Punch me in the face

[Oscar Nidersen]

Hi,

I have just recently discovered this site and I have already fallen in love. I visit the forum several times a day! I am going to apply for a summer internship within the investment banking department and need some help with my resume.

My resume has too much shit on it, I know that it should not exceed 1 page but I don't know what to cut. I am thinking about removing that I handled invoices because it is not a very impressive experience. What can I improve and what is missing?

English is not my native language so the resume probably has a few typos, but don't worry, I will hire someone to proofread it when the resume is finished.

My resume:
http://goo.gl/lQmygS

Thank you!

 

[Trigger]

* would you upload your CV rather than putting a link (it may expire)?

- Format is good, but yeah you went overboard a bit
- I like your BO experience at the investment bank a lot, but make sure you can answer when they ask you how come you are applying for an FO summer when you spent last one in BO? (obviously you could easily tweak it by saying sth like you wanted to see behind the scenes first)
- Full time employment during the summer and 15 hours per week alongside studies remove this, you'll be able to expand once you are having the interview
- The second bullet is great in your 2nd experience, but other three, they are not much to be honest (transferring funds to foreign accounts. Transferred a total amount of £ 1 million -> quite easy and straightforward just like assisting the company’s agents in depositing cash to the head office vault)
- the exp coming after that is good. remove Executed by me and an unexperienced intern and also make sure EVERY bullet is just one sentence long.

---

"other merits" rename it to "extracurricular activities"

Spotify Playlist, [Name of playlist], created and managed a music playlist with now over 4,000 subscribers Jul 2010 – present
Scholarship, [Name of Scholarship], For extraordinary academic achievement, £ 120 Jul 2012
Scholarship, [Name of Scholarship], For best laboratory report in my upper secondary school, £ 80 Jul 2012
Remove all this three

LANGUAGE & COMPUTER SKILLS
Norwegian (native), English (fluent), Spanish (good), MS - Office (advanced user), SPSS (user)
You need to save space so I'd remove each of these. They'll know you know Norwegian anyway because of your high school, fluency in English also goes without saying (put Spanish as an interest) just as MS Office skills. SPSS is good, but you can leave it out.

About the interests section, write it this way (listing Spending time with family and friends as an interest, wtf, removed it):
Electric music/indie rock production, Travelling (if you add "in Australia" that'll sound weird, they'll perhaps ask more about this in your interviews anyway), Spanish, 100m Sprint -> this four is enough

Glad you enjoy the site. I think this is pretty much an outstanding resume that you have (and hell you asked if you should apply only to BO given your experience haha), you'll have plenty interviews coming if you get other parts of your applications right. Feel free to upload the next version once you made the edits.

 

[Oscar Nidersen]

Thank you so much for the review lofaszjoska. I was just thinking about:

Spotify Playlist, [Name of playlist], created and managed a music playlist with now over 4,000 subscribers Jul 2010 – present

and

Travelling (e.g. 3 months in Australia, 2013

Theese two, were the only things that we discussed during my interview for the BO role and basically got me the job. Should I really remove them? Furthermore said the girl at the career service that it was important that I stated my languages so that they know I am fluent in english.

I am thinking about handing my CV over for http://www.ibankinginsider.com/resume/ for them to rewrite it. Is it worth it? I won't be able to improve it any more in terms of language. If I won't send it to them, I already have to send it to someone who can proofread it which probably costs about $70-100.

 

[Trigger]

About the interests section, write it this way:
Electric music/indie rock production, Travelling (if you add "in Australia" that'll sound weird, they'll perhaps ask more about this in your interviews anyway), Spanish, 100m Sprint -> this four is enough

Again you shouldn't remove the travelling in Aus thing, just leave it up there as I have written above. Perhaps you could add "in Australia" to it and you could also include "Managing an online playlist with over 4,000 subscribers" -> that way you shouldn't remove this spotify thing altogether.

What the girl said might be true generally, but it doesn't apply here. You don't need to include you are fluent in English, you are applying for an investment banking job, it goes without saying.

A few last things on your CV: the gap is not the same between the Western Union and the Shipping Company sections, you should fix it.
Also, you should really keep it to one page -> you could rename the last section to "EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES & INTERESTS" and after the two experiences you listed just add in the Interests line, and you are done (this way you'd be missing the languages row, but again it would hardly make any difference).
There's also an unwanted period at the end of the "A task is usually handled.." bullet. And also once again, you should keep every bullet to ONE sentence.

I think you could make the necessary edits yourself and there's hardly that $200 spent out for a review that will make your CV land more interviews. You could always just simply send this over to a native English friend of yours, let him proofread the grammar: so personally I'd rather spend that $200 on other stuff (including the online test prep package that could easily make a difference).

 

[Oscar Nidersen]

Thank you once again lofaszjoska! I managed to make room for the language part even though it might not be necessary. This is my final version of my resume, what do you guys think? Can you see any errors?

 

[Trigger]

- A space is missing before £11.4 million.
- make the "-" signs either long or short everywhere (consistency)
- "GPA: text" and not "GPA text"
- Just like with the months are starting with a capital letter, make present start with a capital P as well
- Align the date/locations column to the right end of the lines

 

[Oscar Nidersen]

- A space is missing before £11.4 million.
- make the "-" signs either long or short everywhere (consistency)
- "GPA: text" and not "GPA text"
- Just like with the months are starting with a capital letter, make present start with a capital P as well
- Align the date/locations column to the right end of the lines

As always, thank you lofaszjoska!

I was thinking about this:
 Handled withholding taxes for 450 clients. Reconciled the customer database with the general ledger. Exchanged funds in foreign currencies to SEK and transferred the total sum to the tax authorities

Should I rewrite it?

 

[Trigger]

Your welcome.

As I mentioned each bulletpoint would be ideally one sentence long only (without putting a period at the ends) and as I also mentioned you could work them a bit further; but I think you'll be fine.

 

[Oscar Nidersen]

I just attended a trip called "London Investent Banking Week" which was organized by my school. 100 applicants for 30 places, visited the 10 most succesful investment banks where I participated in case studies, work shops and networking events. Should I put this on my CV?

 

[Trigger]

I would rather put that on the cover letter/competency questions (why us), they'll make much better use there.

 

[Oscar Nidersen]

Realized that probably few persons from HR understand that the Scandinavian Investment Bank actually is an investment bank. I therefore added an explanation to every experience on my resume. What du you guys think about it? Should i have it there or remove it?

 

[Swef]

May I just ask what font you are using?

 

[Trigger]

It's OK to put it that way.

You could also leave that "Transferred..", won't make a difference but it's still something.