Resumes for the Finance World

Alum Evan Appel, Portfolio Manager at Partners Group in Colorado, hosted a session focused on the dos and don’ts; best practices and expectations for customizing your resume to fit different companies or areas of specialty within the finance industry. 

About Evan and Partners Group:

• Evan is from Colorado, where there are perhaps more trees than people. He loved his time at Stanford and made lifelong friends.
• The classes he found particularly applicable to his career were MATH 51, a no-longer-offered (in the format he took it) finance fundamentals class (ENGR 40), and the public speaking ENGR 103 – the public speaking class, because it doesn’t matter what you know if you can’t communicate!
• His first job was at Blackrock, in portfolio analytics. He enjoyed this but wanted to get “into the weeds” on investments – private markets were a logical next step.
• He’s now a Portfolio Manager at Partners Group, specializing in open-ended PE portfolios and management of bespoke private markets SMAs. Partners Group is a global PE firm with ~1800 employees worldwide. 

Tips for optimizing your resume:

• Your resume should:
  • Be succinct and purposeful.
  • Highlight your key skills. 
  • Demonstrate personal interest.
  • Make the case for a first round interview.
  • Be one page long, font size 10 or 11, with consistent bolding and/or italics that are only used for navigation/dates/job titles, not for emphasizing key words or accomplishments within the bullet points.
  • Always be tailored to the role.
• Your resume should NOT:
  • Be a laundry list of everything you’ve ever done. 
  • Be one size fits all. 
  • Be the only thing you rely on to get you the internship or role:
    • You need to network beyond it. Attend info sessions, pick up the phone.
    • Partners Group received ~500 resumes for 17 spots this year. Those who made the extra effort were the ones who got the positions.

Evan showed 2 example resumes:

• Example one: the bad: 
  • Wasted space (too much white space made it look sparse and gave an impression of not having much experience).
  • Didn’t elaborate on clubs (which were an opportunity to showcase relevant skills, experience or impact).
  • Focused on what the candidate did, but not the impact (need to show that your work made a difference, that you understand metrics).
  • Included a photo (don’t do this - too much room for biases to creep in). 
  • Gave references (waste of space, and irrelevant. An employer doesn’t contact references until you’re the finalist).
  • Gave high school activities (irrelevant once you’re coming out of college).
• Example 2: better: 
  • Well organized. 
  • Contact info was easy to find.
  • All the necessary components were there: 
    • contact info, 
    • education,
    • experience, 
    • extracurriculars,
    • additional info.
  • Used the space well - enough white space that it didn’t look too cramped or cluttered, but not so much it looked empty.
  • Connected action and impact.
  • Was tailored to the role.
  • The additional section tied it together by summarizing skills.
  • Included interests. This is a good conversation starter for interviews. 

Miscellaneous advice:

• Including your GPA or not? 
  • Leave off if under say 3.2, but be prepared for it to come up in interviews. A lower GPA can be fine so long as you can give a reasonable explanation. (eg, exploring widely and out of your comfort zone, slower adjustment to college level work, a bad quarter because of a particular reason).
• Little to no experience is a common challenge. Emphasize things like relevant coursework, class projects, clubs, training programs. Get creative – eg, personal trading can be a positive (make sure you put this under extracurriculars though, not professional experience).
• Think about what you know about the roles. For example, private equity companies will be looking for interest in investing, interest in math, ability/willingness to work hard and drive results. 
• Reach out to young alums in interesting and target companies to find out what life is like: this helps you know what to include on your resume. This also helps with building your network.
  • LinkedIn is a great tool, look for Stanford alumni in particular. Start with people who are junior, they remember being in your shoes. Don’t be scared to contact more senior people if you have something in common eg hometown/state, university. 
  • Be brief in your initial email, make the ask clearly.
• Your LinkedIn page: many employers aren’t looking at it, but it helps you find people with mutual interests, and they’ll likely look at it when deciding whether to reply/meet, so have your profile built out.
• Employers spend one minute or less doing a quick review of your resume. They’re looking for a clear and sustained interest, relevant experience – across all of the sections.
• Be ready to explain what MS&E is as a major: many people don’t know what it is.
• Take the time to research all the banks/companies you might be interested in, so that you are informed as you write your resume and go into interviews. You need to be able to answer the “why do you want to work for this company?” question.

Notes prepared by Lindsey Akin.