How resumes differ for sales and trading and quant roles

What stays the same as a banking resume?

The shell does not change. One page, one font, education first, reverse chronological, a verb and a number in every bullet, and a short skills and interests block. Screeners on a trading floor or at a quant firm skim the same way a banker does.

What changes is which items you put in the first bullets and the education block, because each reader is checking for a different signal in those 20 seconds.

What does a sales and trading resume emphasize?

A trading desk wants to see that you follow markets because you like them, that you are fast and accurate with numbers, and that you can talk to people. A sales role leans more on the last one, a trading role more on the first two.

Move the markets evidence to the top of your activities, and add a markets line to interests that you can talk about for five minutes.

• A trading competition result, with your rank out of how many.
• A markets or macro club role, with what you covered: rates, FX, commodities, equities.
• A personal or club portfolio, with its size, your strategy, and its result against a benchmark, honestly stated.
• Jobs with speed and people in them: a server handling a full section, a sales job with a target, a tutor with results.
• Competitive games or sports that show fast decisions under pressure: poker, chess ratings, varsity sport.
• An interests line with a real markets angle, such as 'following the yield curve and Fed speeches', that you can back up.

What does a quant resume emphasize?

Quant firms screen for raw problem-solving and code. The reader wants to see hard math, real programming, and evidence you can think about probability and expected value. Finance experience matters far less than at a bank.

Put rigorous coursework and competition results in the education block, and give projects their own section with what you built and a link to the code.

• Math competitions with results: AMC, AIME, USAMO, Putnam, or an olympiad, with scores or ranks.
• Hard coursework only: real analysis, probability, stochastic processes, linear algebra, algorithms, machine learning.
• Programming languages you can use in a live test, usually Python and C++, listed honestly.
• Projects with a link: a backtester, a market-making simulation, an ML model, an open source contribution.
• Research with methods named: what data, what model, what result.
• Coding competitions or hackathons with placings.

What should you cut or shrink?

For S&T, shrink deal and modeling language that only a banker cares about, unless it is your strongest work. For quant, cut coursework that is not technical and cut skills like PowerPoint entirely; they signal that you are applying with a banking resume.

For both, do not list a language or tool you cannot use in an interview. Trading interviews test mental math and markets on the spot, and quant interviews test code and probability live, so anything on the page may be tested.

Which sales and trading programs are open now?

S&T recruiting runs on its own clock, separate from banking, so your markets resume may need to be ready earlier than your banking one. The table below shows sales and trading programs from the banks' own careers sites, open first.

Which quant programs are open now?

Quant programs open early and many fill before the end of the year, so a quant resume is often the first one you need. The table below shows quant trading and research programs from the firms' own careers sites. Quant titles often skip the year, so read the posting for the start date.

Questions students ask

Can I use one resume for banking and S&T?

You can, but two versions do better. Keep the same education and jobs, and reorder bullets and activities so the markets evidence leads on the S&T version.

Do quant firms care about GPA?

They look at it, along with the difficulty of your courses. A strong grade in real analysis or probability says more to a quant reader than a high GPA in easier courses.

Should I put a GitHub link on a quant resume?

Yes, if the repositories are clean, documented, and yours. A link to a half-finished project hurts, so link the one or two you would walk an interviewer through.

Does a trading competition really matter for S&T?

It gives you a bullet with a rank and a story about decisions under pressure, which is exactly what a desk asks about. It will not carry a resume alone, but it is one of the better markets signals a student can add in a semester.

What if I have no math competition results for quant?

Lead with hard coursework, strong grades in it, and a project with real code. Many quant hires did not compete; they show the same ability through classes and work.