by Girl Banker

Arial.

Where did I get this?

I worked for a top flight American investment bank where they carried out a large client survey in deciding how to format their presentations.

Presented with many different fonts, clients found presentations in Arial most appealing. Indeed, Arial has a veryclean-cut, professional look and it looks great in a business setting.

In an attempt to fit all information on one page, I have in the past advised people to use Arial Narrow.

​by Girl Banker, from Giraffe CVs

If you've just graduated and still have not found a job you will be furiously trying to get your CV out so that you can secure that all important position. Make sure you are not guilty of any of the below "crimes":

​On Friday the 5th of July I had the pleasure of talking to four classes at King Edmund School in Essex about entrepreneurship and the world of investment banking. Over the course of the day I spoke to over 100 students and I loved the energy and enthusiasm they all had. The students were great and the staff were also just as fun to interact with.

After my third class two students even stayed back to chat with me for 20 minutes about all the stuff they are doing right now and the things that they want to achieve in their lives. These two guys were so young yet so focused on their goals.

It was great fun for me and I certainly think I planted a few seeds.

by Girl Banker

In most countries, a resume is exactly the same thing as a CV. The two are really only distinguished in the USA.

In the USA a resume is a more condensed version of a CV. Furthermore, it's only people in academia in the USA that write CVs, most other people only need a resume. 

One or two pages is recommended for a resume (or CV).

My personal preference is to see resumes/CVs of one page. 

Why is one page better?

Most people nowadays have a very short attention span. If you give them a long resume/CV, they very likely won't read it properly, they will skim over it.

Even if your resume/CV is two pages, get the most important information onto the first side because it is more than likely that it will get the most attention.

Academic CVs

These should be two or three pages in length. They are much more detailed in nature as such, you can't fit it all onto one side.

I contributed to the below post by Beecher Tuttle of efinancialcareers.com.

A cover letter is an opportunity to differentiate yourself from a stack of similar resumes. But more so, it’s a chance for hiring managers to weed out candidates who show poor judgment. Ask any recruiter or hiring manager – a bad cover letter hurts you more than a great cover letter improves your chances.

Below are the nine most common and detrimental mistakes made by candidates when crafting a cover letter.

It’s Too Long

Length is the first thing recruiters and hiring managers mention when it comes to cover letter errors. Decision-makers don’t have the time or patience to read a novel, said Roy Cohen, a finance-focused career coach and author of “The Wall Street Professionals’ Survival Guide.”

One hiring manager at Barclays said that he spends between 15 and 30 seconds reviewing a cover letter, and will completely ignore those that look are too long. Mostly, he spends the time scanning for obvious errors that help him shorten his stack of applicants.

“People skim cover letters, said Hallie Crawford, an Atlanta-based career coach. “Make your cover letter skimmable.”

A good cover letter should be made up of three fairly short paragraphs, according to experts.

READ THE REST

Related:

• Ten words that should never appear on a banking resume.
• Confessions of a Recruiter: What Candidates Should Watch out For

by Girl Banker
​
Options are financial products that derive their value from a change in the value of another underlying product. Options can be bought on many underlying products including but not limited to:

• A share price (i.e. the market value of a company)
• An interest rate
• An exchange rate
• A corporate or government bond
• Real commodities, e.g. oil, gold, wheat, pork bellies

An option is a type of derivative. A derivative derives its value from a change in the value of another underlying product. All options give the buyer the right but not the obligation to do a given thing at a given time. 

Essentially, options can be viewed as insurance contracts. You get paid if a certain undesirable event happens. The price or cost of an option is called the premium.

Extracted from To Become an Investment Banker

by Girl Banker, from Giraffe CVs

I love this infographic produced by Giraffe CVs. Follow these tips and you're guaranteed at least an interview. From there, it's up to you!

by Girl Banker 

All businesses are owned by a private individual or group of private individuals when they start out. After a certain point, a company can choose to raise equity capital from the public by listing on a stock exchange in an initial public offering.

Once shares have been listed on a stock exchange they are available to anyone (even you and me), to buy and sell in the secondary market.

Money raised in an IPO goes straight to a company from investors. However, after those shares are listed, they are bought and sold between investors and the company does not benefit from these secondary market transactions.

For example, if I bought shares in LinkedIn as a private investor in the IPO when they were listed on the New York Stock Exchange on 19 May 2011, I would have paid USD83 for them. Demand was very hot for these shares; if I had sold them to you the day after the IPO, I could have sold them for as much as USD107 and bagged the difference (USD24, in this case) as profit. The shares were undervalued at the point of listing.

All day long people buy and sell shares: high demand to buy shares pushes the price up; a high supply of shares offered for sale forces the price down.

The IPO process is governed by a lot of documents and conventions. To guide it through the process a company hires specialists; two key specialists are an investment bank and a law firm.

The investment bank knows the process inside and out and it has access to a list of investors that may be interested in buying the listing company’s shares. The lawyers understand and draft the transaction documentation. Together they produce an IPO prospectus, a legal document filed with regulators detailing any reasonable information a prospective investor needs to make the decision of whether or not to buy the shares being offered.

Extracted from: To Become an Investment Banker

​Have a technical interview lined up in Asset Management? Then make sure you can answer each of the below questions competently. Your job depends on it!

1.    What is value investing and how is it different to growth investing?

2.    What's the formula for free cash flow?

3.    What is the difference between net income and free cash flow?

4.    Describe 3 important ratios used in value investing including their formula.

5.    What traits might an undervalued stock exhibit?

6.    What sort of information would you expect to see on a balance sheet?

7.    Explain one important way in which a balance sheet is different from both an income statement and a cash flow statement.

8.     What is WACC?

9.     What is the capital asset pricing model?

10.   What is leverage?

11.   Do you know any leverage ratios? Which ones?

12.   Please describe one or more studies that validate the virtues of value investing?

13.   Tell me about a stock that might be undervalued in the S&P500 and why.

14.   Tell me about one key proponent of value investing.

Book a mock interview to ace that interview!

Best of luck!!