this would look stupid), increase the font size if you can't make everything look exactly how it needs to look (experience section as big as possible, all bullet points extend as far right as possible, etc.)

• Margin size tiny: honestly, there's some stuff you can remove from the résumé and still have it look sick, but you want standard sized margins (open a new word document and just paste your content onto it and you'll see what I mean) because it's what everybody's résumé looks like. It's a similar standard for when you interview: you want to stand out because of what you can do/what you say, not because of what you look like. Nobody cares that you are a sharp dresser and that you have a sick pink tie; they'll think you're stupid and that you didn't look up interview outfit guidelines. Your résumé is the same: if your margins are tiny, if you have comic sans font, if you have your sections out of order, etc., then people will assume you just didn't even look up résumé guides and everything, and they assume you're not serious about getting the job. For your résumé, make it look EXACTLY like everybody else's, but make yourself stand out with the content on your résumé.

• I think the "did I answer these questions?" point speaks for itself, but ask further questions if you'd like me to clarify further.

• When someone who's reviewing your résumé looks at your résumé, especially from a non-target school, they do a very brief glance-over first. They look at your education section to briefly see the name of your school, the degree you're working on, your GPA/test scores, then they skip over the rest and drop to the experience section. They look at the VERY FIRST experience ONLY (I'd say this is true 90%+ of the time), read the bullet points briefly, skip over the rest. They skip EVERYTHING ELSE on your résumé (extracurriculars, everything) and they read your additional information section to see if you look like an interesting/well-rounded candidate. They do all of this to see if you "check" the boxes. Is your GPA high enough? Should we give them a tiny bit of extra consideration because they go to a target? Is it evident that they have an interest in finance? AND THAT'S IT. You spend HOURS on your résumé for them to HARSHLY critique it and throw it in the garbage if it isn't perfect. Nobody cares that you helped in constructing a football field, nobody cares that you researched ETFs in your student managed investment fund, because NOBODY WILL EVER READ IT AGAIN. You failed, your résumé didn't check every box, you're garbage and you'll never get a job. That's the harsh reality, especially if you aren't networking into your job: you don't even make it to the first round if you don't check the boxes, because nobody sees your résumé as you being a real person. They see boxes that need to be checked, and they see you as one of the 1 minute out of 30 hours of reading résumés that they just need to get past to go home and see their girlfriend, or you're the 1 minute standing between them and lunch and they would really rather just trash it, so your tiny margins get you thrown in the trash before they ever even see that you helped in the special olympics or that you're totally qualified because you have actually done all of the word needed. Your résumé needs to be IMPRESSIVE at FIRST GLANCE, you need to check every box, you need to not disqualify yourself, you need to know what they look for. If you're disqualifying yourself at first glance, it doesn't matter what you've done.