Organise your finance applications
in one place.
FairShot is a free set of tools for anyone applying to finance roles: a pipeline to track applications and deadlines, a resume and cover-letter builder with optional AI help, and plain-English guides to how recruiting works. It runs in your browser, and your data stays local.
The finance recruiting calendar, mapped out — roles at 1,900+ firms
Access to finance recruiting is uneven.
Some students come in with useful context — family who work in the industry, a well-resourced careers office, or a paid consultant reviewing their applications. Others start with none of that. FairShot aims to make the same information and tools available to everyone, for free.
First-generation students
If no one in your family has been through this, the process can be hard to see. FairShot lays out each stage, deadline and convention so you can follow it without prior context.
State-school applicants
Not everyone has a dedicated careers team or alumni network to draw on. FairShot provides similar structure and preparation, open to anyone.
Anyone without a budget for it
Application consultants can be expensive. FairShot offers a comparable set of tools — resume editing, cover-letter drafts, deadline tracking — at no cost.
“The hardest part of breaking into finance was never the work. It was finding out the rules existed at all.”
The main paths into finance, in plain English
“Finance” covers several quite different jobs. Here's what each track is, who tends to suit it, and what FairShot tracks for you.
Investment Banking
Advising companies on raising capital, mergers and acquisitions. The classic “analyst” track — intense hours, steep learning curve, broad exits.
Sales & Trading
Pricing and moving risk in live markets — equities, rates, FX, commodities. Fast, numerical and decisive; the floor never sleeps.
Asset & Wealth Management
Investing other people's money for the long run — funds, pensions, private clients. Research-led, patient, and increasingly competitive at the graduate level.
Private Equity & Buy-side
Buying, building and selling whole businesses, or running hedge-fund strategies. Mostly post-banking, but spring weeks and off-cycle roles open doors early.
Consulting
Solving strategy and operations problems across industries. Case interviews, broad business exposure, and a common alternative to finance.
Quant & Technology
Engineering, data and quantitative research behind every modern trading desk. The fastest-growing route in — and the most meritocratic.
The tools, in one place
From the first spring week to a signed offer, FairShot helps you keep your search organised, track deadlines and prepare for interviews.
Pipeline board
Drag every application through Wishlist → Applied → Interview → Offer. See your whole search at a glance.
2,300+ open roles
A live board of internships, graduate schemes, spring weeks and off-cycle roles across UK, US and EU finance.
Deadline radar
Rolling deadlines, closing dates and reminders surface the moment they matter — so nothing slips.
Resume and cover-letter builder
Upload a PDF and FairShot extracts and restructures it into a clean, editable resume, then helps you draft cover letters for each firm. Optional AI features use your own API key.
- Extract & convert from any PDF
- Firm-specific cover-letter drafts
- Export to PDF, ready to send
What each tool does
Open any tool below to see how it works and roughly what the equivalent tends to cost elsewhere.
The AI resume builder
Upload your existing CV as a PDF and FairShot reads it, pulls out each role, date and bullet, and rebuilds it into a clean, standard layout you can edit line by line.
- Extracts structured sections from any PDF — no retyping
- Suggests clearer, metric-led rewrites for bullets
- Suggests skill categories relevant to finance and consulting
- Exports back to a PDF, ready to send
Tailored cover letters & answers
Draft a cover letter or application answer grounded in your real resume — never invented experience — then tailor it to each firm and question in seconds.
- Firm-specific drafts that reference the role, not a template
- Reusable “master answers” you tailor per application
- Polish, shorten or expand any draft with one click
- Keeps your voice — it builds on your stories, it doesn't fabricate
The pipeline board
A drag-and-drop Kanban board for your whole search. Every role moves through Wishlist → Applied → Interview → Offer, with notes, stages and dates attached.
- 2,300+ live roles you can save straight to your board
- Rolling and fixed deadlines surfaced ahead of time
- “New since your last visit” badges on fresh listings
- Analytics on your applications and response rate
The technicals textbook
Interview content that's often part of a paid course — accounting, valuation, markets — written for someone starting from zero, with interactive diagrams.
- Plain-English modules from first principles
- Interactive visuals rather than long text
- Common questions that come up in interviews
- Progress tracking so you know what's left
Three steps
Browse open roles
Filter 2,300+ live finance roles by region, programme and deadline. Save the ones you're interested in to your wishlist.
Track your pipeline
Move each role across your board as you apply, interview and hear back. Notes, dates and stages stay attached.
Prepare your applications
Build a resume and draft a cover letter for each firm, then export and send — without leaving the app.
What actually happens between “apply” and “offer”
Every firm dresses it up differently, but the path is almost always the same five gates. Knowing the shape of it is half the battle — here's the whole thing.
Application & CV screen
You submit a CV, sometimes a cover letter and a few written answers. A recruiter (or a filter) decides if you move on — often in under a minute per CV.
Online tests
Numerical, logical or situational-judgement assessments, plus increasingly common game-based and coding tests. Usually timed, usually done at home.
Video / HireVue interview
Pre-recorded answers to set questions, or a short live call. Tests motivation, communication and a little commercial awareness.
Assessment centre
A half- or full-day mix of group exercises, case studies, a presentation and one-to-one interviews — sometimes in person, sometimes virtual.
Final round & offer
Interviews with senior bankers or investors, deeper on technicals and fit. Then — if it lands — the offer, and a conversion-to-grad path for interns.
The recruiting year at a glance
A common reason applicants miss out is applying too late. Many programmes open and fill on a rolling basis. Here's roughly when each window opens.
Spring weeks and many summer internships open early and fill rolling. The earliest applicants have a real advantage.
The busiest stretch — bulge brackets, elite boutiques and grad schemes are all live. Most assessment centres start now.
Deadlines close and final rounds run. Off-cycle and later-opening firms keep accepting — useful if you started late.
Off-cycle internships, smaller funds and continental EU roles. A genuine second chance for the next season's prep.
One board, across the market
Internships, graduate programmes, spring weeks, industrial placements and off-cycle roles, kept current so deadlines stay accurate.
Assumptions that put people off applying
A lot of what discourages first-gen and state-school students from applying isn't accurate. Here are some common ones, and what's actually the case.
“You need a target-school name to get in.”
Firms increasingly recruit blind and widen their school lists every year. A strong application from a state school can outperform a weak one from a target school.
“You have to know someone on the inside.”
Connections help, but the process is more standardised than it looks. The “unwritten rules” are learnable — FairShot writes them down.
“You need a finance degree.”
Banks hire historians, engineers and linguists every year. They teach the technicals — they're hiring for drive, rigour and how you think.
“If you didn't start in first year, it's too late.”
Spring weeks help, but plenty break in later via off-cycle, grad and conversion routes. There's a door open almost every month of the year.
Do's and don'ts
Small habits that tend to make a difference between offers and rejections — the kind of thing that's often passed down informally.
Do
- Apply the week a programme opens — rolling deadlines reward the early.
- Tailor every CV and answer to the specific firm and role.
- Quantify your impact — numbers, scale and outcomes, not duties.
- Prep two or three genuine reasons you want that firm.
- Track every deadline in one place so nothing slips.
Don't
- Fire off one generic CV to fifty firms and hope.
- Wait until the deadline — most spots are gone by then.
- Invent experience — it falls apart the moment they ask.
- Pad your CV with buzzwords no interviewer believes.
- Assume “they'll explain the process” — they won't.
FairShot compared with a paid consultant
Application consultants do useful work, but the cost puts them out of reach for many students. Here's how the tools compare.
Who FairShot is built for
Composite examples of the kinds of students FairShot is intended to help.
First in the family
“No one at home could tell me what a spring week was, let alone when to apply. Having the whole calendar and the rules laid out meant I wasn't guessing anymore.”
State school, no careers team
“Private-school friends had alumni reviewing their CVs. I had a generic template. The resume builder gave me something that finally looked the part.”
Couldn't justify a consultant
“£3,000 was never going to happen. Doing the same prep for free, on my own schedule, is the only reason I even applied — and I got the interview.”
The finance jargon, decoded
Every industry has its own acronyms. Here's a sample — the full glossary is free and needs no sign-up.
- Bulge bracket
- The largest global investment banks — think Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley.
- Spring week
- A short, first-year insight programme that often fast-tracks you to a summer internship.
- Off-cycle
- Internships outside the main summer window — a key back-door for later applicants.
- Rolling deadline
- Applications reviewed as they arrive, so spots fill before the official close date.
- Assessment centre
- A half- or full-day of group tasks, cases and interviews — usually the final hurdle.
- Conversion rate
- The share of interns who get a graduate offer — one indicator of how a programme treats interns.
Guides and tools, also free
Guides and tools to help turn “I think I want finance” into a concrete plan.
How recruiting works
An end-to-end map of the season — each stage, who's involved and how decisions get made.
Technicals textbook
Accounting, valuation and markets from first principles — with interactive visuals and real interview questions.
CV & cover-letter guide
What recruiters tend to look for at a glance, a useful bullet-point structure, and common mistakes to avoid.
Your data stays local
FairShot runs entirely in your browser. Your applications, notes and credentials are stored locally on your device — not uploaded to a server, sold or shared. You can export your data any time as CSV or JSON.
Common questions
Is it really free? What's the catch?
Do I need to create an account?
How do the AI features work?
Which regions and roles are covered?
I'm not at a target school. Is this for me?
Will it write my application for me?
A clearer way to manage your applications.
FairShot helps organise the application season into a single pipeline you can keep track of — free to use.