Welcome back to another issue of ‘Career Guides Weekly’ by Career Guides.

Today’s a short one where we’ll be covering a few simple tweaks you can make in your CV (also applicable to your cover letter) in order to go from ‘basic’ to ‘advanced’ and capture the attention of the reader.

So with that, let’s get straight into it!

Don’t Sell Yourself Short On Your CV / Résumé… Do This Instead…

We’ll touch on the following 7 competencies (all very important for breaking into the world of financial services, consulting, etc.) and include an example of a ‘basic’ bullet point and then improve it so it’s more ‘advanced’:

1. Analytical skills

2. Leadership

3. Attention to detail

4. Interpersonal skills

5. Communication

6. Time management

7. Project management

1. Analytical Skills

Basic: "I am adept at analysing data."

Advanced: "My coursework involved in-depth data analysis, utilising statistical tools to dissect trends, interpret results, and derive insights crucial for academic projects."

2. Leadership

Basic: "I have led a team project."

Advanced: "As the team lead for our university's entrepreneurship club, I guided peers in ideation sessions, allocated tasks, and coordinated activities, resulting in successful fundraising initiatives."

3. Attention to Detail

Basic: "I am detail-oriented."

Advanced: "In my research assistant role, my meticulousness was evident in conducting precise literature reviews, ensuring citation accuracy, and maintaining methodological rigour in experiments."

4. Interpersonal Skills

Basic: "I work well with others."

Advanced: "Throughout group assignments and extracurricular projects, my ability to foster a collaborative atmosphere, listen actively, and integrate diverse viewpoints has been instrumental."

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5. Communication

Basic: "I am a good communicator."

Advanced: "My role as a student ambassador honed my communication skills, engaging with prospective students, delivering presentations, and adapting messaging to resonate with varied audiences."

6. Time Management

Basic: "I can manage my time effectively."

Advanced: "Balancing coursework, part-time jobs, and volunteering commitments showcased my time management abilities, consistently meeting deadlines while maintaining academic excellence."

7. Project Management

Basic: "I managed a project successfully."

Advanced: "Leading the campus sustainability initiative involved project planning, stakeholder coordination, and overseeing resource allocation, resulting in increased awareness and active participation."

Always remember to give context, and back up anything you say with a relevant, or even irrelevant, example. If you want to go further, you can always include statistics and data within your bullet points to display any results you achieved (this might need it’s own separate newsletter issue in the future) - after all, these industries are results-driven. You can use these examples for both your CV / Résumé or your cover letter.

If you really wanted to, you can also use them to flex in interviews. Just make sure you don’t sound too scripted when saying them out loud. Practise them in the mirror beforehand.

Last but not least, use the above examples as inspiration to come up with examples for other key competency skills that investment banks and consulting firms look for in candidates such as listening skills, creativity, problem solving, critical thinking, conflict resolution, etc. The more you do, the better you’ll get.

Implement ‘advanced’ bullet points in your CV instead of ‘basic’ ones and you'll be miles ahead of other candidates when it comes to spring-week, internship and graduate scheme applications.

Thanks for reading and I hope you found this issue helpful.

I’d love it if you could let me know what you thought of this email using the poll in the green box below. Thanks and see you next week!

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