Nobody reads your CV. Somebody screens it. The difference between those two verbs explains why strong candidates get cut in under a minute, and why average ones sometimes slip through.
I spent fifteen years in investment banking, most recently as an Executive Director in TMT at Nomura in Hong Kong, before that in M&A at BNP Paribas in Paris and London. Across those years I screened thousands of student CVs for spring weeks, summer internships and off-cycle seats. For most of them, I can tell you honestly: thirty seconds. Sometimes less.
This article is that screen, narrated. Where the eye goes, in what order, what ends the read, and what earns the second one.
What actually happens to your CV
For a popular seat in London or Hong Kong, a bank receives several thousand applications for a class measured in dozens. The people screening are analysts and associates doing it after their real work, or seniors doing it between calls. Nobody is reading top to bottom with a coffee. They are working through a stack, and the only efficient way to work through a stack is to look for reasons to say no.
That sounds brutal. It is also the only honest framing, and once you accept it, the design brief for your CV becomes clear: it is not a biography, it is a document engineered to survive elimination.
The 30-second scan, in the order it happens
The eye moves in a fixed pattern. Mine did, and so did every colleague's I ever compared notes with.
- School and grades, two to three seconds. Which institution, which programme, and whether a grade is shown. If the grade is missing, I assume the worst. More on that below.
- Most recent experience, five seconds. Firm and title first, in that order. A recognisable brand or a credible role buys the bullets a reading. An unclear title (“project contributor”) buys nothing.
- A scan down the bullets for numbers, ten seconds. I am not reading sentences at this point. I am looking for figures: percentages, deal sizes, team sizes, rankings, anything quantified. Numbers are where the eye stops.
- Additional information, five seconds. Languages with levels, technical skills, anything that changes staffing maths (a candidate with fluent Mandarin or German is a different asset).
Then the verdict. If nothing stopped the eye, the CV goes on the wrong pile, and no cover letter rescues it. The entire game is placing things that stop the eye exactly where it will pass.
The five instant cuts
Some flaws do not lower a score. They end the read. These are the five I applied, and I never met a screener who did not apply some version of them.
- A typo, anywhere. Attention to detail is not a nice-to-have in this job; it is the job. A junior who lets an error through on the one document they had unlimited time to perfect will let one through at 2am on a live deck. One typo can end the read on its own. Tense drift (mixing past and present in the same role) counts.
- More than one page. At student level there is no experience on earth that justifies page two. A second page says you cannot prioritise, which is itself a screening answer.
- Responsibilities instead of achievements. “Responsible for supporting the team” and “assisted with research” describe a chair, not a person. They tell me what the role was supposed to involve, not what you actually did with it.
- No numbers anywhere. A CV with zero figures reads as a CV with zero results. Even a society role or a university project produces countable output if you did anything at all.
- Formatting drift. Dates aligned differently between entries, bullet styles changing, fonts jumping a point size. It looks small. It reads as carelessness, and carelessness is the one trait the screen exists to catch.
Notice what is not on that list. A non-target school is not an instant cut; strong bullets and grades rescue it constantly. A CV without a bank brand on it yet is not a cut; that is what internships are for. The five above are different because they are choices, and the screen treats your choices as evidence.
What a bullet that survives looks like
Every bullet on the page should be built on the same formula: strong verb + what you did + how + quantified result. Not because a formula is elegant, but because each component answers the screener's next question before it is asked.
Before: “Was responsible for helping the team with market research.”
After: “Built comparable set of 12 European software names across EV/EBITDA and revenue growth screens; flagged 2 mispriced targets, both shortlisted by the deal team.”
Before: “Helped organise events for the finance society.”
After: “Ran 6 speaker events for a 400-member finance society; grew average attendance 45% year on year.”
The first version of each is a job description. The second is a person I can picture on a desk. One note on the numbers themselves: round soft figures to whole numbers (45%, not 44.7%), and keep precision where finance convention demands it (8.5% WACC, 12.0x). Screeners notice when the shorthand is native.
Grades: show them or hide them
Show a grade whenever it clears the bar the reader expects: a GPA of 3.5 and above, a 2:1 or better in the UK, a mention bien or better in France, a top-decile rank anywhere. Add an A-level or Baccalaureat line only if it is genuinely standout; otherwise it spends space a bullet could use.
If the grade is weak, understand what hiding it does: nothing. An absent grade is read as a poor one, every time. The better play is to show your strongest true measure (a rank, a final-year average, a thesis mark), compensate visibly in the experience section, and prepare a clean one-line answer for the interview, because the question is coming either way.
What I almost never cut for
Two things students over-worry about. First, interests. Done properly, they are the most useful line on the page, because interviewers use them to open conversations. “Travelling, reading, music” is a cut in spirit: it says nothing. “Marathon running (3:20), chess (club level), natural wine” gives three hooks and one number. Specific and true beats impressive and vague.
Second, a slow start. A light first year with a visibly rising trajectory reads as growth, not weakness. The screen judges the shape of the story, and a rising line is a good shape.
FAQ
Should an investment banking CV be one page?
Yes. At student and graduate level, one page, everywhere, no exceptions.
Do I need a photo on my CV?
No for London and US processes, and I would remove it for any English-language application. Some continental European markets historically included one; if you are applying in Paris in French, follow local convention, but the London version of your CV carries no photo.
What if I have no finance experience yet?
Build a Leadership & Finance Projects section: student investment funds, case competitions, job simulations, quantified society roles. Write those bullets on exactly the same formula. Screeners hire evidence of the traits, not the logo.
Do screeners really spend only thirty seconds?
On the first pass, yes, and often less. The CV's only job is to earn the second read. Design for the scan, and the careful reader takes care of itself.
If you want the screen run on your own CV, live, with the eye that used to do it for real, that is the first thing we do in the IBD Recruiting Review: one hour, one to one, an honest diagnostic and a plan.
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Former Executive Director in TMT Investment Banking at Nomura and M&A banker at BNP Paribas. Top-rated Head Mentor on Wall Street Oasis with 300+ sessions. About
