Goldman Sachs Investment Banking Resume Guide

The University of Pennsylvania's career services office tells investment banking applicants not to go past one page, to use a 10 to 12 point font with one-inch margins, and to avoid unusual fonts and colours, because banking is a conservative industry. That is careers-office advice, not a rule this guide attributes to Goldman Sachs. If something has to go, cut older or less relevant material before shrinking the type.

The firm's student material states that it recruits talented people from all academic backgrounds, which contradicts the widely repeated folklore that only a handful of universities are read. That is a statement about who is invited to apply, not a promise about outcomes. What it means practically is that a non-target degree is not a reason to skip the application, and your evidence has to carry the rest.

The firm's candidate material presents its programmes as open across academic backgrounds rather than requiring a finance degree. If your history is retail, hospitality, student organisations or an unrelated technical field, the work is framing it in the terms the role is read for: quantified responsibility, deadline pressure, accuracy under scrutiny, and decisions you personally owned.

No. Banking resumes are conventionally plain text on white, and space spent on a photograph or colour block is space not spent on evidence. This is a format convention rather than a stated rule, but it costs nothing to follow and the reader gains room for your transactions and metrics.

According to the firm's student pages: you submit an application, and if it is selected you are asked to complete a video interview of approximately 30 minutes. Engineering applicants are asked to take a coding assessment. Candidates selected after that stage are invited to a final round of interviews. Applications are assessed across the recruiting season, so timelines differ between roles.

No. In the US, FINRA says only someone associated with and sponsored by a member firm can sit the Series 79, the investment banking representative exam, so it comes after you join; registration needs both the Series 79 and the Securities Industry Essentials exam. The SIE is different: it is open to anyone aged 18 or older without a firm, and a pass stays valid for four years, so a student can take it early. In India, SEBI requires NISM's Series-IX Merchant Banking certificate for designated key management personnel at a merchant banker, which is a role inside a firm rather than an entry condition for an analyst programme.

No. A format organises the history you already have; it cannot manufacture deal exposure or quantified impact. If the underlying evidence is thin, the useful work is getting more of it — a modelling project you can describe end to end, a role where you owned a number — rather than reformatting what is there.