How is a finance CV scored?

Your CV is scored 0–100 across six weighted criteria: metrics & quantification (25%), bullet point quality (20%), role-fit alignment (20%), structure & formatting (15%), education (10%), and skills & keywords (10%). Each is benchmarked against successful candidates at firms like Goldman Sachs, Citadel, and KKR.

Is this just generic CV advice?

No. Every point is specific to your CV — it quotes your actual bullets and explains exactly why each one is weak. The rubric also adapts to your target role, so an investment banking CV and a quantitative research CV are judged against entirely different criteria.

How is this different from my university careers service?

Careers services give general guidance like "use strong verbs". This gives you firm-specific feedback: your exact bullets rewritten in top-tier analyst voice, the precise ATS keywords your CV is missing, and a ranked action plan — all benchmarked to bulge-bracket and top-fund standards.

How long should a finance CV be?

One page for students and recent graduates; up to two pages once you have a few years of relevant experience. Bulge-bracket recruiters treat a two-page student CV as a red flag — fitting everything onto one page is itself part of the test.

What do I get for £19?

The full report: a scored breakdown of all six sections, three of your weakest bullets rewritten in top-firm voice, a role-specific list of missing keywords, a ranked action plan, and a benchmark against a successful candidate at your target firm tier. The score preview is always free.

Is there a money-back guarantee?

Yes — a 30-day, no-questions-asked money-back guarantee. If the full report does not help you improve your CV, email us within 30 days and we will refund the £19 in full.

Is my CV kept private?

Yes. Your CV is analysed in real time and is never stored, shared, or sold. We keep only the email address you provide so we can send your report and a short series of follow-up tips — and you can ask to be removed at any time.

What file types do you support?

PDF and Word (.docx), up to 10MB. The PDF must be text-based rather than a scanned image, so the analysis can read your actual CV text. Upload takes about five seconds.

5 June 2026·6 min read

Why Most Finance CVs Fail ATS Screening (And How to Fix Yours)

Up to 75% of CVs are filtered by software before a human reads them. Here is how applicant tracking systems work at top finance firms and how to make sure yours passes.

Here is something most applicants never find out: at large banks and funds, a meaningful share of CVs are filtered by an applicant tracking system (ATS) before a recruiter sees a single one. If your CV does not clear that automated pass, your qualifications are irrelevant — no human will ever read them.

What an ATS actually does

An ATS parses your CV into structured fields, then scores it against the job description. It is looking for keyword matches, relevant titles, and parseable formatting. It is not impressed by design. In fact, design is often what breaks it.

The four things that get you auto-rejected

1. Missing role-specific keywords

If a Sales & Trading job description references “P&L”, “risk management”, “market-making”, and “VaR”, and your CV contains none of them, you score low on relevance — even if your experience is genuinely relevant. The system matches words, not meaning.

2. Formatting the parser cannot read

Text inside images, tables, columns, headers, and footers frequently does not parse. Candidates put their name and contact details in the header — and the ATS reads a CV with no name. Stick to a single-column, standard layout with real text.

3. The wrong file type

A scanned or image-based PDF is invisible to most parsers. Always submit a text-based PDF or .docx where the text can be selected and copied.

4. Non-standard section headings

Creative headings like “My Journey” instead of “Experience” confuse the parser. Use the conventional labels: Education, Experience, Skills.

A quick test: copy all the text out of your PDF and paste it into a plain text document. If the result is jumbled, out of order, or missing chunks, an ATS sees the same mess.

How to find the keywords you are missing

The job description is the answer key. Read it closely and note the recurring technical terms, tools, and qualifications. Then make sure those exact terms appear naturally in your CV — woven into experience bullets, not dumped into a list. An ATS rewards the term being present; a human rewards it being earned.

For finance specifically, the highest-value keywords cluster by desk: modelling and transaction language for IB; alpha and attribution for AM; backtesting and signal language for quant; diligence and returns language for PE. Matching the register of your target desk is half the battle.

The bottom line

Passing an ATS is not about gaming a system — it is about making a genuinely strong CV machine-readable. The candidates who lose out are usually qualified people whose CVs were never legible to the software in the first place. Fix the format, match the keywords, and you put your real qualifications back in front of a human.