Signal vs Noise: What Our Recruiters Look For in Internship & Graduate Applications
At VivCourt, we want students applying to our internship and graduate programs to feel supported and set up to put their best foot forward. Beyond genuine curiosity and a real interest in the work, our campus recruiters share practical CV tips and straightforward ways to prepare for interviews so you can showcase your skills clearly. Read on.
Setting up your CV
When you first open a CV, what stands out in the first 10–15 seconds?
Aoife: I want to see the basics at the top of the CV – your degree, expected graduation date, and any relevant experience. It should be presented in a clean, one-column layout, with concise bullet points.
What common CV mistakes should candidates avoid?
Millie: Anything too colourful. Keep it black and white! Also, CVs longer than two pages, typos, and messy formatting. It may seem minor, but it makes the CV harder to read.
Should candidates tailor their CV for trading vs. software engineering roles?
Aoife: Definitely tailor it. For trading, highlight your quantitative skills. If your degree is less technical, we’ll want to see evidence that you’ve built strong maths, data, and analytical skills outside of it. For engineering, it helps to show you’ve picked up multiple languages and applied them in real projects or work experience.
If you’re applying for trading from a computer science background, or vice versa, we’ll want to see evidence of what’s driving that interest through relevant work experience, projects or coursework.
Skills & Experience
Do candidates need prior finance experience or internships to be considered?
You don’t need prior finance experience, but internships are a definite plus – not because they’re in trading, but because they show initiative, exposure to real-world work, and ownership of building your skills. The same goes for part-time work or starting a small business of your own: it signals drive and entrepreneurial thinking, which we value.
Personal projects can be just as strong, but make sure you’re able to walk us through what you built, what you learned and its relevance.
What makes a candidate stand out in behavioural interviews beyond academics and technical skills?
Aoife: Strong academics help get you through the door, but certain behavioural skills can help you progress. We look for clear communication, structured thinking, self-awareness, and signs you’ll be a strong addition to VivCourt and a good teammate. Honest reflections on challenges and what you learned matter more than trying to sound “perfect.”
What should candidates expect in the online assessment (OA) and phone screen, and how should they prepare?
Millie: For Trading, the OA will test your numerical reasoning, pattern recognition and technical skills – to prepare, review core probability/statistics content and data basics. For Engineering, the OA is mainly coding-based (in Python or C++), so practise writing clean, correct solutions in a timed setting.
We’re supportive of using AI to help you prepare more efficiently, but using it to solve the OA won’t help you later on. Our interviews assess deep reasoning and problem-solving, which are core to our roles at VivCourt.
Phone screens are mostly about communication; it’s a chance for us to understand your motivation, how you communicate, and what excites you about VivCourt. Make sure you can speak confidently about your experiences and why you’re interested in the role. Know your CV inside out, and spend some time reading about the firm beforehand!
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