Top 10 Resume Mistakes in Finance

Let’s be honest, nobody is going to read every word on your resume. Given the amount of job applications every firm receives, most hiring managers will spend at most 20 to 30 seconds reading a resume. Because of this, you need to make sure you don’t make stupid mistakes that will get you cut automatically.

You could be the smartest, hardest working, have the best attitude out there, but you won’t even get to show face if you make mistakes that I constantly see on people’s resumes.

Before we dive into the top resume mistakes in finance, let me give you an example of how the hiring process really works at big name firms.

Applying to a large / global boutique investment bank

Here’s a good example. Every year, this investment bank needs to recruit around 30 investment banking analysts from kids who are still in undergrad. The firm fills the vast majority of these positions through full-time offers given during internship programs.

To get a job offer for the internship program, you have to compete against a very large pool of candidates. You won’t even believe the amount of resumes the firm gets. The firm recruits from 10 schools and receives about 200 resumes from each school.

A team of current analyst / associates that went to each of those schools is tasked to go through these resumes.

Imagine having to go through 200+ resumes in about 30 minutes. That is literally just 10 seconds max per resume. So you better make sure you do not have dumb mistakes that will automatically get you cut from the process.

Top 10 reasons your resume will automatically get cut

Here is the list of the dumbest mistakes I have seen over the course of my career.

1. Spelling mistakes / bad grammar / poor formatting

Finance is ALL about attention to detail. If you can’t even have a properly formatted resume with no mistakes, then finance is probably not for you. If a resume is hard to read, visually looks unappealing, or has spelling mistakes, you will get cut. Especially if you are trying to apply for investment banking positions. It is all about formatting.

Hyphens should all be the same length, paragraphs should have consistent spacing, font needs to be at least 11pt, descriptions need to be concise and explain what you actually did in your prior experience. Just google the classic banker resume and get the template. Don’t try to be fancy. Nobody cares about a creative looking resume in this industry.

Print your resume and spend time looking over every line and every word in detail so you know there aren’t any mistakes.

2. Less than 3.5 Undergraduate GPA / No GPA listed

Having less than a 3.5 GPA in undergrad tells me that you don’t know how to focus or work hard to maintain above average grades. Even if you are in a super hard engineering major, it optically still does not look good when you are being compared to those with finance degrees that have higher GPAs.

If you don’t list a GPA, the interviewer will assume you had less than a 3.0 GPA and you will automatically get cut.

Focus on your grades in school otherwise it becomes substantially harder to break into the industry.

What if you were late to the game and don’t have a high GPA or good internships?

I know there are many of you out there who were late to the game and didn’t care much about your grades in high school or college.If this is you then it will be a little bit harder to land a good finance job. You will need to utilize your network more and develop relationships to land an interview.

Most places will automatically cut you if you have less than a 3.5 GPA and no connections to anyone at the firm you are applying to.

3. Lack of any internship experience

It is annoying when you work with someone fresh out of college and they do not know the basics of Excel / PowerPoint or how to act in a professional setting. Having no internships on your resume shows that you lack experience or the drive to be successful.

Don’t waste your summers during college. Have a couple internships under your belt before trying to break into finance. It will make your life easier when applying for jobs and when you start working full-time.

4. Weird interest / hobbies

Interested in Bitcoin, Blockchain, climate change, any specific political issue? Like really? You are just asking to get auto-cut. Don’t put down anything you are not actually interested in, anything that is laughable, or simply anything that may make someone mad because of their political views.

You may struggle to figure out what you are actually interested in. That is okay. Skiing, reading, tennis, basketball, music are all okay interests to list on your resume. Yes, they are generic, but at least they won’t get you cut.

You have to remember, most people in finance are boring to begin with. This is an industry where all people do is work, so there is no time for many hobbies.

5. Insane exaggerations / accomplishments

Few examples:

• Pitched [Company Name] to a large hedge fund that turned into a 50%+ gain? Cool, you got lucky. You could have picked numerous stocks over the past 5 years that would have had a 50%+ gain given we have been in a massive bull market.
• Built dozens of models and ran 50+ scenarios? Wow 50+ scenarios must have taken you a long time. That doesn’t mean anything to me.

Now having crazy exaggerations may not get your resume automatically dinged if the rest of the resume is fine, but it certainly doesn’t help.

A better way to phrase the first bullet is to simply just explain that you conducted research and pitched various investment ideas to hedge funds (TICKER 1, TICKER 2). All the reader needs to know is that you had an interest in investing early on and then you can explain during the interview the thesis and the result.

The problem with the second bullet is that nobody cares that you ran 50+ scenarios. Just explain that you built numerous three-statement models…. you just need to show that you have good modelling / Excel experience.

6. Not playing up your experience

Wait, didn’t I just say not to exaggerate? Yes, don’t exaggerate on stupid things. But you should definitely play up your experience so that it is more relevant to the job you are applying for.

A few good examples. Say you want to break into investment banking and you worked in the finance or strategy department of a large fortune 500 company for an internship. Maybe for a week or two you worked on something related to an M&A deal. Don’t put the group on your resume as just the “Finance Group.” Instead put “Finance / M&A Group” and play up your experience on that one- or two-week project. Make the interviewer think that you did more things M&A related than you actually did.

Or say you already broke into investment banking and are trying to land a job on the buyside. If you have no real deal experience, play up a deal that you kind of worked on for a few weeks. Learn everything about that deal as if you were the analyst on it. Redo the work and the models so you are familiar with the numbers. This way you can easily talk about it during an interview.

If you were a top-bucket ranked analyst, then put that as the first line under your job experience.

What I am not saying, however, is to flat out lie. Interviewers can easily tell when you aren’t telling the truth. If you are going to bring something up or have it on your resume, then you better be prepared to be an expert on it when you talk about it during an interview. If the interviewer thinks you are dishonest, you will not make it to the next round.

Make sure you tailor your experience to the job description

For example, if you are a generalist in private equity or a hedge fund and are applying to a sector focused position next, pick a few deals or projects that you worked on in that specific sector and describe them on your resume.

Same goes to if you are trying to break into investing banking out of college. Tailor your internship experience to show that you have the relevant skills necessary to do well in banking (i.e. modelling, M&A, Excel, PowerPoint experience).

7. Not outlining experience by deal / client

This is more relevant to those who are currently full-time investment bankers / consultants. You need to clearly show what real experience you had in your current role. People want to know what companies you worked with so they know what industry / technical experience you learned while working with that company.

It is also makes it easier during the interview process to talk about your experience when everything is outlined by deal / client. 

8. Having longer than a one-page resume

Should be well known already to everyone, but every now and then I get a two-page resume. In most cases, the applicant did not properly format the resume so it shows up as two pages on my screen.

Always send your resume in PDF format. PDF is a universal format that works on Apple and Windows computers. If you send the resume in Word, I guarantee you it will show up differently on someone else’s computer

9. Having large date gaps on resume

If you have been at a job more than two years, then wouldn’t worry about this unless you are early in your career and have a one-year gap on your resume. Would try to fill in this gap with something that is productive, like did some consulting or non-profit work.

Put the month and the year that you started and ended previous jobs so that the interview doesn’t get suspicious and think that you are trying to hide something.

10. Spending less than one year at a job multiple times in a row

This is only really a problem if you worked at your current job for less than a couple of years. Moving from one job to the next in a year or less is okay if you do it once. Maybe the new job you transitioned to was not a good fit or you do not like the people you work for.

But leaving two or more jobs that you have been at for less than a year each makes you seem unreliable and unworkable.

Don’t let your resume be the reason you didn’t get the job

These are all mistakes that have the potential to prevent you from getting the chance to be interviewed. Given how competitive certain jobs are in the finance industry, you just can’t afford to miss out on an opportunity. Attention to detail is key, so spend enough time on your resume so you can make the cut.

For more information landing the job you want, read my article on the 10 Steps to Find and Get that Job You Love.