Investment Banker resume examples by experience level

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In short, an investment banker resume is a one page document that rests on the deal sheet. How many transactions you closed, what they were worth in aggregate, whether you sat on the sell side or the buy side, in which sector, and what you actually did on each one.

In fact, everything else on the page is context for that block. The deal sheet is the resume, and the most common failure is writing about skills, models and client service instead of writing down the transactions.

Resume guide for an investment banker resume

To start, this guide and the corresponding investment banker resume example will cover:

• First, how to write an investment banker resume, section by section
• Then, how to build a deal sheet, line by line, and what may appear on it
• Also, three adaptable summaries: analyst, associate and vice president
• Finally, which transactions you may name, and which must stay off the page entirely
• What the market looks like, and why pay has to be bracketed rather than quoted

How to write an investment banker resume

Overall, use five blocks: contact header, summary, deal experience, the deal sheet, and education with registrations. One page, including at vice president level. This is one of the few occupations where the one page convention genuinely holds at seniority, because the deal sheet compresses and everything else is subordinate to it.

Run the finished file through the free ATS resume checker before you submit. Banks and recruiting firms both parse applications into structured records before a person reads them, and a deal table built with tabs rather than a real table is where that parse usually fails.

Choosing the best resume format for an investment banker resume

Reverse chronological, single column, one page, no exceptions before managing director. Banking recruiting has a stronger format convention than almost any other field, and a resume that departs from it reads as someone who has not seen one. The deal sheet is the only part you can lay out as a table, and even then keep it to a simple structure that survives a parse. As a rule, no graphics, no photograph, no skill bars, no color beyond one accent.

Also keep dates to month and year, and keep them accurate. Analyst and associate programs have fixed start dates that recruiters know, and a timeline that does not fit one invites a question you would rather not spend the interview answering.

Include your contact information

Next, put the sector next to the title. After all, coverage is how banking organizes itself, and "industrials" or "healthcare services" says more about your transferability than any adjective could.

Make use of a summary

Then write three or four lines: level and sector, closed deal count and aggregate value, the sell side and buy side split, and your registrations.

Investment banking analyst in an industrials coverage group, staffed on 9 live processes over two years of which 4 closed, representing roughly $780 million in aggregate announced value. Built the operating model, the discounted cash flow and the comparable company analysis on each, and ran the data room and diligence tracker on two sell side processes. SIE and Series 79 registered, Series 63 registered, and fluent in Arabic and French for cross-border management meetings.

Investment banking associate with 14 closed transactions representing roughly $3.6 billion in aggregate announced value across industrials and business services, 9 sell side and 5 buy side. Run the model, the valuation and the buyer list on each process, manage two analysts, and take the first draft of the confidential information memorandum and the management presentation. SIE, Series 79 and Series 63 registered; MBA in finance.

Investment banking vice president in industrials with 31 closed transactions over six years, roughly $9.4 billion in aggregate announced value, and day-to-day responsibility for 12 of those processes from pitch to close. Own the client relationship between the managing director and the company, run the buyer or target dialogue, and manage a deal team of one associate and two analysts. SIE, Series 79 and Series 63 registered.

Right vs wrong: the same investment banker summary, twice

In other words, the right column is a deal sheet in prose. The left column is what a banker writes when they do not want to say how many deals they have closed.

Outline your investment banking experience

Firm, group, city, title and dates. Then three or four bullets per role about what you do inside a process rather than what the process was.

Investment Banking Associate, Industrials, Ardenholt Partners, New York, NY, July 2022 to Present
Run the model, the valuation and the buyer or target list on every live process in the group; 14 transactions closed to date, roughly $3.6 billion in aggregate announced value.
Take the first draft of the confidential information memorandum and the management presentation, and own the diligence tracker through to signing.
Manage two analysts across up to three concurrent processes, including work allocation, model review and the group's weekly pipeline update.
Built the group's standard operating model template, now used on every new engagement, which cut the time from engagement letter to first full model from about two weeks to four days.

The deal sheet: what belongs on it, and what has to stay off

This is the block that decides the screen, and it is also the block where candidates create real problems for themselves.

Specifically, a deal sheet line has five parts: the date, the side, a description of the counterparties that does not identify them beyond what the announcement published, the value, and your role. Status matters too, because announced and closed are different claims.

Sell side, industrials. $940 million sale of a precision components manufacturer to a strategic acquirer. Closed Q3 2025. Role: model, valuation, buyer list, confidential information memorandum, diligence management.
Sell side, business services. $310 million sale of a facilities services platform to a financial sponsor. Closed Q1 2025. Role: model, management presentation, buyer dialogue.
Buy side, industrials. $185 million acquisition of a fluid handling business by a publicly listed strategic. Closed Q4 2024. Role: target screening, valuation, accretion and dilution, diligence coordination.
Debt financing, industrials. $220 million senior secured refinancing for a portfolio company of a mid-market sponsor. Closed Q2 2024. Role: credit model, lender materials, lender question management.
Sell side, industrials. $85 million carve-out of a components division from a listed parent. Announced Q1 2026, terminated. Role: model, carve-out financial analysis.

In addition, four rules govern what may go on that sheet, and the first is not a matter of taste.

First, only publicly announced transactions belong on a resume. That is because work on a live, unannounced process is material non-public information. Indeed, the statute requires every registered broker-dealer to "establish, maintain, and enforce written policies and procedures reasonably designed" to prevent the misuse of material, nonpublic information by the firm or anyone associated with it (Exchange Act section 15(g), 15 U.S.C. 78o(g)). As a result, your firm writes its policies under that obligation, and they cover what you may say about a deal outside the firm. A resume is outside the firm.

Second, name the counterparties only as far as the announcement did. Where an announcement named both parties, they are public and may appear. For example, where the buyer was never named, "a financial sponsor" is as far as you go, and where you are unsure, describe the business and the sector instead.

Third, separate closed from announced from terminated. A terminated deal is legitimate experience and bankers know processes break, but folding it into a closed count is the kind of overstatement a reference call checks.

Fourth, be honest about aggregate value and about your role. For instance, a banker reading this sheet will ask what you personally did on the second line, and the answer has to be specific: whose model, whose buyer list, who sat in the management sessions.

Build a snapshot of your key skills

Keep this short. In practice, on a one page banking resume the deal sheet earns the space, and the skills block only confirms it.

Modeling: Operating models, Discounted cash flow, Leveraged buyout, Accretion and dilution, Merger models, Credit and covenant models, Carve-out and pro forma financials
Process: Confidential information memorandum drafting, Management presentation preparation, Buyer and target screening, Data room and diligence management, Close checklist and funds flow
Tools: Excel to a modeling standard, PowerPoint, Capital IQ, FactSet, Bloomberg, PitchBook, Datasite or Intralinks
Languages: Arabic, French

List your education and registrations

Then list degree, institution, year, and anything quantitative worth knowing. Then registrations with dates, exactly as held.

Master of Business Administration, Finance, New York University, New York, NY, 2022
Bachelor of Science, Industrial Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 2017
Registrations: Securities Industry Essentials, 2018. Series 79, Investment Banking Representative, 2018. Series 63, Uniform Securities State Law, 2018. All held through a FINRA member firm.

Meanwhile, the registrations that gate this job come from FINRA, and they work differently from the retail securities exams. The Series 79 "measures the degree to which each candidate possesses the knowledge needed to perform the critical functions of an investment banking representative, including advising on or facilitating debt or equity securities offerings through a private placement or a public offering and mergers and acquisitions". In particular, it runs to 75 items in 2 hours 30 minutes with a passing score of 73, covering data collection and analysis, underwriting and new financing transactions, and mergers, acquisitions, tender offers and financial restructuring (FINRA, accessed September 2026).

Two practical points follow. Candidates "must pass the Securities Industry Essentials (SIE) exam and the Series 79 exam to obtain the Investment Banking Representative registration", and they "must be associated with and sponsored by a FINRA member firm" to sit the Series 79 at all, so you cannot arrive holding it. By contrast, the SIE is open to anyone aged 18 or older with no firm association required, and a pass stays valid for four years for a candidate not yet registered (FINRA, accessed September 2026). Therefore, it is the one thing on this list you can do on your own.

Choose the right layout and design

One page, single column, 10 or 10.5 point, half inch to three quarter inch margins, one accent color at most. Above all, the deal sheet may be a simple table; nothing else should be.

Investment banker job market and outlook

Notably, the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes no Occupational Outlook Handbook profile for investment banker. The Handbook covers broad occupations rather than job titles, and this one falls across three of them.

It does describe the work. Inside the profile for securities, commodities and financial services sales agents, the Handbook states that "Investment bankers connect businesses that need money to finance their operations or expansion plans with investors who are interested in providing that funding", and names initial public offerings and mergers and acquisitions as the services involved (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025). That is the closest published match, but it also contains retail brokers and traders, so its median is not an investment banking median.

The honest way to read the market is to bracket the role between the three published occupations that cover the work: securities, commodities and financial services sales agents; financial analysts; and financial managers, which is where a bank bands the senior end of the job.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025 wage data and 2025 to 2035 projections.

What salary you can expect as an investment banker

In fact, no federal source publishes a median for this job title, and any page that quotes one has invented it or taken it from a survey it is not naming. Instead, what anyone can say accurately is where the surrounding occupations sit.

For instance, securities, commodities and financial services sales agents had a median annual wage of $78,660 in May 2025, financial analysts $103,570, and financial managers $166,570 (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025). Early in a career you sit nearer the first two; most institutions, however, band a vice president or director with the third.

Moreover, there is a second reason to be careful with any published figure here. Specifically, the Bureau's wages are "straight-time, gross pay, exclusive of premium pay". In addition, they include base rate, commissions, incentive pay and production bonuses, and they exclude non-production bonuses, overtime and benefits (BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, accessed September 2026). A discretionary year-end bonus is a non-production bonus, so these numbers exclude it entirely, and they exclude carried interest too. Since the bonus is a large part of total compensation in this job and no federal source publishes it, this page does not quote one. Therefore, treat the published medians as a floor and a bracket, and get the bonus structure in writing from the firm.

Still, what a resume moves is the band you enter at. Closed deal count, aggregate announced value, the side and sector of the sheet, the responsibility described in the role field, and a clean registration record decide whether you are screened as an analyst, an associate or a vice president.

Key takeaways for an investment banker resume

1. In short, the deal sheet is the resume; build it first and let everything else serve it.
2. Next, lead with closed count and aggregate announced value, split by side and sector.
3. Give a role field on every line, naming what you personally produced.
4. Also publish only announced transactions, and never a live or unannounced one.
5. Similarly, separate closed, announced and terminated, and do not blur them into one number.
6. Finally, keep it to one page, single column, with the deal sheet as the only table.
7. List SIE, Series 79 and Series 63 with years, exactly as held.

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