5 quick CV fixes to secure a banking interview Viewpoint careers advice blog

5 quick CV fixes to secure a banking interview Your curriculum vitae (CV), or résumé is very much like a passport. Every person that reads it, should be able to understand precisely what you do and have done throughout your career. Often, the first person to read your CV is an administrator without any depth of knowledge about the role that the firm is actually recruiting for. They are simply processing applications and rejecting irrelevant candidates as they see fit. So the CV passport ensures that you can pass through the ‘border control’ of an employer that screens your application and passes it on to the hiring manager who will determine whether you should be interviewed. 1.  Format: keep your CV  concise and well structured Investing in creating a well-written and nicely presented CV is a fundamental component of your financial job search. This is especially true for banks and financial employers that receive hundreds if not thousands of applications for a single position. Investing in creating a well-written and nicely presented CV is a fundamental component of your financial job search. When faced with such fierce competition, how do you stand out? It is not through fancy graphics or script, but a neatly presented, highly professional document that demonstrates your skills and experience as well as the achievements you’ve made. Keeping it simple, clear, concise and neatly structured on the page is the best advice I  can give. Some surveys, using eye-tracking technology, have shown that on average, it takes an employer only seconds to scan a CV and decide if the candidate is right for the role. A CV that looks different or unusual is unlikely to pass even the first glance. In creative industries such as advertising or the media, an unconventional CV may open doors. However, in the world of finance and banking, it’s more likely to keep them shut. “If you start putting fancy borders, logos, web links, photos, pie charts, or in fact any kind of information that deviates from a traditional CV, you are bucking the trend. We format every single CV so they look the same. As a result, what stands out are a candidate’s experience and qualifications,” explains my colleague Philip Charsley, Business Director for our investment banking recruitment division in London. 2. Content: clearly answer the interviewers questions A CV or resume should be drafted in such a way that it goes some distance to answering the questions an employer would typically ask at an interview. The tip is to review job descriptions for the role you would like to undertake and make sure you include information about the skills they are looking for on your CV. A CV or resume should be drafted in such a way that it goes some distance to answering the questions an employer would typically ask at an interview. Matching your skills and experience to the requirements of the job means that everyone who reads your CV will understand why you are relevant for the role. Never, ever lie or over-embellish the truth â€" if you have no experience in a particular skill it is better to say you’re drawn to the role because you can learn it, than lie and get caught out. “From the outset, candidates should make a real effort to understand what an employer is looking for. Identify what the employer is looking for from the role’s description. If an investment bank is looking for a candidate with very good trading skills, don’t just say it but prove it. Spell out that you executed more trades than anyone else in your team, that you were ranked top trader by your previous sales team, and so on,” continues Philip. 3. Structure: academic and professional qualifications should come first Philip stresses that academic and professional qualifications should be the first thing on the candidate’s CV, especially if they are very strong: “Don’t bury your first class degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) from the University of Oxford at the bottom of your CV. Financial institutions, particularly at junior levels, look first for candidates with strong academic qualifications. If you have a strong academic background, don’t hide it on page 2.” Financial institutions look first for candidates with strong academic qualifications. If you have a strong academic background, don’t hide it on page 2. Despite the emphasis on academic qualifications, a university degree is not always necessary. For Front Office banking roles, it is imperative. However there are many roles in Operations, IT and customer services that may not require a degree. However, if you do not have a degree, what matters is that during the course of your career, you work toward gaining qualifications. If after 10 years, you have no further investment in your education and professional development, it would imply that you might lack self-determination, ambition or a sense of striving to improve yourself. Philip explains: “If a candidate works in the back office of an investment bank or is a trader and doesn’t have a degree, that’s fine. But I would hope that they (or their employer) invested in their personal development by going on training courses or further vocational qualifications. Without them, it just makes it harder for us to place the candidate in contrast to a candidate who has.” After academic qualifications comes experience. Philip adds that the depth of experience and longevity matter: “ 2 years in a role is typically the minimum window of time that employers would expect to see a person in a job. Leaving beforehand means you will forever be explaining why you jumped ship without fully settling into the job. A candidate who has spent more than two years in a role is always looked on more favourably than someone who is looking to change jobs within a year or 18 months.” 4. Hobbies and interests: use your common sense Hobbies and interests can be a springboard for outlining teamwork and leadership skills. It always helps to talk about achievements at school or extra-curricular interests but Philip believes that there is a rule candidates must always observe: “steer clear of issues that are potentially political or controversial. Imagine the impression you’d make if your CV stated your interests as ‘brewing my own beer, partying and riding motorcycles!’ Avoid anything that could lead someone to have a prejudiced view of your non-working life.” Avoid anything that could lead someone to have a prejudiced view of your non-working life “Different can be fine,” he says. “One Private Equity client said recently that they wanted candidates with something different. They did not want a candidate with the standard ‘I got 5 As at A-level, then got a first-class degree, then worked at Morgan Stanley’. The client wanted someone who had some entrepreneurial flair. Someone who may have had an idea in the past and had it fail but learnt from that. For an entry level candidate, someone who took an active part in an activity such as the university debating society would stand out. As would someone who ran a business on the side when they were at school, college or university.” 5. Structure and keywords: create an applicant tracking system friendly CV In order for  a high volume of applications can be processed quickly, banking and finance employers increasingly use applicant tracking systems (ATS). These systems extract the text on a candidate’s CV and scan it for skills matching the candidate to relevant jobs or job descriptions they are recruiting for. Avoid using complex CV templates, symbols, advanced formatting like headers, lines, borders or footers, and of course, misspellings This means candidates should avoid using complex CV templates, symbols, advanced formatting like headers, lines, borders or footers, and of course, misspellings as they could cause issues with the text extraction process (parsing). Philip highlights that it is also important to use the relevant keywords for your area of expertise in your CV: “If you are working in equity capital markets or ECM as it is also referred to, I suggest you put both terms in your CV, so that when recruiters are doing a key word search for ECM they can find you.” To share your thoughts on this article and to stay up to date with the latest business, employment and recruitment news in the financial markets sector, please join our LinkedIn group, Financial Markets Industry Insights with Hays. Join the conversation I hope you have found the above advice useful, you may also appreciate  reading  these other blogs on effective negotiation: Secure yourself a satisfactory salary during the recruitment process Building your business case for a pay rise 5 tips for successfully negotiating across borders The art of persuasion Want a pay rise? Heres how to get one h3strong Share this blog: /strong/h3