Student CV: weak and strong versions compared
Two CVs from the same King's College London student: a similar profile, the same template, one page each. Part of the difference lies in the choice of experience; the rest is in the details a recruiter notices in the first 30 seconds.
The student's profile
Third-year BSc Business Management student at King's, predicted a First. A spring week at the investment bank Piper Sandler, an internship at Nova Digital in Kyiv and a summer internship in Transaction Services & Private Equity at Simon-Kucher. Volunteering: fundraising for first-aid kits for residents of front-line villages. The CV serves both job applications and applications for a master's in finance or management.
Click a CV to view it at full size.
The difference, point by point
Role, not duty
Assisted the team with a commercial due diligence project for a private equity client, looking at the target’s market, competitors and pricing
Supported a 4-week commercial due diligence of a UK B2B software provider for a mid-market private equity fund, assessing market size, competitive position and pricing power
“Assisted the team” hides the role. The strong bullet shows the duration, the type of company and client, and exactly what was analysed – without naming anyone: due diligence is confidential, and disclosing names is a red flag in PE and consulting.
Scale
Analysed parcel locker data using SQL and Power BI to find locations that were not used enough
Analysed 6 months of usage data from 1,200+ parcel lockers in Kyiv using SQL and Power BI to identify under-used locations
The same tools, but now with scale: the time period and the number of sites. The recruiter sees the size of the task at once.
Result
Presented recommendations to the product lead about relocating some lockers to districts with higher demand
Presented relocation recommendations to the product lead, leading to a pilot move of 15 lockers to higher-demand districts
The weak bullet ends with the action, the strong one with the outcome. “Leading to…” answers the recruiter's main question: what changed because of you.
Key figures
Organised a fundraiser to buy first-aid kits for residents of front-line villages in Kharkiv region. Contacted suppliers to find the best price and helped to organise the delivery of the kits.
Raised UAH 300,000 (c. £5,500) to supply first-aid kits to residents of 6 front-line villages in Kharkiv region. Compared quotes from 12 Ukrainian and Polish suppliers and negotiated a 15% bulk discount, funding 450 kits.
This is probably the most impressive experience on the whole CV, yet the weak version loses every figure. The amount, the number of suppliers, the discount and the number of kits demonstrate procurement and negotiation skills that few other candidates can show.
Education
Predicted Grade: First Class Honours. Relevant Courses: Introduction to Management, Marketing, Organisational Behaviour, Economics. Member of Ukrainian Society and Tennis Society.
Predicted Grade: First Class Honours (Year 1 average: 76%, Year 2 average: 74%). Relevant Courses: Corporate Finance, Financial Accounting, Business Analytics, Strategic Management. Member of KCL Finance and Investment Club & Consulting and Financial Advisory Society.
The same degree, presented differently. The averages support the predicted grade, and the modules and societies show a clear interest in finance and consulting.
Other details that set the two CVs apart
| Section | Weak CV | Strong CV |
|---|---|---|
| Additional experience | Sales Assistant at Zara | 180 Degrees Consulting and a group company valuation |
| Certificates | Google Digital Marketing, a Udemy course on personal finance | Bloomberg Market Concepts, BCG Job Simulation |
| Skills | Microsoft Office, Google Sheets, Canva | Excel, PowerPoint, Power BI, SQL, Python |
| Job titles | Intern, Spring Week | Business Analyst Intern, Spring Week Participant, Investment Banking |
| Attention to detail | “Build” instead of “Built”, inconsistent date formats | Consistent verb tense and date format |
None of these mistakes is critical on its own. Together, though, they create the impression of a candidate who “also did some internships”, whereas the strong CV shows exactly what he achieved. For how to write strong bullets, see our guide “Action verbs for your CV”.
Key takeaways
- Start every bullet with a verb and end it with a result or a sense of scale.
- Use limited space for relevant experience, modules and certificates.
- Do not disclose client names from confidential projects.
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