How to get a Job in Finance
Many students looking to go for a career in finance, whether it be banking, investing, investment banking, or various other roles, often struggle to find the right footing when looking for their first role.
For those of you looking to get your career in finance off to a strong start, we’ve prepared a guide to introduce what you can do to snag your first offer letter in the finance industry.
This guide will start by introducing how to work on your resume, then discuss how to find and apply for finance roles, and, finally, how to succeed in your interview.
The Resume
The resume is your introduction the recruiter. Resumes are often the most common pain point for those starting off in their careers, as it’s difficult to gauge what a good resume should contain, and whether you can be confident that it will make an impression on the recruiter.
Great resume formats are available everywhere, but often, simple Word templates can suffice. Here are some resources that provide key ideas on what your resume should look like, and keywords you can focus on:
We’ve gathered some tips from people working in finance (investment banking, financial consulting) to see what advice they can provide in improving your resume:
- Your resume should look professional but not too bland — keep it tasteful by putting your achievements and experiences at the top, while keeping miscellaneous information out of focus
- Prioritize highlighting experiences closer to the job you’re aiming for — leadership roles, operations and logistics, investment-related experiences (projects, extracurriculars, competitions) are all great ways to demonstrate this
- Keep your quantitative / analytical skills but reduce the use of technical jargon. Focus more on the business outcome — the “so what” rather than the technical details of your achievements
(i.e. Did X to accomplish/solve/achieve Y)
(e.g. Built risk models to analyze company’s mutual fund investments) - Include your personal interests if you’d like — it can demonstrate why you’re a diverse candidate for the company
- Preferably, only put your cumulative GPA (cGPA) if its 3.5+. Overall, finance firms do care more about GPA than most engineering firms. They are more understanding if you’re coming from STEM, but you do not want them to have negative connotations while going though the rest of your resume.
In addition to a resume, we recommend building a LinkedIn profile, if you haven’t already, in order to create an online resume. LinkedIn has become a useful tool for recruiters to find candidates online and even search for job opportunities. You can treat it as your ‘professional’ profile to show off to recruiters and hiring managers! Check out our article on building your online presence here:
Finding Opportunities & Networking
For many people starting off in the industry, they have to rely on multiple forms of job-hunting in order to secure their first role. This often means simultaneously applying online and reaching out to individuals working at firms.
Most often, finance roles can often be found on various firms’ websites and through University of Toronto’s career portal (clnx.utoronto.ca). LinkedIn’s job portal is also a great resource for finding these roles online. Companies will often focus their outreach efforts online by listing roles and posting invitations to conferences and career events.
Networking is a different ballgame, as it requires approaching recruiters and firm employees directly, whether it be in a professional or casual setting. Students often do this by asking for ‘coffee chats’ where they discuss steps for building their career and asking for tips in finding opportunities in the finance industry. From these chats, you can often take the chance to ask about roles available for students in your position and you’ll often receive advice and details on how to apply directly to the firm. We recommend reaching out to people within your personal network, UofT alumni, or people you’ve met at events and career fairs as a great starting point for finding people to chat with. For more information on networking, take a look at our articles on networking at the career fair and our guide to networking:
For University of Toronto students, we suggest attending the career fair to meet face-to-face with company hiring teams! Here, you have an opportunity to quickly chat with a recruiter, while also extending invitations for coffee chats and connecting online.
Interviewing
The interview experience varies based on what specific roles you are aiming for. Examples of roles include Sales & Trading Analyst, Quantitative Trading Analyst, Data Scientist, and Machine Learning Developer. For those with a desire to go for roles requiring a more technical background, such as quantitative analyst or data science roles, you’ll probably be expected to have a decent background in programming and software algorithms/architecture. For those looking for more traditional finance roles, such as banking, and trading, you may be assessed based on your familiarity with the current market, as well as your critical thinking skills.
Interviews are often split into multiple rounds, the first few which are traditionally done by phone, and the remainder in a face-to-face setting. While the format will vary from company-to-company, there are some common areas which you can study in order to perform well for these interviews:
- Pitch-a-stock: interview format where you’ll be asked to choose a stock in current market and pitch it to the interviewer. Understand the pros and cons of the company you are pitching and demonstrate your critical thinking and reasoning for why you chose that stock. Here’s a good guide that provides a way to format your stock pitch for your interview.
- Understanding of financial markets: prepare for situations where you’ll be quizzed on financial markets and securities. Prepare to discuss 1 macro event related to current affairs (e.g. impact of Covid on interest rates, market during the COVID-19 pandemic, effects of recession, etc.) and 1–2 micro events (e.g. specific stocks) that you feel comfortable providing recommendations on.
These will be tailored to the level of experience they expect you to have. If you say you follow the markets really closely or have participated in stock pitch competitions before, they will ask you more technical finance questions. If you have no experience in finance, they may ask you more basic finance questions (i.e. what does the Central Bank do, what are the purpose of bonds and stocks, what are ETFs?). - Technical Interviews: for technical roles, be prepared to answer technical questions. These can vary from coding questions to statistical ones.
Check out our guide for applying and interviewing for tech companies. - Behavioral Interviews: why do you want to work in finance? Can you perform well within a team? How well can you communicate with your manager and team members? These are all questions that are commonly asked to assess how well you will fit within a firm and whether the team will enjoy working with you. You’ll definitely want to make the best impression possible for your team and company before joining them as a new employee. Check out our interviewing guide for some tips.
Resources
Here are some additional resources that you can take a look at:
- https://jobs.rbc.com/ca/en/students-graduates
- Financial Career Options for Professionals: there are many career options (some more technical than others, so we encourage you to explore and find the roles that suit you best!)
- Resources to keep up with major news & market trends: The Economist (can access for free through U of T Library Online), Bloomberg News, CNBC, and Finimize.
- For every word that you do not understand in Finance articles or readings, look up the definition on Investopedia. Investopedia gives very concise definitions and examples.
