Private Equity Resume Template

Free resume template to help land your dream Private Equity (PE) job

Author: Christy Grimste
Christy Grimste
Christy Grimste
Real Estate | Investment Property Sales

Christy currently works as a senior associate for EdR Trust, a publicly traded multi-family REIT. Prior to joining EdR Trust, Christy works for CBRE in investment property sales. Before completing her MBA and breaking into finance, Christy founded and education startup in which she actively pursued for seven years and works as an internal auditor for the U.S. Department of State and CIA.

Christy has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Maryland and a Master of Business Administrations from the University of London.

Reviewed By: Matthew Retzloff
Matthew Retzloff
Matthew Retzloff
Investment Banking | Corporate Development

Matthew started his finance career working as an investment banking analyst for Falcon Capital Partners, a healthcare IT boutique, before moving on to work for Raymond James Financial, Inc in their specialty finance coverage group in Atlanta. Matthew then started in a role in corporate development at Babcock & Wilcox before moving to a corporate development associate role with Caesars Entertainment Corporation where he currently is. Matthew provides support to Caesars' M&A processes including evaluating inbound teasers/CIMs to identify possible acquisition targets, due diligence, constructing financial models, corporate valuation, and interacting with potential acquisition targets.

Matthew has a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Business Administration and a Bachelor of Arts in German from University of North Carolina.

Last Updated:May 7, 2023

Attached to the bottom of this post, you will find the free Wall Street Oasis private equity resume template for experienced professionals, used by the WSO paid service and thousands of candidates to successfully land a job in private equity.

This free template has been designed for those of you with deal or project experience coming from Investment Banking or Management Consulting and looking to make sure your CV is polished for those competitive buy-side jobs in private equity and hedge funds.

We hope this clean format gives you an even bigger edge in recruiting - besides being members of WSO :-).

Also, don't forget that our private equity interview prep guide is now available after years in the making!

Just like our investment banking resume template for undergraduates, we think the WSO templates give you a lot more flexibility on spacing.

As it's tough to condense all of your deal experience into a coherent summary, we hope this flexibility our templates provide will be helpful.

This is the PE resume sample we use in all of our WSO resume reviews with experienced buy-side professionals.

This particular banking resume sample is for experienced hires, not undergraduates.

Remember to change the bullets in the template since they are just being used as placeholders/examples and aren't that strong.

Resume Questions in Private Equity Interviews

There’s one very important aspect of your resume that pertains to private equity: deal experience.

There are plenty of people make it into private equity without much deal experience. (Keep in mind that much of private equity recruiting occurs within a few months of one’s investment banking analyst stint.)

If you do have deal experience, it should be a highlight of your resume.

Here’s some great insight from @Candor, a private equity associate.

Candor - Private Equity Associate:
The single most important part of your interviewing experience with PE firms will be your deal experience. I would say a solid 30% of every single interview I had was spent talking about my deal in depth. If you don't have an announced M&A deal on your resume, or you don't have an unannounced deal you feel comfortable talking about on a very granular level, I don't see what you would talk about in your interviews.

I was incredibly fortunate to have a $1-2bn sell-side on my resume that got announced two months before everything started (conveniently, right when I met with the headhunters). I think it was the single most important factor in me landing the interviews (and ultimately the jobs) that I received. If I hadn't had an announced M&A deal on my resume, I likely would have waited until next year to go through the process.

Check our free Private Equity Interview Guide to prepare for your interview.

PE Resume Format, Spacing, and Font

Spacing and font size go hand in hand.

While it’s recommended that you keep the bullet font at 10 and replace the bullets with the content of roughly similar size, you can change it to font 11 if you need to fill more space with less.

Don’t drop the font to 9. At that point, the resume will become too cluttered and won’t have enough white space.

Moving it up to 11 is tolerable, but if you’re applying for private equity positions, filling the resume shouldn’t be an issue in the first space. The ratio between content and white space is optimal as it stands.

Typically, the format is of major relevance to interviewers in private equity.

Lucky for you, you’ve found yourself on this page. The format is already set; just fill in the blanks.

What should I put on my Private Equity Interview Resume?

Arguably the most important aspect of your resume, since you’re already set as far as formatting goes, is the bullet points, which make up the content of the resume.

Here’s what you need to know for the bullets on your private equity resume, courtesy of @upod01", an investment banking analyst.

upod01 - Investment Banking Analyst:
Try to quantify some of your experience. In the case that you do not have a quantifiable metric, focus on how you outperformed and any results you achieved.

Example of something great to put on a resume: "Helped create first-time access to life-changing technologies, products, and services for isolated villagers through locally-owned, managed, and sustainable (profitable) entrepreneurial solutions." Not so great: "Assisted with move-ins and move-out of tenants." You see my point.

Number of Resume Pages for PE Interview

This one should be a no-brainer, it’s more so a universal rule than a question specific to PE resumes.

Don’t ever go over a single page! It doesn’t matter how much relevant experience you have or how many skills you have, keep it to one page.

How to Break Into Private Equity?

Private equity recruiting is ten times more cut-throat than anything you've ever experienced before.

If you want to break into private equity, you need to be well-practiced in the technical aspects of the interview. We advise you to check out our free Private Equity Interview Guide first, before investing in our paid course, so that you have an idea of what to expect.

A couple of quick notes:

  • Please feel free to share this post and pass it along to friends.
  • If you're looking for our resume for undergraduate investment banking, click here.
  • Remember to consider our industry leading resume editing service, if you are looking for real finance professionals to help you structure and word your resume bullets and experiences. The service is specifically targeted towards investment banking, private equity, hedge funds, trading, management consulting, and other finance resumes.
  • Our testimonials speak for themselves: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/career-services/resume-review-edits :-)

More Resources:

We hope this template helps you land that dream PE job! Please check out the following additional resources to help you advance your career:

Attachment Size
WSO Experienced Deals Resume Template 75.5 KB 75.5 KB