Resume tips for finance jobs

[ahnuld]

Lets see if we can come up with some good suggestions for people just getting started in finance. Which traits are best to embellish and which are best to downplay.


- Be very consistent in terms of your skills you are pushing throughout the entire document. Have an idea of the abilities they are looking for and make sure everything on there can be brought back to those skills.

[Evan]

List experience points that are actions with specific numbers rather than general descriptions. For example, "Created new sales plan that increased sales 40% yoy" rather than, "Responsible for managing plans that grew sales totals."

It's a crap example but I think it gets the point across.

[BvlyHls90210]

To be very honest, if you are very dependent on your resume as part of your job search strategy, you are already screwed. I'd concentrate more on networking, resume shouldn't really matter. Of course the stuff on the resume matters, but let's just remember the big picture.

[Evan]

[ QUOTE ]
To be very honest, if you are very dependent on your resume as part of your job search strategy, you are already screwed. I'd concentrate more on networking, resume shouldn't really matter. Of course the stuff on the resume matters, but let's just remember the big picture.

[/ QUOTE ]
Resumes can be a pretty big deal for people coming out of school or other young people still in the "getting my foot in the door" stage. Once you have some more experience you're naturally going to start relying more on personal connections, but even a college student that networks really well is often going to end up needing his resume to get the ball rolling.

[midas]

Are we talking entry level jobs out of college?

If so and you want a Wall Street calliber job - you need to start building your resume prior to your Senior year. "All wars are won before the fight starts" Remember you will be sending out your resume with only your Junior year GPA and job experience.

1. Go to a top 20 liberal arts school or a top school that has a great undergrad buiness school like (Wharton, Boston College, UVA, UCLA, NYU, etc.). 90% of the premier Wall Street jobs are filled from these schools.

2. Get good grades - 3.5 GPA or better - most firms are flooded with resumes and they set a mimimum GPA level to make the first cut.

3. Get an internship in the finance field - get some summer job that looks like you actually have an interest in finance. Caddying at the local golf club every summer is not impressive.

4. If you accomplish 1-3, you will get interviews on Wall Street, now you just have to interview well to get the job - I cant help you with that on a message board.

BTW, unless you have won a major tournament nobody cares that you play poker.

[Evan]

midas, none of those are resume tips.

[kyleb]

When I'm hiring new people, I am basically just interested in their ability to form coherent sentences and string together related ideas. That sounds pretty shallow, but keeping your resume concise and to the point is important. Outline what makes you a really good fit for the job - I don't care that you worked as a retail manager and it improved your sense of humility. I do care that you bring PHP/MySQL experience with you, or that you understand advanced probability theory in addition to your finance background.

After meeting other entrepreneurs and small business owners, it seems to me that they want people who are going to be both loyal and diversified in their talents. A deep background in finance is great, but a mediocre one with a lot of secondary skills that are applicable in today's high-tech jobs (CIS, MIS, CS, Probability) can go a lot further with the right firm.

Take this with a grain of salt, though - my company only has 13 total employees, including partners.

[DcifrThs]

well while i agree that resumes aren't the most important (networking), they ultimately are a major factor to getting an interview.

important things to think about when writting your resume:

1) formatting. this should be neat, clean, easy to read and consistant (such that each section has same formatting, spacing, etc. etc.). bullets shouldn't be numbered (just use the round filled in bullets). further, in terms of formatting, you typically want your most important or highlighted aspects of each position listed first. for instance, in my resume, under my former employer, i listed the research training i received first since i want a research role not an analytic client question answering role (so that aspect of my last job comes 3rd after another research class).

otherwise, you should list each position reverse chronologically and then list each action item (or description of your role) in order of importance (read: RELEVANCE) to the job for which you're applying.

2) wording: your resume should always use "compelling" speach. for instance, NO PASSIVE VOICE. don't say, "the responsibilities were delegated by myself and our team." do say "my team delegated these responsibilities: a), b), c) etc. we acheived the following results: x), y), z)"

you want action oriented words with demonstrable results.

3) experiences that you put on your resume should be directly relavent to the job to which you're applying. if you are applying to a finance shop, don't list the retail experience you had at structure (unless that is the only experience you had in which case...i dunno what to tell you). also, again, try to word those experiences in such a way as to play up the parts that make you stand out relative to the job you're going after.

i've gotten some extremely positive feedback from my resume so if there is a way to host it, i'd be happy to post it w/o my personal info.

i don't know how to make it available online easily so if thats possible i'd be happy to share.

Barron

[Evan]

[ QUOTE ]
When I'm hiring new people, I am basically just interested in their ability to form coherent sentences and string together related ideas. That sounds pretty shallow, but keeping your resume concise and to the point is important. Outline what makes you a really good fit for the job - I don't care that you worked as a retail manager and it improved your sense of humility. I do care that you bring PHP/MySQL experience with you, or that you understand advanced probability theory in addition to your finance background.

After meeting other entrepreneurs and small business owners, it seems to me that they want people who are going to be both loyal and diversified in their talents. A deep background in finance is great, but a mediocre one with a lot of secondary skills that are applicable in today's high-tech jobs (CIS, MIS, CS, Probability) can go a lot further with the right firm.

Take this with a grain of salt, though - my company only has 13 total employees, including partners.

[/ QUOTE ]
Concise version: Don't be afraid to have multiple versions of your resume so that you can give each company something that is relevant to the job you're applying for.

Am I hired, Kyle?

[midas]

Evan - maybe those are more "career guidance tips" but most people can get basic resume formatting and grammar on the net or from their career center. BTW, recruiters aren't stupid, if you put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig.

In case this wasn't completely obvious- spelling, grammar or date problems on your resume are instant death blows with no chance of recovery.