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 not stored after the analysis, never sold, and never shared for marketing. We keep only the email you provide to send your report and a short series of follow-up tips, which you can unsubscribe from at any time. See our Privacy Policy for full detail.

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.

15 June 2026·5 min read

How Much Does a Finance CV Review Cost? (2026 Guide)

What a finance CV review actually costs in 2026 — from free university services to £400 professional writers — and how to choose the option that is worth paying for.

A finance CV review can cost anything from nothing to several hundred pounds, and the price tells you surprisingly little about the quality. Here is what each option actually costs in 2026, and — more importantly — what you get for the money.

The options and what they cost

University careers service — free. Worth using, but the feedback is general (“use stronger verbs”) and rarely finance-specific. Advisers are generalists, not ex-finance recruiters.
Professional CV writer — £100–400. They will tidy formatting and language, but most are not finance specialists and will not know what a bulge-bracket recruiter screens for. Turnaround is usually days.
Careers coach / consultant — £80–200 per hour. Useful for broader strategy, expensive for a single CV, and quality varies enormously.
Generic AI CV tools — free to ~£20/month. Fast, but tuned for general jobs, not finance. They will not flag a missing DCF reference or the right ATS keywords for an IB desk.
Finance CV Audit — free score, £19 full report. Finance-specific, scored against the standards top firms use, instant, and one-time (no subscription).

What you should actually pay for

Price is the wrong first question. What matters is whether the review is specific to finance, specific to your CV (quoting your actual bullets, not generic tips), and fast enough to use before a rolling application deadline. A £300 review from a generalist who has never worked in finance is worse value than a sharp, role-specific one a fraction of the price.

Is it worth it at all?

Consider the stakes. A single bulge-bracket summer internship pays around £2,000 a week, and is the most common route into private equity and hedge funds. If a review meaningfully improves your odds on an application that valuable, almost any reasonable price pays for itself many times over. The real cost is submitting a weak CV and never finding out why it was rejected.

The smart move: use your free university service for a sanity check, then get a finance-specific score before you submit. You can see exactly where your CV stands with a free score in 60 seconds — and only pay if you want the full fix.

Not sure a paid review is even necessary for you? Read why do a CV audit — and when it is worth it.