Top 3 Resume Certifications for Investment Banking

June 22, 2025

Everyone knows you have to be a ninja in excel to succeed in banking.

You spend all day cranking out models behind the keyboard -

So the interns that are quick have a much higher chance of getting a return offer.

As a non-target, the brand name on your resume gives you zero credibility.

But adding a couple reputable certifications is an easy way to make yourself a stronger candidate.

Problem is - there’s too many options and it’s hard to know which ones bankers find credible.

Here are three that our academy’s director (former partner at top CHI bank) told my class to look into.

They’re well-respected across the industry and might actually be worth your time and money depending on your situation.

CERTIFICATION #1 - FINANCIAL MODELING COURSE

It took me three tries to pass the final exam for the modeling course I took.

Our screens were strictly proctored during that live exam -

And we only had 90min to build a fully dynamic LBO from scratch in excel.

There’re lots of companies that offer these, but here are three that have the best reputation.

Our school’s academy made every kid get the FMC Level 1 & 2 before recruitment sophomore year.

After finishing, Adventis gives you the exact bullets to paste in the education section of your resume.

I liked Adventis because of how personal it felt.

There are real people grading your homework and exams that leave comments in your excel files giving super specific feedback on where you went wrong.

Here’s an overview of the course layout.

SECTION 1 - VIDEOS

It’s about nine hours of videos in total where they screen share and walk through models step by step.

Each part covers one of the three most common types of models used on the desk (3-Statement, Valuation, LBO).

The only one not covered is a merger model.

If you’re interviewing at banks that focus on advising public companies (like the boutique I interned at), you’ll need to get practice with merger models too.

Fill out this form if you’d like me to email you a good template for those - https://forms.gle/s9QV37GoqkkDU62X8

Adventis also helps you download and install custom excel macros right at the beginning of the course.

The macros make you 10x faster because they give quick shortcuts for all the repetitive formatting.

SECTION 2 - EXAMS

Their exams are live and proctored.

They'll have one or two every week.

What's nice is you can take them as many times as you want, so don't worry about failing.

I failed my first attempt at Level I and just re-took it the next week to secure the certificate.

There's also a short multiple-choice part that's similar to what you’ll get asked in a technical interview.

SECTION 3 - INTERNSHIP DATABASE

The internship database is a newer function and a great way to keep track of deadlines.

It’ll notify you via email every time a bank posts a new position -

Which is huge if you want to get ahead of the curve and be one of the first to submit your resume.

It also has a section that lists out all the “early insight” programs -

Which every freshmen who isn’t yet eligible for sophomore year roles should be taking advantage of.

And no - I'm not getting paid by them to promote (but should seriously look into asking them to...😊)

CERTIFICATION #2 - FINRA EXAMS

There are two FINRA exams you have to pass to be a legal investment banker.

  • (1) Securities Industry Essentials (SIE)

  • (2) Series 79 – Investment Banking Representative Exam

About two days after I finished my summer internship and got the return offer -

I got an email saying I had to complete both of these before training started the next summer.

Unless you have tons of extra time, I wouldn’t get these until after the internship is over.

You can fly through each in less than a week if you’ve taken even the most basic finance courses.

The SIE is the easier one you do first.

Here’s how it’s structured.

  • Number of Questions: 75

  • Format: Multiple Choice

  • Duration: 1 hour and 45 minutes

  • Passing Score: 70%

  • Cost: $80

The SIE is considered the introductory exam while the Series 79 is a bit more complex.

The Series 79 is also 75 multiple-choice questions but it’s 45min longer than the SIE.

You have to get above a 73% to pass that one.

It covers topics like debt & equity offerings, M&A and restructuring.

The best way to practice for both is by doing tons of reps of practice questions.

Here are a couple links for practice exams for the SIE.

Some people use prep courses for these as well, with the most popular one being Knopman.

CERTIFICATION #3 - BLOOMBERG MARKET CONCEPTS

If your school has a Bloomberg terminal - odds are they’ll let you take this one for free.

But if you have to pay for it yourself - the minor resume boost probably isn’t worth the $150.

This one’s an eight hour e-learning course that helps you get familiar with how to use the terminal.

Most banks have a couple Bloomberg terminals and use them for tasks like

  • Tracking down beta for comps to calculate WACC in a DCF

  • Finding more detailed info on debt traches

  • Seeing which equity research reports have been released

  • Sanity checking benchmark estimate projections against theirs

In reality, most groups share one terminal and only have a couple people that know how to use it.

So if you can be the one person in your group that’s a beast in Bloomberg -

It’ll definitely make you more of an asset to the team.

However - there are three other data providers that you’re guaranteed to use more than Bloomberg.

  • Capital IQ (CapIQ)

  • FactSet

  • Refinitiv

At the elite boutique I was at in NYC, our go-to was FactSet.

With that being said - we used all three and my excel had plugins for each.

This article does a great job explaining the difference between the providers.

Cheers 🥂

- Jack