A fair shot, for everyone
Breaking into finance depends a lot on information that isn't evenly shared. Which firms open when. What a spring week is, and why it matters. How an assessment centre is scored. What “commercial awareness” means when an interviewer asks for it. None of this is secret, but it tends to reach some applicants sooner — through families already in the industry, well-resourced school careers offices, and paid consultants.
The result is an uneven start line. Two equally capable students apply for the same role; one has been coached for months and one is guessing. FairShot's aim is to narrow that gap.
It brings together the things applicants often pay for — tracking, resume and cover-letter help, and plain-English explanations of how recruiting works — and makes them free, private, and open to anyone. No paywall, no upsell, and no collecting your data.
Where you come from should shape your story, not your ceiling.
“The information gap is the real inequality. Close it, and a state-school first-gen applicant competes with anyone.”
Assumptions that stop people applying
A common barrier is the belief that finance “isn't for people like me”. Much of what holds applicants back is less true than it used to be.
“You have to go to a target university.”
Target schools help, but more firms than ever run contextual, CV-blind and school-blind recruiting, and actively widen access. Where you start matters far less than how you apply.
“You need finance experience already.”
Graduate programmes are built to teach you from zero. They hire for aptitude and attitude — your part-time job, society or side project shows more than you think.
“You need connections to get in.”
Connections are just early information — when things open, who to talk to, what's expected. FairShot hands you that information directly, so you don't need to know the right people.
“It's too late for me.”
Off-cycle internships, placements and graduate routes run all year, and career-changers get hired constantly. There's almost always another door — you just have to know it exists.
Who FairShot is built for
These aren't testimonials — they're the kinds of applicants FairShot was designed around. If one of them sounds like you, it may be useful.
The first-generation student
Nobody at home has worked in finance, so the unwritten rules — when to apply, what a spring week is, how interviews really work — were never passed down. FairShot writes them all out, plainly.
The state-school applicant
No dedicated careers team, no alumni at every bank, no mock-interview programme. FairShot provides some of that — structure, prep and templates that a well-resourced school would have offered.
The student priced out
Motivated, but a paid consultant is out of the question. FairShot covers much of the same ground for free, so cost is less of a barrier.
The career-changer
Coming from another field or a non-finance degree, unsure if the door is even open. It is — through off-cycle roles, conversions and graduate schemes. FairShot shows where those doors are and how to walk through them.
The overwhelmed organiser
Dozens of roles, every firm on a different timeline, deadlines everywhere. FairShot turns the chaos into one calm board with a radar that surfaces what's due — so nothing slips through.
The privacy-conscious
Wary of handing personal data and draft applications to yet another platform. FairShot keeps everything in your browser — nothing uploaded, nothing sold, nothing shared.
Jargon, decoded
Part of feeling like an outsider is not knowing the words. Here are the ones that come up often, defined plainly.
- Bulge bracket
- The largest global investment banks — the household names with offices in every financial centre.
- Boutique / elite boutique
- Smaller, specialist advisory firms. “Elite boutiques” punch well above their size on prestigious deals.
- Buy-side vs sell-side
- Sell-side firms (banks) create and sell products and advice; buy-side firms (funds) invest the money.
- Penultimate year
- The second-to-last year of your degree — the prime year to land a summer internship.
- Rolling deadline
- Applications reviewed as they arrive, not after a fixed date — so applying early tends to help.
- Spring week
- A short first-year insight programme — and a common fast-track into a summer internship.
- Assessment centre (AC)
- A half/full day of group tasks, a case study and interviews — usually the final stage.
- HireVue
- A one-way recorded video interview: you answer set questions to a camera, no interviewer present.
- Competency interview
- Questions about past behaviour (“tell me about a time…”) to predict how you'll act on the job.
- Commercial awareness
- Understanding business and markets well enough to say why a deal or move actually matters.
- M&A
- Mergers & acquisitions — advising companies on buying, selling or combining with others.
- IPO
- Initial public offering — the first time a company sells shares to the public on a stock exchange.
- DCF
- Discounted cash flow — a core valuation method that values a business by its future cash, in today's money.
- Front / middle / back office
- Revenue-generating roles (front), risk & control (middle), and operations & support (back).
- FICC
- Fixed income, currencies & commodities — a major part of a markets (sales & trading) division.
- Conversion
- Turning an internship into a full-time graduate offer — the main goal of most summer internships.
- STAR
- Situation, Task, Action, Result — the structure for answering competency (“tell me about a time”) questions.
- Target / non-target
- Whether a university is one firms heavily recruit from. Increasingly less decisive than it used to be.
- Insight day
- A short (often one-day) introduction to a firm or industry, common for first-years and access programmes.
Go deeper with the free guides
Everything on this page is expanded in more detail in the FairShot guides — written for people figuring it out without anyone to ask.
How recruiting works
The full breakdown of divisions, programmes, the calendar and every stage of the process — start here.
CV & cover letters
Exactly how to structure, word and tailor a finance CV and cover letter — with examples and common pitfalls.
The full glossary
Every term you'll meet in applications and interviews, defined in plain English. No prior knowledge assumed.
Frequently asked
Who is FairShot for?
Is it really free? What's the catch?
Which roles are covered?
How does the free AI resume tool work?
I'm not at a target university — can I still break in?
When should I start applying?
What's the difference between a spring week, an internship and a grad scheme?
Does FairShot work outside the UK?
How do you keep the role listings up to date?
Do I need any finance knowledge to start using FairShot?
Will using AI on my application make it generic?
Is finance still worth going into?
What if I've already missed a deadline?
How can I support or share FairShot?
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.