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Welcome to the MSMF Resume Essentials Guide!

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Overall framework necessary for creating an effective resume for employment in the United States

What your resume IS, and IS NOT

How to create competitive resume bullets (BAR Statements), with examples to help you understand how and why they are critical to sending the right message to employers

How you need to THINK about your past experience

Breakdown of each section on the resume

Please read the entire guide BEFORE working with the resume template.

This guide covers:

*Before meeting with the career team regarding your resume, it is expected that you have read this guide in its entirety. If you have any questions, please ask!

Your resume is…

► NOT your autobiography;

► NOT just a list of job descriptions or tasks that you completed.

Your resume IS:

► the most important information about you that is relevant to your target reader.

► a presentation of your accomplishments that clearly articulate your value and the impact you have made.

► a means of communicating your skills rather than just your experience.

► A picture of you as a whole person through your unique skill set (includes technical and soft skills).

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► Background: Provides context if the situation

isn’t self-explanatory.

► Action: The proactive steps you took.

► Result: The successful outcome or result,

quantified whenever possible.

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Background Action Result

(OPTIONAL) (REQUIRED) (REQUIRED)

B A R

Resume bullets should all be in B-A-R format. This will

make your statements competitive and highly effective.

BACKGROUNDWhat are the reasons that prompted you to take action (not including that your manager asked you)? Explain under what circumstances or conditions you did the work. What was going on at the company that caused a need for your work? Was something broken or inefficient?

ACTIONDiscuss how you executed the accomplishment, what you did, and the strengths you used. Be specific and use strong action verbs, such as “implemented,” “planned,” or “developed.” Avoid the weak phrase “responsible for...”. Suggestions are available here.

RESULTSWhy was the work you did important (to your team, manager, firm)? Understand the bigger picture, beyond just your task. Show the business impact of your actions. Quantify whenever possible. Include deliverables, metrics, and contributions from your company’s perspective.

Background Action Result

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► BAR accomplishment statements are far more powerful than job descriptions.

► These are bulleted statements that present your proudest actions-and-results from your professional career.

► Your accomplishments quickly and clearly allow the reader to understand your strengths the way you want them to.

► Choose professional accomplishments and events that you are proud of.

► Use BAR statements for academic and extracurricular accomplishments as well, for example, achievements within student organizations or volunteer efforts.

► An excellent resource would likely be your Annual Performance Reviews or formal recommendations.

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Background Action Result

(OPTIONAL) (REQUIRED) (REQUIRED)

► What if I only performed basic tasks?

► How do I talk about results when I just did what my manager asked me to do?

► My work experience isn’t that strong; I didn’t do anything of great importance.

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Are these thoughts going through your mind?

You’ll need to shift your mindset to think:

► What would have happened if I didn’t take action? What would have fallen apart or what could have not happened next?

► Who benefits (clients, investors, internal departments, management, executives, staff) from me taking that action?

► What was the information/work I produced used for?

► What did I ensure happened NEXT?

You need to BELIEVE that your job was important! If you don’t believe it, a hiring manager never will.

Duties & Responsibilities vs. Accomplishments

Responsible for database maintenance and development.

Successfully developed all-new database for office, eliminating outsourcing and saving $5,000 annually.

Worked on credit reporting products.

Helped create products for the web-based credit information system which improved customer feedback scores by 40%.

Background Action Result

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Avoid listing responsibilities, and focus on accomplishments

First Draft vs. Stronger Edit

Completed project ahead of schedule.

Completed investment data project ahead of schedule by developing an Excel model that reduced redundancy.

Proven track record for sales support.

Assist field sales with on-site technical support, providing over 10% incremental sales revenue annually.

Enjoy working effectively as a team member.

Collaborated with team members to create quantitative investment strategies and algorithms.

Background Action Result

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Example Situation

Investment managers and trading team need to look through multiple data sources for information.

Designed and built new database to aggregate all data sources, facilitating rapid extraction.

Collaborated with trading team to optimize workflow.

Reduced data access time and decision-making time for trading team by approximately 60%.

(continued)

Background

Action

Result

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The previous situation delivered in two BAR statements:

• “Reduced data access time for investment decisions by approximately 60% after building a database that aggregates multiple data sources”

• “Designed and built a new database for investment data, facilitating quicker decision-making by trading team”

Background Action Result

BAR STATEMENTS

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Put the result at the front of the sentence.

Explain the result and follow it in the second half of the sentence by what action you took to create

that outcome.

While this format is ideal, there are some bullets where it will make the most sense to have the

action first, followed by the result (as demonstrated in the second example above).

Make your resume bullets stand out:

Examples to inspire you

► Coordinated with stakeholders to ensure quality assurance (result) prior to production rollout; utilized waterfall and agile methodologies to test application, created performance reports and presentations for senior management (action)

► Successfully avoided $500K loss (result) by identifying an error in the expense processing system before invoice was sent to client (action)

► Led team to replace obsolete company servers (result); performed cost-benefit analysis, received approval, ensured compliance with firm risk standards and completed installation of new servers (action)

► Implemented a new high-resolution time-stamping class in C++ using Linux in equity trading system (action); improved timing precision from microsecond to nanosecond with low overhead (result)

► Ensured the firm was compliant with new regulations (result) by completing 100% of account remediation by the hard deadline (action)

► Increased brand awareness in the community (result) by spearheading an online social media campaign across multiple platforms (action)

BAR STATEMENTS

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Examples to inspire you (continued)

► Student Government Association: Initiated the Night Run campaign to help students release academic stress and improve physical conditions; utilized social media and other resources to promote event that attracted 200+ students

*This example would go in the Education section, under the university

► Improved data analysis process (result) by writing Excel VBA code to highlight unreasonable values in 395 questionnaires collected from clients (action)

► Implemented empirical data analysis and linear regression to adjust commission rate formula according to contractor performance and company policy (action) to better motivate contractors to sell our financial products (result)

► Conducted analysis of client credit information to determine risk level (action); used data to assist loan officers in matching customer needs with appropriate loan program (result)

► Assisted team to build EAD model for securities-based retail loans (action) to predict exposure at default (result)

► Led team of 30 to organize annual sports festival with involvement of 36 teams across Mumbai (action); increased participation in events and sponsorship from previous years (result)

*This example would go in the Education section, under the university

BAR STATEMENTS

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How does it look?► Is there enough

white space?► Is it inviting to

read?► Do the important

elements jump off the page?

What does it say?► Is the most relevant

information highlighted?

► Is it your ‘best-of-the-best’?

How does it say it?► Are there results

and metrics?► Did you use the

most impactful language possible?

PLEASE NOTE

Less than 10 years of professional experience: 1 page (max)

10 years or more: up to 2 pages

NAME► First and last; middle initial or preferred name in

parenthesis OK.

ADDRESS► Boston, MA during school (no street address).

PHONE► Domestic (USA) cellphone number.

E-MAIL► BU email address while in MSMF program.

LINKEDIN URL► Customized URL (not default URL); instructions

available here.

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Provides information about your strongest skills and abilities(what are you really good at?).

Please include some combination of: ► Strongest programming skills► Strongest mathematical skills ► Certifications, or progress towards a certification

► If you are in the process of taking CFA exams, please be sure you know how to correctly display your CFA status on your resume.

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Degrees listed in reverse chronological order, starting with MSMF, “Expected January 2019”.

Consider including (where applicable for both BU and undergrad):

► GMAT (optional)► academic scholarships and awards► projects and leadership roles► club memberships► volunteer work on campus

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Relevant experience, including work experience, internships and academic projects, in reverse chronological order.

Work or Internship Experience: Company name, location, job title (bolded), total years or season there.

Academic Projects: University name and location, name of project (bolded), semester and year project took place.

BAR statements (2 lines, max), quantitative results when possible.

NOTE: If you have more than 2-3 work or internship experiences, and run out of room for projects, see next page.

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If you have at least 2-3 work or internship experiences, and the projects won’t fit in the experience section:

Relocate the projects to the Education section under the relevant university.

State the project name(s) and write one sentence summarizing the skills or techniques you used. Do not exceed 2 lines per project. See example below:

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Provides information about your skills and abilities not necessarily obvious or presented in the preceding entries.

Provides additional insight to your character.

Consider including some combination of: ► Language proficiencies► Leadership experiences► Volunteer work► Interesting interests► Non-career related awards of interest

Gives a picture of you as a whole person. Employers in the United States like to get an idea of who you

are as a person, not just how smart you are.

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Go to www.wordle.net/create

Copy and paste your resume into the box

Set the options to:► Language: “Make all words lower case” and “Remove

common English words”.► Font: Telephoto (or something equally easy to read).► Layout: Maximum words (25) / Prefer Alphabetical

Order / Straighter Edges / Horizontal.► Color: BW, Moss, or Kindled (keep color variations to

a minimum).► Selectively remove large but irrelevant words (right-

click) like ‘Boston’, repeated company names, etc.

The large words are the most often repeated and, thus, considered more important.

Word Clouds can help you see the “real message” your resume is delivering. Test and compare your resume, cover letters, and LinkedIn Profile against job postings.

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