The Corporate Classroom Online

Supplementary Material

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Contents

Introduction 3
Writing your CV 4
CV Content: Evidence not Clichs 5
The Goldman Sachs way 6
Other activities 7
Leadership 8
Lessons 9
Supercharged Job Acquisition 10
Cover Letter 12
Final Note on Personal Statements 14
Graduate job search portals 15

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Introduction

GIUP is about practical world class career education, delivering the awareness required to secure a well-
paid corporate career, affordably or free. Up until now, nearly all of you will have been given the same old
advice and viewpoints that can be found all over the web, about how to write your CV and secure a job,
but you know its unhelpful because it hasnt solved anything for you, and when this kind of advice
doesnt work, theyll usually blame you for not trying hard enough.

Meanwhile, better informed competition is gaining ground ahead of you each and every day, and during a
recession, even the best graduates dont know what to do, getting stuck, not making any real progress.

So where is the hope?

Well, nearly everybody is in the same boat, and this is hopeful because it means by working smarter and
harder, you will eventually reach a point where it pays off. GIUP was founded to help you do exactly that,
work as smartly as possible and obtain the best possible advice you can get. The rest is up to you. Make
sure you explore our website, and study all GIUP material that is relevant to your aspirations.

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Writing your CV
We do not dumb down and say things like,
make sure there are no typos or grammatical
errors, thats the very least expected of you.
One point however is that, its easy for the hu-
man mind to be blind to its own mistakes during
work, so come back to your CV a week later
and read it with fresh eyes (or if possible give it
to someone with impeccable writing skills to re-
view).
Formatting should be clear, avoid using italics
and bold too often, some HR personnel really
dont like that. Graduate HR personnel are
averse to dense blocks of writing because usual-
ly in a graduate CV it means the candidate has-
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nt bothered to be concise. Being concise takes
thought and forces elimination of anything that
is unnecessary. HR really, really doesnt want to
do this for you by wading through dense text to
pick out important points, so make sure you do
it yourself. When you aim to be concise, you will
realise every word counts, and this, more than
anything else, is what HR wants you to be
thinking when you prepare your CV.
Abiding by your aim of being concise:
Avoid being vague, being vague in a CV is a waste of words,
be highly specific or numerical.
Avoid being descriptive, instead focus on those relevant
things youve learnt.
Avoid trying to include everything about your life.
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 The Corporate Classroom Online

CV Content: Evidence not Clichs

DONT SAY DO SAY DO SAY

Im a team player. My role in our team was..., and my input helped to...

Im an extremely hard worker. I work well under high The situation required me to work a 90-hour week
pressure to meet deadline. to ensure a timely launch.

My hobbies include reading, exercise, cinema,

I won an award for..., my volunteer work included...
chess, shopping and computer games.

I organise music and entertainment events for my

I enjoy eating, music and drinking. society... I perform in a band or play a musical
Instrument.

I am fluent in English. I am proficient in Microsoft I have a certificate or qualification in using .... I

Word and Excel. have working experience with pivot tables and VBA.

I am a good talker. I am a good listener. My sales ability was tested when I had.

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The Goldman Sachs Way

Goldman Sachs use a 9 point system to rate CVs. Each point carries an equal weight. They award up to
3 points each for education, past work experience and other activities and achievements.

GOLDMAN SACHS 9 POINT SYSTEM

EDUCATION 3 POINTS
WORKING EXPERIENCE 3 POINTS
OTHER ACTIVITIES 3 POINTS

If you score 7 points or above in total, HR should invite you for an interview (points are awarded relative
to your competition). The biggest advantage for a leading employer using this method (and many do) is,
the candidate has to be outstanding in at least one area and weak in none to qualify, eliminating the
average high achiever. Note that you should divide your CV into three parts, one page is the standard.

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Other Activities

Its easy and seemingly reasonable to consider They want to see actions that indicate:
your other activities as an unimportant part of Open mindedness
your CV, especially if you have fantastic aca-
Creativity
demics and relevant working experience.
A good character
Initiative
However, most other leading employers (not on- An ability to manufacture positive outcomes
ly Goldman Sachs) do put a significant emphasis involving others
on impressive and noteworthy achievements.
They do this in order to gain a balanced view of The bottom-line is, you can assert any number
who you are by noting what youve done by of positive personal statements, but without an
yourself, either for yourself or for others. action supporting those remarks, they will be
ignored.

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Leadership

A leader is a positive enabler, guiding themselves and others around them towards maximum success.
Any situation which demonstrates you have done this provides evidence of skilled leadership.

Leadership is about forming and directing an intelligent strategy involving others, and then successively
executing those plans up to completion. Leadership is not about showing you can order a group of peo-
ple to complete tasks, otherwise your outcomes will always depend on others working for you or not.

This success oriented mindset should enable you realise that to show leadership, you dont necessarily
have had, to have been a nominated leader, but the person in a team that made it happen.

The most effective strategy executers are those leaders who search out all available opportunities, and
constantly evaluate such opportunities to make sure they focus on the ones that add the most value,
and that if a strategy has likely failed, spotting that and knowing when to change. Knowing when to
change strategies or methods is the toughest, and most unforgiving challenge leaders face, especially
when changing means accepting that youre failing before you consider doing something about it.

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Lessons

If you want to get interviews at leading corporate firms, especially bulge bracket banks, its wise to build
these last sections of your CV, and if your efforts in doing that involve forming relationships with senior
people in your industry for advice and viewpoints, thats awesome, and you truly get how it all works!

However, you must be clued up about your industry, otherwise when talking to senior people, as you
soon you start talking shop, it will become very clear, very fast, that youre totally clueless, and thats
not a good thing.

Fortunately, GIUP education is built to address exactly this issue within this particular job search strate-
gy, and in todays job market, this strategy is one of the only approaches that actually works, hence, if
you find this guide useful, please make sure you visit our online e-learning platform and benefit from our
education.

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Supercharged Job Acquisition

The lessons weve just learnt may be taken to another level, a level that will place you far, far ahead of
your competition, and its called the online free work method.

Essentially, you educate yourself to such an extent within your target industry, that youre able to ap-
proach senior people in that industry, and offer them something useful that you can deliver online, such
as free high quality industry research outlining business opportunities that may interest them. If you do
this, you may have:

Highlighted a potentially profitable, and unknown, business opportunity within their industry.

Done some of their work for them, or rather, done work they pay other people to do.

An alternative is proposing clever cost saving methods, but whatever it is, it has to be something that is
useful to them, and may potentially make or save them money, and something you can deliver online.

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Supercharged Job Acquisition

During this interaction, make it very clear that this is free work, something youre doing out of pure
passion for their business, and if they like it, continue doing it for around 2 or 3 weeks, but not more
than 5 weeks, then stop the work, and focus on your relationship with them, saying something along the
lines of, Id love to continue assisting you, unfortunately Im seeking employment elsewhere.

If you have been useful to them during this period, they will contact you again, and offer some kind of
reward, the jackpot is an offer of employment within their company, but in any case, if youve done them
a favour, they are in a powerful position to return it with interest!

GIUP online education is making this advanced strategy possible in certain industries, and preparing stu-
dents for it, and within a recession, this strategy may represent the only high probability way to secure a
good job. Sitting and waiting a recession out is not an option if you wish to achieve your goals.

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Cover Letters

Students and graduates are often confused by what exactly a cover letter is and does:

A cover letter is a direct professional statement to your prospective employer outlining your suita-
bility and interest for the position on offer.

Your goal is to evidence why you are the most suitable person for the job, and if your CV is of interest,
the cover letter should make your application stand out, and vice versa, if your cover letter is outstand-
ing, your CV will be considered very carefully. Together with a CV, the Cover Letter serves to elaborate
those skills and experiences on your CV that are most relevant to the job on offer.

Before email, the cover letter was a necessary covering document stapled on top of your CV, referencing
the position being applied for with a brief summarising why your CV should be considered. An email cov-
er letter should include the job reference as the subject line. Often, the person receiving your application
may have no other role except matching candidates to job descriptions, so make it easy for them.
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3-STEP COVER LETTER WRITING GUIDE

1) Read the job description, and write down each skill mentioned.
2) For each skill, refer to your CV to help you write a sentence showing that you have that skill.
3) Collect all your answers and put them into a paragraph that reads well. Half a page is usually
enough, a high impact and concise quarter of a page is often ideal.

Real Life Student Example:

Communication, Sales and Organization

Over 3 months, I increased the membership database of my university music society by 30% from ap-
proximately 500 students to 650 students. I approached students on campus and sold them the benefits
of our membership, I also increased ticket sales for student gigs by over 70% from the year before. I did
this by creating discussion forums and interacting with individual members to sell tickets.

Teamwork and Commercial Awareness

I was soon elected president of our music society, managing a five person executive committee, schedul-
ing team meetings and coordinating tasks, helping our society create successful and exciting new initia-
tives. I also researched the kind of music our members spent money on, comparing prices and identifying
unique benefits we could offer members that were not easily available commercially.
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Final Note on Personal Statements

Personal statements are for UCAS applications, not for your professional CV, as soon as you start
applying for competitive professional positions, personal statements always send one strong message:
you are so inexperienced or without achievements that you have to use up space writing nice things
about yourself. This may sound harsh, but its true. An exception may be when youre applying for a vol-
unteering role or something similar, rather than for a job, then a personal statement may be suitable.

An Introductory or Key Points statement is different; this is where you write a simple sentence to high-
light your greatest achievements and/or your most impressive work experience. Most people dont need
this; they are needed only in very accomplished senior professional CVs where the person may have
done so many impressive things in their life that a simple sentence highlighting the most notable ones
will actually be very helpful.

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Disclaimer

GIUP materials are for educational purposes only. Any opinions where expressed are our own however they may be aligned with the views and understandings held by
the various City professionals working in the financial services sector whom GIUP may consult in order to deliver the highest standards and most up to date presenta-
tion of topics possible. GIUP accepts no liability whatsoever for losses of any kind, including financial, business or personal losses, that may directly or indirectly result
from the use of our products and services.

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