The definitive guide to an engineering CV in banking

Fancy your chances of becoming an engineer at Goldman Sachs or another top bank? Even if you're the perfect candidate for the role, a poor first impression can get in the way of that. 

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Your CV is the first thing a banking recruiter is going to see of you, but with AI  flooding the market with competent-looking CVs, how do you actually stand out?

Don't forget the basics 

There’s no point curating your CV for a banking technology role if you can’t get the fundamentals right:

• Save the file as a PDF. Please. 
• Make sure your contact info and links to GitHub etc. are accurate. 
• Keep a consistent structure when providing locations and dates for work experience and education. 
• No photos. Pretty please. 
• No confidential information, for your own sake. 
• Don't overuse bold, italic or coloured text. 

Don’t submit a fully AI generated resume 

Everyone is using AI to assist their application process in one way or another, but giving it total control hampers your chances. Kimberly Roe, head of change and transformation IT recruitment at Huxley, told us last month that she receives roughly 800 CVs per day, of which three quarters have used AI to help “write the CV or… send their CV to absolutely everything.”

Fully AI-generated resumes are a faux pas. “How can we actually know anything about you?” Roe said. “It’s not your own work.” Applicants submitting CVs in this way are seen as “not legitimate.”

Roe told us that cover letters are becoming much more important because of AI-generated CVs. They were also important before; Goldman Sachs recruiters said in 2023 that they “always read cover letters… they set you apart.”

AI CVs are easy to spot, as they all describe roles and tasks in a nearly identical way. If you want to beat that, you need to understand the key frameworks yourself so you can apply your own spin.

X-Y-Z vs S-T-A-R for bullet points 

Google recruiters suggest the X-Y-Z method for constructing your bullets. This means that you should say you "Accomplished [X], as measured by [Y], by doing [Z]." A simple and effective method for sure, but not the only one.

The S-T-A-R method is more commonly associated with interview processes rather than CVs. With this method, you establish a [S]ituation and define the [T]ask you were given, then expand on your course of [A]ction and the [R]esult you achieved.

Which is right for you? It depends on whether you value the result or the context more. For example, when applying for a low-latency C++ role, you might find it more important to highlight the outcome if you reduced latency by a significant degree using X-Y-Z:

• Reduced tick-to-trade latency of trading systems to sub-5 microseconds by implementing lock-free queues in C++.

 When providing more broad summaries of your work, S-T-A-R may be more appropriate to highlight context:

• Promoted to lead engineer for tooling team, oversaw rollout of proprietary smart-pointer library used by 70% of critical systems. 

Success is hard to measure in engineering, so you should choose your metrics wisely. Chip Huyen, a former Nvidia deep learning research engineer, said in a now-deleted hiring guide that "not all [metrics which] are quantifiable are impactful” and that you should focus on the ones that delivered clear business value. Kirsty Tutton, head of technology at finance recruitment firm Selby Jennings, previously told us banks like examples of "large-scale migration" or "increasing the speed of performance." 

How recruiters actually read a CV 

One senior quant and technology headhunter in New York, speaking anonymously, told us that they “don’t even consider keywords” when reading a CV. Instead, the first pass of a resume “considers the person’s pedigree,” and searches for “markers of excellence.” At first glance, recruiters are more focused on where you studied, what prestigious firms you’ve worked for and whether you’ve received any awards. 

The second pass searches for whether you have “done relevant work.” This is where most candidates fail. A senior banking technology recruiter, also speaking anonymously, said that the majority of applicants “just don’t fit the job. Maybe you could do it, but you don’t have the unique exact skills banks are looking for.” 

For example, everyone knows Python, but few know PyTorch to a professional standard and fewer still have experience doing so in a highly regulated field like banking. The recruiter said that banks will occasionally make an exception and “take a chance if the candidate is young,” but there’s usually “very little leeway given.”

You also must mention the range of asset classes you've worked across; Tutton said that banks "sometimes discount CVs on the basis they are not showing particular asset class experience.” Tutton also said "banking clients like to see the tech stack used for each role as opposed to a big list."

If your role headers look like this: 

Goldman Sachs
Associate Python Engineer

Consider changing them to something like this:

Goldman Sachs
Associate - US Equities Trading Technology
Python (NumPy, Pandas) | Apache Kafka | kdb+ | Linux

Don't shorten it just for the sake of it 

A one-page CV is the gold standard, short and sweet for recruiters. But just because you can cut it down to one page doesn't mean doing so will improve your odds.

Huyen said she would not reject CVs for being over one page, but strongly advises against it. “Rarely do I see a candidate whose best foot forward can't be contained within one page." 

Even for those of the utmost seniority, she warns that a longer resume comes with "more chance that your biggest strengths will be buried among less important details," and that a long-winded CV without focus "shows the lack of judgement for what is important"

Can't keep your CV to a page? Try removing references, soft skills and indentation. A well-chosen font can make a significant difference also, but make sure whatever you pick is easy to read.

An example of a well optimized CV comes from Goldman Sachs’ recruitment team in 2023. 

Be honest about your "expertise" 

Banking is a career all about progression and growth. You will be provided the opportunity to improve your skills, but you must be honest about which skills you're actually an expert in, and which you've only got a bit of knowledge

An easy way of being honest, suggested by Tutton, is "offering a ranking out of five in order of skills within specific languages."

Honesty is important beyond just technical expertise. Leadership roles, for example, vary from title to title and Tutton says it's important to specify if your role was in 'people management' or a 'product lead.' Furthermore, job titles can also mean very different things from one industry to another (Vice President being a particularly egrigious example) so being honest about your responsibilities in a role helps clear up confusion.

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