I need some advice. I want to get into financial services. To that end I am (obviously) enrolled in the CFA program and will be taking L1 this December. Of course, even if I were to pass all three levels on my first try (unlikely) it will be three years before I am awarded the charter. Furthermore, discussing my work experience with recruiters from Columbia and NYU, they were both very impressed, but I don’t think I can manage an MBA right this moment. I have a bit of an unorthodox background making finding work difficult. My past is a hybrid of strategic consulting, financial analysis and project management, all for a commercial real estate firm. The problem is, I don’t have a degree in finance or IT (which seem to be the bulk of the project management and consulting gigs I’ve found) and although the analysis I ran was quite in depth, I get the feeling most companies (especially all the large banks) want someone who worked strictly in financial services. I would greatly appreciate it if some of you could give my resume a look and see what you think of it’s presentation and what jobs I may be able to target with it. In addition to thinking of careers that will allow me to progress in the industry, I need to be mindful of what I take so when it comes time to submit a b-school application, it will be up to their demands. https://www.scribd.com/doc/241798248/Zachary-Dragone-Resume-Ms-2
What is your definition of financial services?
I suppose any position working for a large firm that isn’t clerical, administrative, HR, etc. I recognize that my background precludes me from many roles, so I am trying to keep my options open.
I guess an alternative definition is: “something that will help me or at the very least will not hurt me when it comes time to apply to a top 20 B-school.”
I don’t think your background is really that bad. Why did you leave the last firm? You’re hireable in any junior/intermediate corporate finance FP&A job. If you want in at a bank, I’ll let the experts there weigh in.
Thanks for that.
I left my last firm for a few reasons. a.) I started studying for CFA L1 in March, but the period from March to June was extremely hectic (a client was leaving) so I got little work done and I wanted a chunk of time to devote only to study. b.) I worked in Massachusetts and my wife worked (works) in NYC, so I moved down to be with her.
Hope thats not your real personal info. Black it out or change it to something generic like John Doe and re-upload.
EDIT: Ok, I see it is clearly actually your real info. Might want to also upload using another site like Razume or make a new scribd account for this. Right now you can see your cover letters and other stuff that you’ve uploaded to Scribd also.
where is the resume kid?
Hi,
It’s in the link at the bottom of my original post.
I saw the resume either and it seemed somewhat disorganized and did not tell a cohesive story that makes it clear what your career aspirations are. In addition, your resume - like so many others - are too focused on various skills and activities you’ve had in your past and present roles, and not clear enough about how you have the skills needed to be awesome at your potential future roles. You can read the links in my signature to figure out what some of these skills are that you either don’t have and should learn, or maybe that you already have but haven’t elucidated them. I also provide coaching for this sort of thing. Granted there are probably other things you could be doing better too insofar as your networking efforts and overall understanding of what these front office finance roles even entail (in other words, I perceive a lack of focus and it’s likely potential recruiters feel the same way). But nevertheless, the resume in its current form is a hindrance, for sure. I would tell you if it wasn’t.
Numi is the expert, but I think the resume in its current form has too many words. People look at resumes really quickly (I’ve seen research say 30 seconds), so things need to stand out. When I look at your resume, I see a wall of text. It would require significant effort to read all that compared to other resumes.
Agree with @rawraw.
You have stated what you did, the process and the output in detail in the cv itself. Much of which could be reserved for the interview / interaction stage. Like stating, “Conducted extensive market / demographic studies in addition to due diligence on companies proposing projects on our land; ran risk models/stress tests, measured solvency, project cash flows and response to hypothetical micro and macro factors helping us to assess the viability of potential partnerships.” In a cv is same as stating , ” Conducted viability studies to evaluate potential partnerships ”, should suffice as rest is just the process and methods used which the potential employer /interviewer (if the job is related to this function of yours) is aware of. He would certainly verify your depth of competency and then you will need to highlight the rest during interviews.
Agree with rawraw and mygos
You’re too generous. I’ve heard 10 to 15 seconds. Better make it as appealing and readable as possible or your resume will be below that average.
Thanks for that. I have been networking, including lunch with a senior analyst @ S&P and an asset manager @ Blackstone. I will continue to do so, especially as it is far more enjoyable than mindlessly sending out resumes. I was contacted by a recruiter at a staffing agency who saw my resume and offered to send it along to Moody’s for a project management position. It’s not ideal, but it pays well and frankly, I need to land something soon. She thought it was good, but perhaps she was just trying to meet her quota. Who knows.
I think my problem is that because I don’t have a proper or traditional background in finance, I’m casting a broad net and hoping that someone needs my skills (like, for example, with the aforementioned project management role) i.e. your assessment isn’t far off, not because I understand the roles, but because I’m not sure my background is suitable for them. Also, I should mention that many of the positions are somewhat vague in what they entail - the descriptions don’t offer much in the way of a comprehensive description of the job.
It’s funny, because other people have told me that my last revision wasn’t specific enough and lacked details!
^ If you show your resume to 10 different people, you will get 10 different opinions.
I’m going to attempt to “defend” my resume not because I’m upset about the criticism (I’m very thankful for it, actually!) but to show where I am coming from and hopefully, help me to better understand what to write and not to write.
Firstly, my background is in project management and consulting, with a heavy dose of financial analysis. It was a hell of an experience, dealing with big time corporate leadership and learning a lot from their wisdom and occasionally, their terrible behavior and decisions.
Secondly, this same work experience got considerable praise from recruiters from NYU and Columbia, with the NYU recruiter saying, and I quote “I’d accept you tomorrow if I could!” I don’t say that to brag or bost, but rather to show that I do have formidable experience in my field. Most of the jobs I have applied to (At blackrock, J.P. Morgan, GS, BofA, etc) have all been some flavor of project management, RE analysis or a junior analyst role, all where the descriptions say that minimal background (school or education) is required in financial analysis. I’m not going to pretend that I’m a shoe in for some bulge bracket I-bank or a senior VP position in Blackrocks fixed income research division. The reason I am undertaking the CFA program and looking at B-school is to acquire the skills I will need for what I ultimately want to do, but passing the CFA is a minimum of three years out, and B-school is longer still. Anyways, here goes my analysis: Skills:
While not having passed even L1 doesn’t mean a lot, it does demonstrate my interest in the industry and willingness (and desire) to pursue a rigorous education. MS office (including MS Project, etc is obvious - that’s a widely used tool). My portfolio, while not heavily invested in (5.5k of my own funds) has returned 12.1% over the past six months - again, I am passionate about this (and I’m doing a damn sight better than the majority of Hedge Funds! 
). Accomplishments:
I get results. Before I was legally allowed to drink (20 years old, I’m 25 now) I was working with my boss and our gaming partners corporate lawyers to design the land lease our firm held, including developing the compromise regarding performance bonuses (i.e. we got a % of revenues greater than $X per year) that was the source of a great deal of contention in our negotiations. While managing political outreach projects for a REIT and consulting for a gaming firm, I had the idea to arrange a partnership between them which would improve projected sales of the retail component while reducing the debt burden placed on a highly levered operator. I recognized a problem and developed a solution that benefited both companies while improving our take dramatically. Likewise, my self-taught financial analysis skills helped me to see the dangerousness of General Growth (though to be fair, 26.5 billion in high yield debt should scare anyone) in addition to seeing the downturn of the traditional mall, which they were proposing to build. This saved the company considerable money and headaches, as you can imagine.
Experience: I have a good deal of quantitative research under my belt, financial and otherwise. Meeting and working with so many state politicians (including the governor and speaker of the house) demonstrates my ability to interact with and persuade high ranking officials of the merits of our project. My skills at project management came in handy building and managing a project designed to choose the best developers for land we owned. Likewise, my quant abilities, interpersonal and project management skills helped me run our end of a project with a hedge fund.
Please disagree with me if you feel I am wrong.
Should I dive more into the steps in project management? To prevent my resume from becoming wordier than it already was, I assumed that a HR person would know that I used project management techniques and took the appropriate steps to manage what I was working on properly.
In any event, thank you all for the help thus far. It means a lot to me.
I have learned this myself. It is impossible to decide who to listen to and what to do.
First off, b-school recruiters will blow smoke up your ass to get you to apply. Every (and top) Bschool scout out talent on linkedin and randomly contact people with good exp or without. When they’re cold calling people who haven’t reached out to them, you can get a vibe of what they will do to make their numbers. B-school is a pretty big decision and you really have to find one that fits what you want to do and who you are. Just because they’re interested in you, doesn’t mean you’re gonna get accepted no problem. In my experience, recruiters are trying to get quality candidates, and failing that, they just try to make their numbers.
I took a 10 sec scan of your resume. I didn’t want to read any more, it felt cluttered and overly wordy. Reading what you have above, I am much more interested in what you said there, than how you presented it on your resume. That would be my advice - its not that you have bad experience, you really just need to find a way to keep people engaged.
This is going to be a common theme.