Building Your Resume for the Finance Industry
Last Updated: December 29, 2025
As you begin the recruiting process for internships or early-career full-time finance roles, your resume will be your most important document. Whether you’re applying to investment banks, consulting firms, private equity shops, or corporate finance teams, your resume can determine whether you earn an interview, and it will be used as your foundation for interview discussions.
Not only are resumes typically required as part of the application process, but they can also be vital in networking. It’s common to attach a resume when reaching out to professionals or to provide a hard copy at an in-person event.
Before you begin networking with professionals, you should have a well-formatted, error-free resume. It should give the reader a good idea of who you are, what you’ve accomplished, and your experiences. Your resume isn’t meant to tell your life story, it’s meant to earn attention in a crowded applicant pool. The goal isn’t to be flashy. The goal is to avoid mistakes, show impact, and stay competitive.
How do you make sure your resume accomplishes all of these goals? The following tips can help you craft an impressive finance resume that meets industry standards.
Resume Formatting Standards for Finance
Your resume should be:
One page
Black and white only
Simple, readable font (Times New Roman, Calibri, Cambria)
10-point font or larger
Consistent spacing, alignment, and formatting
No tables, graphics, or photos
In highly competitive finance recruiting, small errors quickly move candidates to the bottom of the list. Attention to detail is non-negotiable.
Header
The header section of a resume should be clear, professional, and minimal.. It includes general information about yourself, including your:
Full Name: largest font on the document
Phone Number: formatted as (XXX) XXX-XXXX
Email Address: make sure it is appropriate
LinkedIn URL: optional, but recommended
Avoid decorative styling and avoid profile photos. Finance resumes prioritize clarity over creativity.
Education
The second section should consist of your academic experiences. By the time you are a sophomore, you should have enough content in this section to omit your high school experience. However, if you went to a well-known private school with numerous alumni in the finance industry that you plan to network with, it may be beneficial to keep it on your resume.
University name and specific college
Degree type (BS, BA, BBA, etc.)
Major(s), minor(s)
Graduation year
GPA (if competitive)
Honors, scholarships, Dean’s List
If you have taken any supplemental finance courses (such as Adventis’ FMC® Program), this is a good place to include them. Advanced technical training demonstrates motivation, preparation, and skill development, all qualities employers seek.
Professional Experience
The third section of the resume should be your professional experience. This section should include previous jobs or internships.
In this section, you will want to include all jobs that you think are relevant to finance. This could include finance-related internships, but also other non-finance-related internships and jobs. For each of these experiences, include:
Company name
Job title
Dates of employment
2–5 strong bullet points per role
How to Write Strong Finance Bullets
Use the SAR (Situation, Action, Result) method to generate your bullet points and the stories behind them. Generally, the Action and Result are what make up resume bullet points. Then, when you get asked to speak about that experience in an interview, you will elaborate by mentioning the Situation, Action, and Result, typically in more words than just the bullet points you wrote on the resume.
Start with a strong action verb
Explain what you did
Show the result or impact
Example: “Generated an acquisition opportunity presentation to present to CEOs of current portfolio companies.”
When the candidate gets asked about this question in an interview, they might elaborate on why this presentation was created (Situation), all the steps they took to create the presentation (Action), and what the outcome of delivering the presentation was (Result).
Quantify Whenever Possible
Finance professionals love numbers and value measurable results. The more that you can include numbers that show your impact from your previous experiences, the greater impression you will leave on the reader. Include:
Revenue
Dollar values
Percentages
Rankings
Volume (customers served, data analyzed, deals reviewed)
Example: “Sourced over 1,200 potential investment targets in the wealth management and environmental services industries.”
It is typical to have two or three professional experiences on your resume before you begin recruiting for finance internships. You don’t want one experience with 14 bullet points, and you don’t want eight experiences with one bullet point each. Your resume should elaborate on a few of your most impressive professional experiences.
Campus Involvement & Leadership
The fourth section is typically all about your campus involvement. This section can include any student organizations, case competitions, finance clubs, leadership roles, or adjacently related events that are relevant to the job. This section shows your:
Leadership
Teamwork
Initiative
This section should follow the same format as the professional experience (organization name, position name, and dates involved). You should also write your bullet points the same way as you did for professional experience.
Additional Information
The final section of the resume should be reserved for any other items that you feel are relevant and want the reviewer to know about you. This section often includes:
Interests
Hobbies
Certifications
Technical Skills
It is always helpful to include interests, as they are a way for the interviewer to have a better understanding of who you are as a person, humanizing your profile. Interviewers may also be more drawn to your resume if you have similar interests or spark an interview conversation.
What If You Don’t Have Finance Experience Yet?
Many students worry they can’t compete without finance internships. In reality, most entry-level candidates begin with non-finance roles. And that’s okay. Roles in food service, retail, landscaping, lifeguarding, and camp counseling all demonstrate work ethic, attention to detail, teamwork, communication, and the ability to perform under pressure. These translate directly into finance success. What matters is how you frame the experience, not just the job title.
ATS Optimization (Applicant Tracking Systems)
Many firms use automated resume screening. To improve visibility:
Match language from job descriptions
Use consistent industry terminology
Avoid tables and graphics
Include technical keywords (valuation, modeling, Excel, collaboration, financial analysis)
Your resume must work for both software screening and human review.
Final Finance Resume Tips
Never exaggerate your role or contributions
Never submit a resume with errors
Keep formatting consistent
Prioritize relevance over volume
White space improves readability
Tailor your resume to each role
When building your resume, you should always be truthful about the work you did. You may be tempted to build up your experiences to be more than what you did, but it is common to be asked about these bullet points in the interviews. You do not want to get caught in a situation where you need to make up an answer on the spot.
Additionally, your resume should be error-free. There should be no formatting, spelling, or grammatical mistakes anywhere on your resume. This is a document that is meant to impress potential future employers, and the last thing you want to do is give them a reason to overlook your resume because of errors. Candidates have been known to not get an interview because of a single typo.
Ready to Build Your Resume?
Adventis works with students nationwide who have successfully recruited for competitive finance roles. We have used our experience to create two professional resume templates for you to use.
Download the Adventis Resume Templates and start building your resume with confidence.