The absolutely perfect CV for any front office job in an investment bank, WILL….

1) Have impeccable academics- Top grades from a top school are a totally necessary but absolutely non-sufficient condition for front office occupations. “Good academics are taken for granted,” reflects Andrew Pullman, former head of HR at Dresdner, turned managing consultant at People Risk Solutions.

2) Make a big deal out of the impeccable academics- “Most other candidates will have a similar level of academic achievement,” muses Peter Harrison of investment banking careers specialist Harrison Careers. Therefore, he suggests that you: “Include any prizes you won, anything special at university, or even when you came second in a class exam at university. If you dress it up and make it sound like something you are really proud of, and you include three or four of these little examples, then a pattern of higher academic achievement will come across.” This will only be necessary if you’ve graduated within the past 3 years.

3) Make use of bullet points – Recruiters scan hundreds of CVs every day. They want to read something succinct and to the point. Bullet points will suggest that your CV is both, says Pullman.

4) Provide detail where appropriate – It’s no good having a long list of bullet points with job titles, but absolutely no elaboration on what you did. “You need to give detail on what you have done, making it all sound much more impressive than it really was,” advises Harrison.

5) Speak in terms of achievements – When you are providing detail (previous point), make sure you speak in terms of personal achievements rather than generalities. Eg. “I was the top ranked salesperson three quarters running and increased the value of key client accounts by 75% during that period.”

6) Show consistency – The best CVs show consistent ambition and a career path which progresses harmoniously with that ambition. You will, for example, be viewed with deep suspicion if you have a history of working in corporate finance and suddenly express an urge to switch to algorithmic trading.

7) Show commitment: – “Potential employers like to see commitment to a particular organisation when they are recruiting for permanent staff,” says Hakan Enver, a consultant at Morgan McKinley. He adds that: “You need to be clear about your motivation for leaving – you can’t say you outgrew a role after only six months.”

8) Suggest that you have a personality – “A lot of CVs for investment banking jobs are exactly the same,” says Pullman. “You need something that differentiates your CV, that whets people’s appetite, and that will give you something to talk about in interview.” That thing may include sailing across Lake Garda in a bouncy castle, or skateboarding across America for charity. It probably doesn’t include anything as mundane as a triathlon, which everyone’s doing nowadays.

9) Be free of spelling mistakes and grammatically correct - As some of the comments on this website testify, not everyone can spell.

10) Be laden with words that will ensure it’s pulled up on a database – As we noted recently, your CV will probably end up on a database somewhere. If you’re a top ranked oil and gas researcher with a CFA, make sure you mention this several times for maximum search-friendliness.

And the absolutely perfect investment banking CV WONT…

1) Be more than two pages long - You are not trying to bore people. “When you get a CV which is 10-12 pages long, which I have come across in the past, you start to feel you are wasting your life,” contemplates Pullman.

2) Be printed on pink/purple/baby blue paper – White is acceptable, all else is simply odd.

3) Include a large photograph of the applicant, surfing – Photos are not mandatory in the UK. If you must include one, ensure you look normal and are in business attire.

4) Have boxes around key sections – Recruiters are not receptive to fancy graphics. “I hate all that stuff,” says one.

5) Speak in clichés – “Corporate-speak destroys value on a resumé,” says Harrison. “Analytical thinker, demonstrated leadership ability, team-playing skills, an ability to learn fast on the job.” This is totally meaningless and counts for nothing. Get rid of any stuff like this,” he commands, forcibly.

6) List previous jobs and responsibilities without saying what your individual contribution was – No one wants to know that the business you worked in performed exceptionally between 2006 and 2007; they want to know whether you had anything to do with it.

7) Be printed in a strange font – You are not living in medieval times and neither are you part of an artistic printers’ collective. Recruiters are simple beasts, so keep it plain (see 4).

8) List Word and Excel as skills and reading and shopping as hobbies – Word and Excel are not skills. Shopping and reading are not hobbies. Sorry.

9) Tell lies - You WILL get found out.

10) Include every single educational attainment in your life, despite the fact that you graduated more than 10 years ago – You only need to add A level results if you graduated in the last five years. Equally, if you’ve been working for more than 10 years, a quick summary of the most temporally distant roles is perfectly acceptable.