Investment Banking Resume Writing

Resume Writing for Investment Banking Students

Getting your foot in the door as an investment banking student is not easy. Competition for jobs is fierce and supply of front office positions is limited. Writing an investment banking resume is not about reinventing the wheel, it is about creating a marketing document that adequately highlights your skills, experience and education and presents this to the reader in a clear and easy to read document.

As a potential investment banker, focus your resume on your leadership abilities and achievements to guarantee that your resume stands out from the crowd. If your academic grades are not “outstanding” emphasise other areas you can highlight such as your community service involvement, volunteer work, extra-curricular activities or awards etc.  Remember that the key is providing examples of your achievements as opposed to just listing the duties you performed.

Tips to writing an Investment Banking Resume:

Creating a Banking Qualifications Profile:

Too often students waste time with a generic objective statement “…. I want to utilise my skills I have gained throughout my university degree and gain experience with a large organisation. ” This general opening statement adds no value to your resume and in fact can have a detrimental effect on your application.  Replace this objective statement with a qualifications profile or summary.  Rather than telling the reader what you want, use this space to tell the reader what you can bring to this role.

Financial Keywords:

A well written finance resume will include the use of strategic keywords. Recent reports suggest that hiring managers will spend no more than 15-20 seconds reading through a job candidates resume.  For a front office banking position, hiring managers can receive hundreds of resumes not just domestically but internationally as well.  Not only, are you competing against students who you sat next to in class, but you’re competing against students from all over the world.  As such, recruiters and hiring managers will often skim over the resume looking for keywords or use software programs to find key words.  These key words can be changed depending on the job you are applying for.  A keyword rich resume will help highlight your resume and cover letter and ensure that it passes the first stage of selection.

Presentation and Format:

Your resume is the first impression a hiring manager will make about you. A well-presented and structured resume that is written in a clean font will portray your resume in a professional manner and immediately give your resume application a higher ranking.  Alternatively, a resume application that has spelling and grammar errors, different sized fonts, long sentences (as opposed to bullet points) and a lack of headings will not portray a positive image to the reader.  Remember that when applying for a banking position the hiring manager demands to see professionalism.  Just like you would show up to the interview in a suit, your resume needs to portray this professional image.

© RedStarResume Publications – http://www.redstarresume.com

RedStarResume are the Resume Writing Experts. Specializing In Over 35 Industries! – Turn your resume into an achievement based marketing documents in just 48-72 hours

Stand Out From The Crowd With A Brand New Professional Resume, Cover Letter and LinkedIn Profile From RedStarResume

Check out the brand new EBook from RedStarResume: The Ultimate Student & Graduate Job Handbook (Everything You Need To Transition From College Graduate To Job Seeker including Resume Writing, Job Interviewing and Networking)

Buy it now at the RedStarResume Bookstore!