US
"I’ve moved around a fair bit since graduation in 2007. Initially I went into a front office grad scheme, but it didn’t suit me. At the start of 2008 it became very difficult to find work, so i took an operations temp contract which lasted 6 months. More recently, I’ve interned for a proprietary trading firm, as a day trader."
Education
· 2003 – 2007 London University BA (Hons.) 2:2
· 1993 – 2002 A Levels: BCC
· 10 GCSE Passes A* – B
Work Experience
12/2008 – 04/09 Trading company, London
Position: Futures day trader (intern)
· Intraday Equity Index futures trading
· Identifying arbitrage opportunities between the cash and futures markets
· Using chart and technical analysis to develop indicators for entry and exit points in the market
· Momentum trading
3/08 – 9/08 European investment bank
Position: Exchange Traded Derivatives Brokerage Analyst
Duties:
· Reconciling and paying brokerage invoices against internal systems and exchanges on a timely basis
· liaising with traders
· Use of GMI & R&N
· Provision of detailed responses to management and traders if requested
· Ensure invoices balanced to a high level to reduce risk of over payment or incorrect payment
· Daily dealings with internal clients, (front office, finance, legal) regional team members and external brokers
· Liaison between onshore and offshore teams
· Training junior members of off-shore team
· Covering and chairing meetings with regional ETD heads
· Taking ownership of counterparty exposure and ‘change the bank’ projects
· Challenging internal systems and processes to identify opportunities for improvement
· Daily trade reconciliation between CME and CBOT exchanges and in house systems
· Liaison with regional CSG teams, internal and external clients to investigate and resolve rate discrepancies arising during invoice reconciliation process
07/07 – 04/0 Fund management company
Position: Fund Sales graduate role
Duties
· Assisting Sales Managers by performing the following functions:
· Obtaining the allocation or break-downs (splits) for client transactions
· Account opening:
· Liaising with clients to obtain client information and documentation
· Account accurate maintenance of client account information in I-Avenue (e.g. updating settlement instructions)
· Liaising between my client advisors and other Sales Desks, Marketing, Legal and other Operational areas (e.g. Client Services, Settlements, RFP teams etc.)
· Provision of phone coverage
· Ensuring that sales relationship data in in-house systems is up-to-date
· Follow up on client queries
· Researching other competitor funds, market trends, and opportunities to sell funds in new markets,
· Supporting management reporting through data extraction and manipulation on an ad-hoc basis
· Assisting with the preparation of presentations
· Increasing product knowledge of equities, bonds and commodities
· Rotation through broker & client services on the UK and offshore desks, responding to a variety of client queries whilst building product knowledge and relationships with product specialists.
08/06 – 02/07 American investment bank
Position: HR (Investment Management and Global Private Clients)
Duties
· Supporting 2 HR Managers of MLIM/GPC
· Assisting the contracts and IB teams
· Liaising with external consultants and client requests
· Inputting, maintaining and auditing high quality data on Workflow
· Issuing letters for contract amendments, new hire information, leavers, promotions, salary increases, transfers, providing reports and telephone interviewing
· Booking meetings and interviews.
· Liaising with all HR specialist groups including contract, temp, accounts, and ML Executive teams.
· Assisting senior HR management on ad-hoc projects.
Systems Skills
MS Office Suite, Macros, Pivot tables, V look-ups, I-Avenue, FAST, Micropal, Bloomberg, Stellar, TT, CQG, GMI, R & N.
If you want your CV reviewed on eFinancialCareers, please email it to our editors at editor@efinancialcareers.com.
You have a 2.2 – that’s whats wrong. You should get a job in Tesco
You are asking the wrong question….
It’s like asking why we got 5 heads in a row for a random coin toss.
Nothing is wrong with your CV :-). You have a degree plus work experience which is valuable. You should not take rejection personally.
Idiot! leaving FO position was a career destroying move… You’re toast dude!
I hope you understand the kind of comments that you are likely to receive in response to the posting of your CV.
My first concern would be about your ability to demonstrate an ability to improve in areas in which your results could have been better. For example, your A-Level results are disappointing; but to then receive a 2:2 at university suggests that you did not realise that it would be to your advantage to demonstrate that you could do better by getting a good degree.
Additionally, your CV suggests that your attitude towards the importance of education and, more importantly, that you need to be self-motivated and highly driven to succeed in banking and, well, any respectable job really, will lead any prospective employer to wonder what you can bring to their firm.
Ask yourself these questions:
1) You received disappointing A-Level results, but then you also received a disappoing university degree result? Are you not able to learn from your mistakes? Are you capable of developing as an employee?
2) Front Office is significantly different to Operations. Do you know where you want to work?
Another question is why would you list your results at A-Level when they are not strong enough to help your application. Instead they will only serve to raise questions about your ability which, of course, will lead the employer to ask for further evidence of your ability!
you managed to get on a grad scheme with a 2:2 & you left because “it didn’t suit me”? a wasted opportunity me thinks.
what is wrong with your cv? you’ve got pretty poor grades & your work experience shows a lack of direction in what you want to do (HR to sales to analysis to trading?) & the one decent long term position you did get didn’t suit you!!
i’d suggest you seriously consider what you want to do & what will actually interest/suit you & then tailor any experience you do have to be relevant for that type of role.
Lots and lots. Bad A-levels, bad degree (which London university did you get into with BCC???), flitting from job to job, back-office roles in the main. What on earth are you looking to do?
u have worked at more places in 2 years than i have in 15
I am going to be blunt here:
The way in which you have written, for want of a better word, your CV is appalling. Absolutely dreadful. The constructs of your grammer suggests that you have no interest in work and view the concept of professionalism as a joke.
In fact, if anybody at a serious firm wrote sentences similar to the the following which I have referenced from your CV, they would be sacked.
“Provision of phone coverage” – That is not a sentence!
“Booking meetings and interviews.” – This is pathetic. Do you believe anybody to take you seriously? Really?
In fact, I have been too generous in my advice. Allow me to be very clear:
Your CV is the most incoherent piece of junk that I have ever read; it contains neither a grammatically correct sentence nor a degree of professionalism.
“At the start of 2008 it became very difficult to find work” – why walk out on a grad scheme?
Very average education, too many jobs and you’ve not stuck at anything.
In a good market you’d probably get picked up to work in Ops, in this market you’re probably stuck with short term temp work wherever you can get it
“Nothing is wrong with your CV”
Perhaps the harshest comment yet.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the CV .it is a fairly common picture of a young persons efforts to get into the Finance world, It is however too long..you only graduated 2 years ago cut cut cut and keep trying
While I sympathise, I do think you are not telling the whole story. Even after scoring a desmond on ur degree, u got offered a grad position within Fund sales and you left? As asian trader said, career busting move! Use ur networks man, and omit the A level grades.
Still me thinks you got fired! 2000 grads compete for 50 spaces on average in an investment bank grad role. Then YOU leave?
it’s like ur mocking those graduates with 1st class degrees from CASS who are doing nite shift in Sainsburys!
Gud luck with ur job search!
Forget all the kerfaffle about 2.2 and A levels, once you have a few years experience no one cares.
My tips:
You liase too much. Get more words. And get rid of ‘Phone coverage’
What do you do or want to do? I have no idea. You can obviously sit in an office, use all the software etc but its HR, then Ops, then Sales, then Trading.
This must be a made up CV…where is the FO role on the CV? Even if it did exist, how come? Weak A-Levels, 2:2 degree?! C’mon……
Do you really need to mention on your CV that you can do vlook-ups and pivot table in excel?
Agree with everybody else – this is the worst CV i’ve ever seen. It literally screams “not bothered”!
Sara, please admit this is a fabricated CV and that you are just testing how gullible we actually are.
As if you lot of wannabe journos know the first thing about CVs. You should all reach down into your bottom desk drawers for the proverbial booze bottle and shut the hell up.
Sure. I’d be happy to. After you crawl back into your hole.
Sarah,
What prompted you to post a fabricated CV? Boredom? If you are having difficulty coming up with subjects about which to write articles, I have plenty that I should be happy to share.
You could write an article about average remuneration for staff working at efinancialCareers and calculate the how many times that salary can be divided into the size of the average City worker’s bonus!
@Analyst, you crack me up: “The constructs of your grammer suggests that you have no interest in work and view the concept of professionalism as a joke.”
For the love of God, if you’re going to criticise someone’s grammar, please spell the word ‘grammar’ correctly.
CV needs a big overhaul – absolutely rubbish…consign it to the bin and start again – then maybe…just maybe you might be considered for a role as a ‘dustbin cleaner’….
@Analyst – It’s not a fabricated CV. A real person sent it to me. Let me know if you have any other ideas for articles, that one wasn’t bad.
Without being as harsh on you as others have been, the main criticism I have is that the document does not “sell” you. It has a long list of “functions” without mentioning a single “achievement” attributable to your work. People want to hire Achievers. Your CV is not that of an Achiever but that of a Plodder.
Take some time and think over the various roles you’ve done. Figure out what your achievements were (i.e. contriubtions to profitability, cost-reductions etc) and get these onto your CV instead of the long list of dull functions. Good luck.
That CV is the worst pile of gash I have ever seen.
In real terms the numbers being hired in carbon markets seems to be picking up with ever greater interest coming from the US and Australia. Is there any chance of getting some other voices on this site? We can all read in the FT about x number of potential hires at BarCap or Execution. Also, if you follow SparkSpread, a lot of bigwigs from the big IBs are moving to utilities and trading companies, so there are some fairly interesting movements happening outside of equities and fixed income
Thank you and good evening
Nice to see the spiriti of human kindness is alive and well on here.
I agree it’s not an fantastic CV by any stretch of the imagination, and does raise a number of real questions about the candidate, but the vitriol spouted on here is ridiculous. Have you got nothing better to do? Or is demonstrating your superiority to a grad level candidate what gets the “big boys” going these days?
Spite and insecurity are not attractive character traits gentlemen.
I note that the analyst with such strong views on grammar can’t spell it: grammar not grammer
How did you get on a grad scheme with 2:2 and crap alevels? Nepotism? Then you “left” cough, cough, got fired. Mate, your CV needs a big overhaul, actually, scrap it.
@Me
Au contraire, people don’t always want to an achiever. Some hiring managers are quite happy with affable people who can do a job well. Witness the countless pushy entitled analysts/associates banished to the netherworlds of custody or ‘projects’ at the end of rotations and the countless Essex guys who started of temp contracts years before and doing well.
It is a real shame that so many of you are such arrogant self centred people full of criticism.
My advice would mirror some past constructive comments. Break your CV up into responsibilities and achievements. Focus on these as concise points. Use job adverts to give you an idea of what recruiters are looking for in your field and build upon your strengths.
Good luck.
wow….there are so many mean people out there! no compassion….no interest in motivating others….
you are young, you have a professional career ahead of you, focus and be positive and forget about all these idiots
You worked in HR so you should be able to answer the question yourself.
Top-notch CV: I consider you a rising star, and invite you to send me your details as I have just the role for you, heading up our Petting Zoo Finance Division in North Norway, covering Francophone Africa and Devon. I would prefer, to comply with our internal hiring requirements, that you amend some of the wording as follows:
Using chart and technical analysis to develop indicators for entry and exit points in the market: Guessing using pictures
Momentum trading: Guessing
Liaising with traders: Laughing spinelessly at the jokes of fat drunk men from Essex, or thin gay men from France
Ensure invoices balanced to a high level to reduce risk of over payment or incorrect payment: Not screwing up by checking things
Daily dealings with internal clients, (front office, finance, legal) regional team members and external brokers: Being alive, e-mailing, talking
Challenging internal systems and processes to identify opportunities for improvement: Complaining
Provision of phone coverage: Answering telephones
Follow up on client queries: Returning phone-calls/answering email
Increasing product knowledge of equities, bonds and commodities: Screwing about on Wikipedia
If there was such a show as “Finance Idol” or “Finance Factor”, then in the words of the judges: “Utterly dreadful. This is the most incompetent piece of rubbish I have ever seen. Come back and audition when we launch “Finance Fool”! Failing that, I suggest you apply for the next series of the Apprentice as the most useless and unitellectual business people have the most luck in getting onto that show. With your poor A-levels, bad degree and experience, you should be a prime candidate”! (PS – your current role involves punting futures and no base salary. With your experience in “provision od phone coverage”, you should go and work in a call centre until next years Apprentice)! You’re Fired…
I wonder if you left the grad scheme or were pushed. You were very lucky to get on that scheme with a 2:2 and one way or another you blew it. You may be able to get back in eventually with an ops role, possibly temp that ends up going perm. Stick with the same role for 5 years and look to get promoted internally.
You can not chop and change regularly in any profession. I think you should look at things outside of finance.
I love reading some of these comments . Makes me glad not to work in an IB full of arrogant rude t@ssers.
The jumping around roles is going to put people off, you also really need to tidy it up and decide what role you want to do for a career. ..
My best advice is to ask Sarah to send you some good CV’s (with names removed) or ask one of the head hunters on here. Then use this as a template to start from.
Good luck
Your CV is poo-poo. Come and clean my pee-pee.
you must have expected all of these comments – it’s a little strange wanting to subject yourself to this type of abuse.
With the sheer weight and quality of competition – you know yourself what is wrong with your CV and you must understand in normal market conditions it would not stand a chance in front office terms.
i suggest to go and pay the money out and do a masters. knuckle down, work hard and get a strong grade. you need to show a hiring manager that you have the capability to succeed and / or are hard working. a 2:2 is inexcusable – at least a hardworker will always get a 2:1. Your CV shows too much laziness and failure, but you need to work hard and start over again, else give up trying and try another career.
My goodness this is just like comments on YouTube videos.
People hiding behind ridiculous names such “Analyst”, BaxterBasics and funny stuff like that will just sit in front of a computer screen and direct whatever kind of slur they feel appropriate towards a graduate person who just wants to ask “what is wrong with my CV”…
Man the really successfulpeople that I know are either at their job, or on a boat/summer house and couldn’t care less about responding to Efinancialcareers commetns. I think I will just keep my nice old job in Athens and have some pimp fun under the sun. People in london banks are ridiculous: they turn banking into high stakes gambling/prop trading risking billions of their clients’ funds and when they came to uni for presentations they always kept bragging on about how smart they are and next thing u saw on the news was their company having lost billions….
there is a lot of room for improvement in your cv (like make it A LOT SHORTER) but if u try and work sideways and get some good recommendations from high ranking people, that would be much more effective: if u cant sell yourself, you might as well let others do it for you.
Good luck
All the guys above are chatting r%bbish..All big-headed under achieving, under paid probably tea boys. I suggest you obtain advice from someone who is actually intelligent and not these wannabe traders… They probably can’t satisfy their wives, hence they chat trash!
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