Yo guys! I’m wondering what to put on my business card in the way of title or job position. Even though i have 2 years of work experience researching domestic stocks, right now i’m not working anymore, spending my time as a full-time grad school student (doing a MFin). My ideal goal is to make it into buyside ER. I’m still 2 years short of the necessary work exp to become a charterholder - so the “, CFA” is still out the question.
I thought of:
“Master of Science in Finance”
“Investment Professional”
“Investment Consultant”
“Financial Professional”
or maybe just state name and contact information… but that kinda makes it seems that i have nothing going on
“Investment Professional” – because this is true. Don’t put “consultant” or anything like that; at the moment, you ain’t consulting s#!t, let’s face it.
Contact information, but make sure to list your LinkedIn profile address. The primary point of you having this card is making contacts, and what you really want to do is present them with a mini-resume. A well-crafted LinkedIn page will make 100x the impression of any business card nowadays, so make sure you’re keeping that page well put together.
Also, when getting them printed, I’d recommend eggshell with Romalian type.
I’ve seen business cards that say “Looking for work in X”. It was a long time ago so I forget the exact wording, but it was well chosen.
It sounds crazy to print up a card like that, but when they handed me the card, I was actually impressed. I didn’t have to ask them stuff about their current work (because they didn’t have any), and they didn’t have to squirm to try to pretend that 2 days of consulting work they had 6 months ago constitutes their full time work today. Instead I knew what kind of work they were looking for, and if I forgot a few days later, it’s right there on the card.
You can say “recent X grad” and then a subtitle “Available for Y work”
It’s obviously not as prestigious as saying “I’m CEO of Goldman Sachs, here’s my card.” But it’s direct, and to the point, and already opens the discussion for you that you otherwise might have to begin with a sheepish “well, actually, I’m looking for work at the moment.”
My only issue with the business card is that it makes me feel like the prospective job-seeker wants me to do the work and reach out to him/her when I have something. It should be the other way around, they should be staying in front of me if they want my attention.
reminds me of the time I interviewed a guy for a job on my team. In interviews, It usually ends with me giving out my biz card and tell them to contact me if they had any questions. the dude instead gives me his and says to contact him. dude, if I want to talk to you, I will reach out. you’re here now arn’t you? so clearly I can reach you.
^ Handing out your card at an interview is bad form, agreed. But in a social event, perhaps it provides something for the potential employer to remember you by. When you call him up, he will think , oh yeah, the guy with the card…
It depends on the context. If you are in an interview, the guy presumably has your résumé in front of him/her, so the card is redundant, though you might exchange business cards if you discover that you like to hit the same golf course or strip bar or something and want to stay in touch for non-job related reasons.
In many other situations, the social norm is to *exchange* business cards. If you don’t have something to exchange, you aren’t doing your part of the dance. Just remember when exchanging cards with itera that he expects a certain level of deference.
Thanks for the awesome feedback guys! I agree that shoving your business card to a potential employer during an interview is redundant and unpolished, but having a business card is quite useful during networking events and sometimes it’s even expected of me (especially now that i live in Asia).
My brother went to HBS and they made cards for any students who wanted them. Say what you want about being tacky, but they actually looked very nice. And not to mention they’re actually, uh, useful?