Financial Analyst Resume Sample

If you’re looking for a comfortable, high-paying job, then financial analysis is a great field for you to consider — with the number of analyst jobs expected to grow by 6% in the coming decade.

However, finding the right position as a financial analyst can be difficult, because each job opening is competitive. To maximize your chances of getting an interview, you need a resume that markets your skills and helps you demonstrate to the hiring manager that you’re highly competent.

To help you get started, here are three tips for writing the perfect financial analyst resume:

1. Open with a strong financial analyst resume summary

Good financial analyst jobs are highly sought after, so your application is likely one of hundreds that the hiring manager will have to review.

To stand apart from the competition, you need to put the most impressive parts of your resume right at the top. The best way to do this is to start your resume with a convincing resume introduction that highlights your key strengths.

As a financial analyst, a resume summary is uniquely qualified to help you market yourself quickly and convincingly. In four to five concise bullet points, you can showcase your most impressive, quantifiable work-related achievements, qualifications, and skills.

Here’s an example of a strong financial analyst resume summary:

Ultimately, a good resume summary should be short, direct, and entice the hiring manager to continue reading your resume.

2. Include essential financial analyst skills on your resume

Financial analysts need a range of hard and soft skills to effectively perform their daily tasks. To demonstrate to employers that you’re qualified for the position, include skills relevant to the job on your resume.

If you’re unsure what resume skills to include, just look for any skills mentioned in the job listing. Hiring managers typically state in the listing exactly what they’re looking for in a candidate — so meet their expectations by including them in your resume.

For reference, here are just some of the skills that hiring managers expect to see on a financial analyst resume:

• Data analysis
• Data visualization
• Trend analysis
• Organizational skills
• Business performance analysis
• Risk management
• Asset management
• Cost accounting
• Microsoft Excel
• SQL
• Leadership skills

3. Write a detailed professional experience section

Your work experience is the most important part of your job application. To convince the hiring manager that you’re a competent financial analyst, your experience section needs to be highly detailed, focused on your accomplishments, and — most importantly — quantified.

Since a financial analyst job involves working with numbers and reviewing data, it’s important to leverage hard numbers when describing your professional experience. Quantifying your resume accomplishments demonstrates to the hiring manager what you’re capable of, and what kind of expertise you can bring to their team.

For example, here’s how a financial analyst with four years of relevant experience used hard numbers to highlight their accomplishments:

FINANCIAL ANALYST
Blackburn Inc., Pittsburgh, PA  / February 2017 – Present

• Streamlined analysis of financial data, increasing accuracy of our forecasted revenue projections by 9%.
• Prepare weekly reports and lead presentations to brief staff on financial outlook.
• Monitor investments and provide recommendations based on current market trends.
• Increased revenue by an average of 7% annually through an optimized investment strategy.
• Develop onboarding materials and oversee training of 15 new employees each year.

FINANCE INTERN
Stuart and Son’s, Philadelphia, PA  / October 2016 – February 2017

• Assisted in the development of a new risk assessment strategy, reducing losses by an average of 12%.
• Compiled reports to inform management about the company’s financial outlook.
• Developed highly accurate analysis of competitor market share.
• Produced reports detailing the impact of debt financing on the company’s net income.

By quantifying their achievements, this candidate demonstrates that they contributed directly to the success of the company. In contrast, applicants who only use generic, unquantified language will fail to stand out to hiring managers.

The Next Step

By following these key financial analyst resume tips, you can enhance your application and get more interview offers.

Not sure how to format your resume? Depending on your specific strengths, there are a variety of resume formats to choose from.

And if you want to make the job application process even easier, have a look at our simple-to-use resume builder and craft the perfect resume in just a few short minutes.