Investment Banker resume examples & templates

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

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.

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.

• Instead ofBuilt complex financial models
  UseBuild the operating model, discounted cash flow, leveraged buyout and accretion or dilution analysis on every live process in the group
• Instead ofPrepared marketing materials for clients
  UseTake the first draft of the confidential information memorandum and the management presentation, and own the buyer list through to approval
• Instead ofSupported due diligence
  UseRun the data room and the diligence tracker; managed 34 buyer questions a day at peak on a sell side process
• Instead ofParticipated in client meetings
  UsePresent the valuation section in management preparation sessions and attend buyer meetings as the day-to-day contact
• Instead ofAssisted with transaction execution
  UseManaged the close checklist, funds flow and signature logistics on 6 transactions to completion

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.

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.

List your education and registrations

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

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.

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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Investment banker resume questions, answered