Your investment banker resume is your ticket to the interview room. It must demonstrate to recruiters that you possess the financial expertise and deal experience they are looking for. Consider it your personal highlight reel, showcasing your relevant skills and accomplishments in a way that leaves hiring managers speechless.
This article will teach you how to write a compelling investment banker resume from scratch. We’ll give you a step-by-step guide along with examples and tips that will help you craft a document better than the majority of the competition. Without further ado, let’s dive right in!
Key Takeaways
The best resume format for investment bankers, in most cases, is chronological.
Write a catchy introduction in the form of a resume objective or summary to grab the reader’s attention with your key strengths.
For your work experience section, focus on exceptional, quantifiable accomplishments over everyday tasks.
Submit a cover letter that matches your resume to show motivation and genuine interest in the job.
Superb Investment Banker Resume Examples
Here’s a complete example of an investment banker resume to show you what the document should look like:
If you want to create clean and professional resumes like these, keep reading to learn about resume format, layout, sections, and more.
What Format to Use for an Investment Banker Resume
The best format for most investment bankers is a chronological resume format; it provides a proven structure favored by recruiters and is compatible with the ATS.
By following this format, you’ll present your work history in the reverse-chronological order, emphasizing your latest (and typically most important) employment first, before listing the rest in a descending order. This gives recruiters a methodical insight into your career progress, allowing them to accurately estimate your levels of skill and experience.
If you’re an entry-level investment banker with no work experience, you can leverage the functional resume format. This one makes your skills the main section, helping you focus on your key strengths when applying for your first job.
Lastly, if you have experience as an investment banker, but also employment gaps in your work history, you can use the combination resume format. This format prioritizes your skills, while backing up each one with a list of relevant accomplishments.
Investment Banker Resume Layout
A resume layout refers to the visual presentation of your document. A good layout will make your resume look clean and professional, enhancing its legibility.
Here are some tips that can help you achieve that:
Resume Layout Guidelines
Organize your resume to be one page long, as anything more than that can result in recruiters losing interest.
Choose a professional font for your resume, like Arial or Times New Roman.
Font size should be 10–12 pt for regular text and 14–16 pt for section headings.
Margins should be the same on all sides and at least 1 inch.
Standard line spacing is 1.0 or 1.15.
Investment Banker Resume Mandatory and Optional Sections
Every investment banker needs to have these five mandatory sections:
Mandatory Sections
Contact information
Resume objective/summary
Work experience
Education
Skills
These sections will provide the essential information recruiters are looking for. However, if you have space left on your document after adding the mandatory sections, and you have additional qualifications to showcase, you can include optional sections, like:
Optional Sections
Certifications
Languages
Hobbies and interests
If this is your first time creating a resume, trying to follow a format, design a layout, and include all the sections can be daunting when starting from scratch. In that case, you’re welcome to try out our resume builder. Even if you’re an experienced resume writer, you can use our software tool to craft a job-winning document in minutes.
The process is simple: input your information in predesignated areas, use our AI to generate quality content or improve your writing, pick a template and customize the layout, and download a submission-ready resume!
Investment Banker Resume Template
To give you an idea of what a professional investment banker resume template looks like, here’s one that you can find when using our resume builder:
Investment Banker Resume Template
Name and Surname
Phone number: 000-000-0000 | Email: namesurname@gmail.com | Location: City, State
[Adjective] [your job title] with [years of experience, if applicable] in [your area of expertise, if applicable] looking for a [position] job at [company name]. Eager to apply [relevant skills] gained through [work/volunteer/other experience] to help [company name] [mention what you can do for the company].
Work Experience
Most Recent/Current Job Title Company City, State [Start date] — [End date]
For recent jobs, use 5-6 bullet points to list your top achievements and responsibilities
Use action verbs to make your responsibilities and achievements stand out
Add numbers to quantify your achievements
Previous Job Title Company City, State [Start date] — [End date]
For recent jobs, use 5-6 bullet points to list your top achievements and responsibilities
Use action verbs to make your responsibilities and achievements stand out
Add numbers to quantify your achievements
Oldest Job Title Company City, State [Start date] — [End date]
For older jobs, use 2-3 bullet points to list your top achievements and responsibilities
Use action verbs to make your responsibilities and achievements stand out
Add numbers to quantify your achievements
Education
[Degree] in [Major] [University/college name] [Start date] - [Graduation date]
Skills
Soft Skills
Skill #1
Skill #2
Skill #3
Skill #4
Skill #5
Hard Skills
Skill #1
Skill #2
Skill #3
Skill #4
Skill #5
Additional Sections
Add any relevant additional sections (languages, licenses, publications, hobbies, etc.)
Resume templates
Stand out from the competition with resume templates that get you noticedInvestment Banker Resume Contact Information
Contact information goes in the resume header. It’s the first section recruiters should see, and it should display the following details about you:
Header Section
Name
Job title
Phone number
Email address
You can also add some optional information, such as:
Optional Details
Address (but only city and state, for privacy reasons)
LinkedIn profile
You want to avoid adding irrelevant social media profiles, unprofessional email addresses, and sensitive personal information (e.g., age, gender, political affiliations, etc.).
Here’s an example of what the contact information section should look like:
Contact Information Example
Dennis Mason Investment Banker + 713 589 1597 dennismason@example.com linkedin.com/in/dennis.mason Houston, TX
Investment Banker Resume Objective and Summary
A resume objective or summary is an introductory section meant to highlight your biggest strengths in 2–4 sentences.
If you’re writing an investment banking intern resume or one for an entry-level role, you should use an objective to emphasize your skills and career goals, showcasing potential. On the flip side, experienced investment bankers should write a summary, pointing out one or two of their most impressive work-related achievements.
Investment Banker Resume Objective
Let’s start with a good example of an investment banker resume objective:
Good Example
“Recent graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance seeking an entry-level position at Team Invest. Proficient in Microsoft Excel, Salesforce, Tableau, and Datasite. During the internship, collaborated with senior investment bankers on managing portfolios with over $11M in assets. Eager to contribute to your team on the road to becoming a lead investment banker.”
This objective works as it underscores valuable skills employers look for and even demonstrates the candidate can put them into use through their internship efforts.
Let’s compare that with a bad example of a resume objective devoid of all valuable details about the candidate’s qualifications:
Bad Example
“Entry-level investment banker with no prior experience looking for a first job.”
Investment Banker Resume Summary
Here’s a good example of an investment banker resume summary:
Good Example
“Investment banker with more than 7 years of experience looking for a lead position at Capital Bank. In a previous role, achieved, on average, 19% return on investment for multiple clients. Additionally, collaborated with 15 investment banking analysts to boost team productivity by 17% above the company average.”
However, if you fail to include some of your accomplishments, you’ll end up with an uninspiring summary that doesn’t display your level of competence. Let’s see that in an example of a bad summary:
Bad Example
“Experienced investment banker with many years in the field looking for a senior position.”
How to Add Professional Investment Banker Experience to Your Resume
Adding a professional experience section to your investment banker resume is all about displaying your most prominent accomplishments in a concise and impactful manner. Let’s see how you can achieve that.
General Tips
The best way to organize your work history is in the reverse-chronological order. You want to prioritize your latest employment, as it’s typically the most important one. Then, list the rest in a descending order. You should focus on past jobs relevant to the one you’re applying for.
Here are the details to include for each previous job:
Essential Work Experience Information
Your job title
Company name
Start and end date of employment
List of accomplishments
The accomplishments you include should be exceptional and noteworthy, so you shouldn’t just list everyday tasks and assignments.
Instead, focus on remarkable results that you can quantify with numbers and percentages. Numbers add measurable value to your efforts and help demonstrate the impact your work has on the company and its clients.
Furthermore, you should incorporate action verbs and power words in your writing to make it stand out and be attention-grabbing.
Finally, leverage bullet points over paragraphs, as they are shorter and easier to read. Having 3–5 bullet points per job is a good number.
Investment Banker With No/Little Experience
Investment bankers with little to no work experience can still write a compelling section using analogous efforts. These include volunteer work, internships, and previous jobs that require similar skills.
Here’s an example of an investment banker resume with no experience featuring an internship for the work history section:
Investment Banker with No Experience Example
Work Experience
Investment Banker Intern Platinum Group LLC Chicago, IL
January 2024–March 2025
Wrote 3 weekly reports for senior investment bankers and communicated findings to the team.
Assisted the senior investment banking team in identifying trends to avoid $1.3M in losses.
Designed reporting templates for SharePoint to increase report creation speed by 15% and reduce error rates by 11%.
Experienced Investment Banker
When you’re writing a resume as an experienced investment banker, you want to show a diversity of skills and experiences. In addition to role-specific expertise, you can also emphasize your ability to lead teams, mentor new hires, make difficult decisions, and so on.
Let’s see that in a good example:
Experienced Investment Banker Example
Work Experience
Investment Banker HGQ Houston, TX
April 2018–Present
Led the teams conducting financial evaluation and modeling for over 25 deals, boosting the pitch-to-close ratio by 21%.
Generated $11M+ in revenue for the company by identifying high-value acquisition targets for 7 different clients.
Onboarded, mentored, and trained 5 junior analysts, achieving a 45% reduction in ramp-up time.
Investment Banker Resume Education Section
The primary purpose of an investment banker resume education section is to validate your competence (especially if you’re an entry-level professional with no experience).
At a minimum, you should list:
Education Section Mandatory Details
Your highest degree
The institution that issued it
Years of attendance
Here’s what that looks like in an example:
Education Example
Education
Bachelor of Science in Accounting University of Texas, Houston, TX 2013–2017
This is usually enough for experienced investment bankers. However, if you lack work history, you can put more emphasis on this section. For example, if you have a master’s degree, you can include a bachelor’s degree underneath it (avoid adding a high school diploma as it’s considered obsolete).
Moreover, you can include a bullet list of your academic accomplishments. You can add your GPA (if it’s 3.5 or higher), relevant coursework, extracurricular activities, and more.
Investment Banker Resume Skills
When adding skills to your investment banker resume, you should list those abilities you know recruiters are looking for. This shows that you’re not just a capable professional, but the one who perfectly matches the needs of the company.
That’s why it’s critical to read the job ad carefully and research the company to understand what type of employee they are looking for. This will allow you to craft tailored lists of hard and soft skills that present you as the most suitable candidate.
In addition to adding relevant skills to your resume, you also want to include proof that you have them. To achieve this, you should mention some of your skills next to appropriate achievements in the work experience and resume summary sections.
Here’s an example of a candidate demonstrating their skills in Tableau:
Tableau Skills Example
Used Tableau to design performance reports for a client with a 13% reduction in error rates compared to company standards.
Hard skills are specific to the job and typically obtained through colleges, certifications, and other traditional methods. Here are some of the most common hard skills for investment banker resumes:
Hard Skills
Risk analysis
Financial modeling
RiskMetrics
Asana
Salesforce
Tableau
FactSet
Refinitiv
CapIQ
Aladdin
Excel
Murex
Bloomberg Terminal
Soft skills are transferable between professions, interpersonal, and are usually obtained through real-life experience. Some of the most sought-after soft skills for investment bankers include:
Soft Skills
Leadership
Attention to detail
Adaptability
Research
Teamwork
What Other Sections Can You Add to Your Investment Banker Resume
After all the mandatory sections, you can include one or more optional ones to emphasize your competence further.
Certifications
Certifications are proof of specialized knowledge and are great at adding credibility to your qualifications. Having certifications like Series 79 or CFA on your resume significantly boosts your chances of impressing recruiters and potential employees.
In addition to validating your knowledge, certifications show that you’re committed to continuous learning and professional improvement, which are valuable traits for job seekers. When listing certifications, make sure to include the name of the certificate, the issuing body, and the dates you obtained them (as well as expiration dates, if applicable).
Languages
Many banks operate internationally, so having the ability to communicate in multiple languages can make you more valuable to employers. Even entry-level language skills can set you apart from the competition.
When adding them to your resume, pick a framework of reference and list all the languages you know, starting with the one you’re most proficient in.
Hobbies & Interests
Mentioning hobbies and interests in your investment banker resume humanizes you and makes your application more memorable. The company’s HR professionals can also use this information during your interview, especially during later stages, when assessing your cultural fit.
This section should be brief, and you should only mention those hobbies and interests that you’re genuinely passionate about.
Do I Need a Cover Letter as an Investment Banker?
You need an investment banker cover letter to show drive and motivation to get the job. By writing and submitting a well-thought-out cover letter to recruiters, you’ll demonstrate that you went the extra mile to highlight your eagerness and expertise, which will set you apart from the competition
Your cover letter should be brief and information-packed. Keep it between 250 and 400 words and use it to talk about your accomplishments that you haven’t included in your resume. For bonus points, include a specific reason why you’re applying for that company.
Cover letter templates
Create a compelling cover letter with templates built for success3 Final Tips for Creating an Investment Banker Resume
Here are the final investment banker resume tips to help you enhance your document to perfection and maximize your chances of getting invited for an interview:
Final Tips
Your resume objective or summary should demonstrate what you have to offer to the company. Shift focus from the fact that you’re looking for a job and show employers what they will gain from hiring you. You can achieve this by omitting personal pronouns and focusing on your qualifications, which you know the company is looking for.
Make your cover letter and resume match. The two documents should have the same format and layout. Plus, you shouldn’t just repeat the information from one document in another, but talk about unique skills and experience to paint a more complete picture of who you are as a professional.
Tailor your resume for each new job you apply for. The best resume is the one specifically made to match the job description and company requirements. That’s why you should review your resume and adjust your skills and accomplishments every time you apply for a new role.
Closing Thoughts
Professionals in the securities, commodities, and financial services can expect a faster-than-average job outlook of 7% between 2023 and 2033. This amounts to about 41,000 new openings each year, and the best way to secure one of those spots is to start with a well-written investment banker resume.
Remember to quantify your accomplishments to make them concrete in the eyes of recruiters and to make all the information in your resume relevant to the specific role you’re applying for. This way, you won’t just present yourself as a capable professional but as the best one in that particular case.
