With the MBA Associates and Analyst Class recruiting season wrapping up we’re going to highlight some of the most common shortfalls we saw in 2013. Overall the some big things that stood out are 1) more people are catching onto the idea that work experience trumps educational prestige and 2) this was a sizable up year for the Street and bonuses should be up ~10% unless you’re stuck at a bank with legal problems such as Barclays. With that said, we’ve broken down the main errors in terms of resume edits and interview skills below.
1) The Same Errors: Many people continue to make one of the common errors we have mentioned in the past a poorly formatted 1-page resume and unprofessional/unrelated interests. No matter how many times you read a resume always have a 3rd or 4th set of eyes on them and always PDF the resume
2) Ambiguous Job Titles: This is becoming much more common nowadays, the most common nuance is “Financial Analyst” followed by bullets that are unrelated to Wall Street. Even if you hold a back office job such as Treasury – Financial Analyst, it is better to disclose your exact position for recruiting purposes. Simply spin the bullets to address Wall Street needs.
3) Unorganized Bullets: The people you will interview with have unlikely looked at your resume before you walk in the door so make sure the first bullet on your resume is the most pertinent. If you’ve working as an Investment Banking Analyst highlight the biggest accomplishments. In rank order: received a return offer, closed deals, live deal work, financial modeling, simple valuation analysis such as precedent comps and trading comps, pitchbooks, company profiles and other maintenance work. The best way to organize your bullets is to think like a Managing Director, they are working to make money so anything you contribute that leads to revenue generation will always outshine an excel piece. Similarly, if a pitchbook lead to an engaged deal that went live before you left the internship, that also outweighs financial modeling.
4) Exaggeration: We will assume a slight exaggeration factor on your resume however with many people starting up small internet businesses the phrases “founder”, “CEO”, “CFO” and “CTO” have started to show up on resumes. While it may be true that you’re in charge of running the website, if it is only generating a few dollars a month in revenue it is better to lean towards a humble approach and simply use a phrase such as “website designer”. This way when you’re questioned about the task any income generation will appear to be a positive where a title such as CEO/Founder will raise expectations of your interviewer.
5) Removing the Month of Employment: This one was much more common for MBA level candidates, generally speaking include your month and years of employment when applying for jobs. It is okay to have gaps on your resume. If you have spent 5+ years on Wall Street, having a gap on your resume given all the changes in the economy would not be frowned upon. Stating you worked from 2009 to 2010 when the dates were December 2009 to February 2010 will bring your entire resume under a microscope.
1) Having a Bad Story: Generally it is not difficult to have a bland story for wanting to enter Wall Street, however many responses become unrelated to the job function. If you’re more interested in investing in stocks versus helping close deals your story should change.
As an example: stating you invest personally as part of your story will pay higher dividends for a slot at a hedge fund, long-only, equity research or sales and trading than it would for a position in investment banking or private equity
As a secondary example: if you have sold houses in the past as a real estate agent this would tie in much more with investment banking.
Highlighting your interests within your story should always tie to the job you are looking to obtain.
2) Not Knowing the Bank/Group: If information is readily available on the internet regarding the office you hope to join avoid asking questions regarding the product groups and industry groups.
As an example if the firm you are interviewing is strictly working the M&A or you should never mention an interest in raising funds through IPOs, follow-on offerings, PIPEs etc.
As a secondary example: if you are interviewing for the ECM or DCM group you should not state an interest in fairness opinions or merger models.
3) Unable to Spin a Weakness: Unless you’re interviewing for a position and you’re from Harvard with a Wharton MBA and Goldman Sachs/KKR as your credentials chances are you’ve got some weaknesses. In that case when people ask you questions such as give me three reasons to hire you and three reasons not to hire you, be sure to spin the answer as best as possible. If you have a 3.5 GPA you know that there are other candidates with a 4.0. In that case highlight your previous work experience, explain that you’re hard working (through examples versus outright statements) and imply that you know other candidates have a higher GPA than you. It will let the interviewer know you’re not overly confident and you are willing to make up for your flaws.
4) Unprepared Questions: At the end of every interview you should have a set of questions ready bucketed into two groups the first being non-revenue generating and the second for revenue generating personnel. Broken down simply, questions regarding life at the firm should be asked towards the lower level employees while career trajectory and high level business questions should be directed towards the revenue generators. This does two things, it allows you to make a better connection with both groups, lower level interviewees are more interested in how you will interact with them on the job while revenue generators only care about expanding their business and doing so in a risk free manner. If you begin ask lifestyle questions to a higher up he will assume you are lazy while an entry level employee will assume you’re asking about the culture. Be prepared to spin all of the generic questions to the product/industry group you are interviewing within the investment bank.
5) Highlighting the Wrong Interests: Thisis less of a blow to your interview, however if you are questioned about interests always attempt to tie them into the job. If you’ve completed 3 iron mans, or played college sports than can be spun as a read through to your work ethic. If you’ve built websites for a school group and know how to code, it can easily be spun to imply that you think logically/intelligently.
Finally, in general it is a good idea to avoid commentary on volunteer experience (unless substantial). To quote an old Managing Director:
“I don’t do this job for Charity. If I did I would join the F***ing peace corps and not shower for two years”
For the too long, didn’t read type a lot of the same themes apply, 1) no errors on your resume, 2) no lies on your resume and 3) always weave your experience into relatable job tasks. The competition continues to rise, so get ready to start networking for the calendar year end hiring jump in December – February.
