Investment Banking Resume & CV Template 2026: One-Page Format and Two Complete Examples
Last updated: October 2026 · 5 required sections · 2 example CVs (London student, New York lateral Analyst) · 6 deal-bullet formulas (M&A, LevFin, ECM, Restructuring, Markets, Asset Management) · 5 bulge brackets + 8 elite boutiques
- One page at Analyst, Associate and VP level, in a fixed order: contact line, education, experience, deal experience if you have live deals, then leadership, skills and languages. Plain text in one serif font at 10-11pt with 0.5-inch margins; no photo, no columns, no graphics.
- Every deal bullet carries four things: deal type and size, the counterparty or sector, the model or document you personally built (three-statement model, LBO, DCF, CIM, management presentation) and the outcome. 'Supported the deal team on an M&A process' tells a banker nothing.
- Education sits near the top because it is screened first: GPA to two decimals on a US resume, degree classification and A-level grades on a UK CV. A strong grade left off is read as a weak one.
- A CV for London, Hong Kong or Sydney and a resume for New York are the same one-page document; only the education detail and the word on the file change. Use the posting's own word.
- Templates all share one layout, so the layout does not differentiate you. Download one of the two complete examples below as a Word file, then rewrite the top third and the order of your deals for each division you apply to.
Investment banking resumes are screened by VPs, Directors, and MDs in under 45 seconds. The bar is high, the conventions are specific, and the difference between a Goldman M&A resume and a BlackRock Investment-Analyst resume is not cosmetic — it is structural. This guide covers the exact page structure recruiters expect, the deal-experience bullet formulas that pass bulge-bracket and elite-boutique screens, the vocabulary you need per division, and the common reasons otherwise strong candidates get rejected at CV review.
Jump to the example CVs (each downloads as an editable Word template) or the CV vs resume differences, read it top-to-bottom if you are preparing Analyst, Associate, VP or lateral applications, or jump to the firm you are targeting — Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Citi, BlackRock — for firm-specific tailoring.
The one-page IB resume: exact structure
Every section in this order. No deviations for Analyst, Associate, or VP applications. The banker reviewing your CV reads top-down and expects to find the information in the canonical position.
Investment banking CV template: two complete examples
Both follow the structure above. The first is a London-format CV for a student applying to Summer Analyst programmes; the second is a New York-format resume for an Analyst with two years of deals moving laterally. Every personal and client detail is a placeholder, and the numbers show the shape of a quantified bullet, not a real transaction. Each one downloads as a Word file already set in one serif font at 11pt with half-inch margins and no tables or columns; replace every line with your own.
[City] · [email] · [phone] · linkedin.com/in/[your-name] · Right to work: [status] · Languages: English (native), [language] (professional)
Education
- Predicted First Class; second-year average 74% (Corporate Finance 78%, Econometrics 76%, Financial Accounting 72%).
- Dissertation: leverage and deal premiums in UK take-privates, using public offer documents for 40 transactions.
- Relevant modules: Corporate Finance, Financial Accounting, Econometrics, Mergers and Acquisitions.
- Awards: [Scholarship], one of 15 awarded across the faculty; Dean's List 2025.
Mathematics A*, Further Mathematics A, Economics A*. Extended Project (A*): why the 2008 UK bank rescues were priced as they were.
Experience
- Rotated through M&A, Leveraged Finance and ECM; one of four in a cohort of 30 invited to fast-track Summer Analyst interviews.
- Built a trading-comparables table for eight listed UK consumer brands and presented an EV/EBITDA range to a Vice President.
- Prepared a two-page profile of a FTSE 250 retailer for a mock pitch; the team's recommendation was scored first of six.
- Built the precedent-transactions analysis (22 deals) and the football-field valuation page for the pitch on a [sector] business with about £40m of revenue.
- Drafted six pages of the information memorandum's market and competition section from company data and industry reports.
- Researched 60 potential trade buyers from company filings and narrowed the long list to the 18 the deal team approached.
- Trained four new staff on tills and stock processes; the store ranked second of 14 in the region for customer-service scores.
- Run the weekly cash-up and stock reconciliation for a £25,000-a-week store, with no variances raised at the last two audits.
Leadership & activities
- Lead a team of 12 analysts; introduced a two-page pitch template and a weekly model review for the society's paper portfolio.
- Second place of 40 teams in [Competition] stock pitch with a long thesis on a UK mid-cap industrial.
- Write the society's monthly note on announced UK deals over £100m, sent to 900 members.
- Managed a £38,000 annual budget and renegotiated the boathouse hire, saving £4,500 a year.
- Organised the club's first alumni dinner (140 guests), raising £9,000 for new equipment.
Skills & interests
Technical: Excel (three-statement model, DCF, LBO from the [Course] training), PowerPoint, Capital IQ, Python (pandas).
Certifications: Bloomberg Market Concepts; [Course] financial modelling.
Interests: [one specific interest you can talk about for two minutes].
[City, State] · [email] · [phone] · linkedin.com/in/[your-name]
Education
GPA 3.72 / 4.00 (major 3.86). Honors: [scholarship or award].
- Relevant coursework: Corporate Finance, Financial Statement Analysis, Valuation, Mergers & Acquisitions.
- Portfolio Manager, Student Investment Fund: ran the industrials sleeve of a $250K fund and beat its sector benchmark by 3.1% over the year.
Experience
- Staffed on six live sell-side and buy-side M&A mandates and nine pitches in industrial technology and business services; ranked in the top tier of the Analyst class at year-end review.
- Built the operating model, DCF and LBO sensitivities used in management presentations to 14 financial sponsors and 6 strategic buyers.
- Drafted the CIM business section and the management-presentation storyline for a $420M carve-out of an industrial distribution business.
- Screened 120 targets for a sponsor's add-on acquisition strategy and built the ranked list behind three management meetings.
- Trained four incoming Analysts on the group's model template and data-room review process.
- Built comparable-companies and precedent-transactions analyses for two pitches; received a full-time return offer.
- Drafted company profiles and the industry overview section of a pitch to a family-owned manufacturer.
- Ranked first of 12 Summer Analysts in the group's end-of-summer review.
Selected transaction experience
- Built the three-statement model and buyer-by-buyer LBO analysis; drafted the CIM's financial overview; process ran to 11 indications of interest and closed at 10.4x adjusted EBITDA.
- Ran the data room and the buyer Q&A log for 14 parties through the second round.
- Ran the accretion/dilution and synergy case for the client's board materials; coordinated confirmatory diligence across 3 advisers and 400+ data-room requests.
- Built the sources-and-uses and pro forma capitalisation pages for the announcement materials.
- Built the debt-capacity and covenant analysis; prepared the lender presentation and managed Q&A with nine lenders.
- Prepared the ratings-agency presentation with the sponsor's CFO; the notes priced 25 bps inside initial guidance.
- Wrote the teaser and the CIM's financial section; the process paused after first-round bids came in below the seller's valuation.
- Re-ran the valuation on updated forecasts for a relaunch planned next year.
Skills, certifications & interests
Licences: Series 79 and Series 63.
Technical: Excel (operating, LBO and merger models), PowerPoint, FactSet, Capital IQ, PitchBook.
Leadership: campus recruiting lead for [Bank] at [University] for two cycles; interviewed 40 candidates.
Interests: [one specific interest].
Investment banking CV (London) vs resume (New York): what changes
Same one-page document, same section order, same deal bullets. Five details differ by office. Applying to a London spring week or summer internship? The UK investment banking CV guide has a first-year spring week CV as a Word template and what each programme reads for.
Bulge bracket vs elite boutique: 7 screening differences
Bulge brackets (Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Citi, Bank of America, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, UBS) and elite boutiques (Evercore, Centerview, Lazard, PJT, Moelis, Perella Weinberg, Qatalyst, Guggenheim) share the one-page structure, but their screening bars differ in specific ways. Tailor accordingly.
The bulge brackets: Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Citi, BlackRock
Resume structure is identical across bulge brackets and large asset managers. Division mix, culture, and screening tools differ — click through for firm-specific guides.
Precision, rigour, top-of-street IB and Markets franchises
Scale, universal-bank breadth, balance-sheet power
Global emerging-markets footprint, corporate-bank leverage
Advisory depth, TMT dominance, Wealth + Asset Management
Largest asset manager, Aladdin platform, public markets scale
Get banker-ready bullets — tailored to a specific IB or asset-management role
Paste a Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Citi or BlackRock job link, or any boutique's job description. WadeCV rewrites your deal bullets against that posting, in its own wording where your experience supports it, and fits the CV to one page.
- 1 free credit on signup
- AI-powered fit analysis
- ATS-optimised formatting
Elite boutiques: the eight firms that matter
Elite boutiques run small Analyst classes and partner-led deal teams. Your resume must signal the specific advisory product — generic 'financial-services' or 'banking' framing is a common reason for rejection at Centerview, PJT, and Qatalyst.
Six bullet formulas that pass banker screens
Each formula is tested against a specific division screen — M&A sell-side, LevFin, ECM, Restructuring, Markets, or Asset Management. Use the one that matches the target role.
Paste a Goldman, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Citi, BlackRock or elite-boutique JD. WadeCV rewrites your bullets against that job description, mirrors its vocabulary where your experience supports it, and fits the CV to one page. First fit analysis is free.
Division-specific keywords: what to mirror
Investment banks organise around divisions (M&A, LevFin, ECM, DCM, Restructuring, Markets, Sponsors, Asset Management) and your CV should mirror the vocabulary of the target division wherever it is honestly applicable.
Bullet signals: Deal size, buyer/target/sponsor, your deliverable (model, CIM, management presentation, fairness opinion), and deal status at exit.
Bullet signals: Financing quantum, tranche structure (TLB/TLA/RCF/HY), leverage multiple (net debt / EBITDA), pricing (SOFR+bps), commitment vs underwrite, deal outcome.
Bullet signals: Offering size, P/E or P/S multiple, syndicate position (sole book, joint book, co-manager), pricing outcome (% of range), first-day performance.
Bullet signals: Issuance size, coupon and tenor, ratings (Moody's / S&P / Fitch), oversubscription, spread to benchmark, use of proceeds.
Bullet signals: Debtor or creditor mandate, DIP size, recovery-waterfall analysis, plan confirmation outcome, time to emergence.
Bullet signals: Asset class, client-coverage scope (AUM covered, top-N clients), risk metrics (VaR, DV01, delta exposure), PnL contribution, Greenwich ranking.
Bullet signals: Coverage universe (size, sector), AUM impact, buy/sell call accuracy, alpha generation, position sizing, analyst rating / PM adoption.
Bullet signals: Sponsor names covered, number of live processes, capital advised on (debt + equity), named transactions and outcome.
IB resume in 2026: what's changed
Investment-banking CV screening in 2026 is more automated than it was five years ago, but the bar the MD applies on the Super Day read has not relaxed. HireVue video interviews and Pymetrics cognitive assessments now sit between the resume screen and the first in-person round at Goldman, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Citi — but neither rescues a weak CV. The resume remains the gatekeeper across bulge-bracket and elite-boutique firms.
What has changed is the weight on private-markets and alternatives signals. BlackRock Alternatives, GIP, HPS (now BlackRock-integrated), Preqin (now BlackRock-integrated), and the private-markets pods at Goldman, JP Morgan, and Morgan Stanley are the fastest-growing revenue segments and the heaviest lateral hirers. If your experience includes LBO modelling, sponsor coverage, continuation-fund advisory, GP-led secondaries, or private-credit analysis, lead with those bullets over generic advisory experience when targeting a sponsors or alts role.
AI-assisted CV writing is widespread among applicants and recruiters know it. AI-drafted bullets that sound generic but lack the deal-specific texture — real deal sizes, real counterparties, real model and memo deliverables — read as 'low-conviction' and get cut. Humanising an AI-drafted IB CV means replacing vague language ('supported M&A process') with specific signals ('built three-statement operating model and DCF for $1.4B sell-side of specialty-chemicals target'). See our humanize AI resume guide for techniques that work at banker screening scale.
Finally: the rise of direct Associate-to-Buyside lateral flows. Mega-funds (Blackstone, KKR, Apollo, Carlyle, Bain Capital, TPG) and large long-only managers (BlackRock, Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, Wellington, Capital Group) recruit heavily from third-year IB Analysts and first-year Associates. Your lateral CV should emphasise deal-by-deal experience with named model and memo deliverables, position yourself within a sector or product franchise, and show any CFA / CPA / published research progression. The private equity resume guide has a buy-side Associate resume and the deal sheet headhunters ask for, both as Word templates. For research seats, the equity research resume guide shows how to put coverage, models and a stock pitch on the page, and the sales and trading resume guide does the same for markets desks.
Eight common IB resume mistakes
- Two-page resume at Analyst or Associate level — automatic screen reject at every bulge bracket and elite boutique
- Deal bullets without $ size, buyer/target/sponsor, and your specific workstream — generic 'supported M&A process' is a screen-kill phrase
- Missing or hidden GPA when above 3.5 at targets or 3.7 at semi-targets — recruiters interpret absence as sub-threshold
- Describing deliverables as 'worked on' or 'assisted with' rather than naming the model, memo, CIM, or management presentation you built or drafted
- Generic 'finance' framing when the role is division-specific (LevFin vs M&A vs ECM vs DCM vs Restructuring vs Markets)
- Missing Series 79 / CFA progression or false claims on level — recruiters verify with FINRA and CFA Institute
- Weak 'spike' section — investment-club membership listed without role title, portfolio size, or performance vs benchmark
- Language proficiency omitted for non-US offices — London for continental EU roles often needs French, German, Italian, or Spanish; Hong Kong needs Mandarin
Frequently asked questions
Explore more guides
- IB Analyst Job Description & Resume Guide
- Investment Banking Skills (Modelling, Comps, Deal Vocabulary)
- IB Analyst Resume Bullets & Summary Examples
- Goldman Sachs Resume Guide
- JP Morgan Resume Guide
- Morgan Stanley Resume Guide
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Paste a Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Citi or BlackRock job link, or any boutique's job description. WadeCV rewrites your bullets around the deal outcomes already in your history, and fits the result to one page. First fit analysis is free.