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What, exactly, is wrong with my CV (7)?

25 June 2009

"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.

 

Comments (41)

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• like this  comment

  Jlv 3 days ago

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• 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!

  trader hater 10 Sep 2009

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• 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

  PanosDoritis 23 Jul 2009

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• 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.

  bc 27 Jun 2009

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• Your CV is poo-poo. Come and clean my pee-pee.

  Fed the Shed 26 Jun 2009

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• 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

  neil 26 Jun 2009

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• 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.

  Tom 26 Jun 2009

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• 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...

  Truth Hurts 26 Jun 2009

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• 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

  Baxter Basics 26 Jun 2009

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• You worked in HR so you should be able to answer the question yourself.

  The Recruiter 26 Jun 2009

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