Financial Analyst Resume Examples
Years of Experience
- 0
- 5-10
- 10+
Sarah Sark
(216) 456-9854 | [email protected] | 111 Avenue Street, San Jose, CA 11111
Profile
Aspiring Financial Analyst with strong recent academic and internship experience. Skilled communicator who puts complex finance topics in clear terms for diverse audiences. Equally effective working independently or on a team. Naturally curious and committed to learning new work skills and software programs. Master’s Degree in Financial Analysis.
Areas of Expertise
- Accounting Operations
- Financial Analysis
- Maplesoft
- Microsoft Excel
- Quantrix
- Reporting & Documentation
- Task Prioritization
- Team Collaboration
Professional Experience
Financial Analysis Intern, ABC Infrastructure Corporation, San Jose, CA | June 2022 to September 2022
- Shadowed and assisted company’s lead financial analyst
- Drafted infrastructure project reports
- Reviewed and summarized potential changes in local taxation
Highlight:
- Prepared a project report that demonstrated how new vendor options could reduce material costs by 30%
Business Assistant, Chart Company, San Francisco, CA | June 2020 to September 2020
- Found new ways to reduce procurement costs
- Modeled financing options for a new project, highlighting the pros and cons of different loan terms
- Estimated costs of several retirement plan options
Education
Master of Financial Analysis, Ball School of Business, San Jose, CA | 2022
Winner, Graduate Student of the Year in Finance Award
Select Coursework:
- Advanced Accounting
- Corporate Finance Modeling
- Tax Planning
Bachelor of Accounting, San Francisco University, San Francisco, CA | 2020
Participant, Small-Business Accounting Simulator Program
Select Coursework:
- Auditing
- Financial Reporting
- Managerial Accounting
Credentials
Certified Financial Modeler, Finance Professionals of America | 2022
Shayla Quinn
(234) 567-8901 | [email protected] | 8975 McArthur Avenue, Apt 7C, Miami, FL 33000
Profile
Financial Analyst with 5+ years of experience using data to help raise the bottom line. Skilled at creating clear, detailed dashboards for senior managers and executives. Demonstrated success finding new ways to cut costs at financial services firms. Used Microsoft Access and Excel to improve portfolios by 5%+ per year. Experienced and confident public speaker.
Key Skills
- Business Systems Review
- Cost Reduction & Elimination
- Data Gathering & Analysis
- Public Speaking & Presentations
- Reporting & Documentation
- SQL Software
- Task Prioritization
Professional Experience
Financial Analyst I, Enterprise Financial Headquarters, Miami, FL | January 2018 to Present
- Provide biweekly and monthly reports for offices in northern Florida and southern Georgia as well as custom dashboards for executive staff
- Found and eliminated recurring errors and duplications, cutting yearly costs by 2.7% in northern Florida and 1.3% in southern Georgia
- Built data visualization reports that showed how company could increase monthly client spend and grow profit by more than 5%
Junior Finance Specialist, Enterprise Financial Services, Gainesville, FL | May 2017 to December 2017
- Used SQL to pull key business data for executive presentations
- Analyzed customer data to improve upsell and cross-sell opportunities by 10%
- Created a template that decreased data redundancy by more than 12%
Education
Bachelor of Science (BS) – Finance, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL | 2018
Certifications
Microsoft Certified Data Analyst Associate | 2019
ACCA Certificate in Data Analytics (CertDA) | 2017
Phoebe Collins
(959) 012-3456 | [email protected] | 876 Little Road, East Hartford, CT 06118
Profile
Chartered Financial Analyst with 14+ years’ experience in auditing, financial management, and supply chain management. Skilled at collaborating with senior-level staff and meeting strict deadlines. Draw on deep knowledge of accounting practices and software systems. Stay up-to-date on corporate finance innovations to provide cutting-edge advice and help guide sound business decisions. Recently completed Master’s Degree in Finance.
Professional Experience
Senior Financial Analyst, Hartford Engineering Consultants, Hartford, CT | April 2015 to Present
- Manage a $30M budget covering VOP analysis and functional expense forecasting for 75 cost centers
- Work closely with senior executives on financial and operational KPIs
- Supervise a team of 3 financial analysts
Highlight:
- Led UX process implementation that expedited financial reporting by 50%
Financial Analyst, United Companies, New Haven, CT | July 2008 to March 2015
- Executed and oversaw various core financial procedures
- Managed and reconciled bank accounts and operational costs
Highlights:
- Developed forecasting tools to analyze revenue variance and industry trends, resulting in discovery of a $2M revenue opportunity
- Worked with accounting department to streamline key processes, reducing overtime by 20%
- Decreased monthly forecast variance from 25% to 9% by actively communicating with departments to obtain the latest information
Education & Credentials
Master of Finance, William & Mary University, online | 2020
Bachelor of Business Administration – Finance, University of Hartford, CT | 2008
Certified Financial Analyst, Finance Professionals’ Association of Connecticut | 2020
Key Skills
- Coaching & Mentoring
- Financial & Management Accounting
- Financial Modeling
- Project Management
- Team Collaboration
- Value-Added Analysis
Tips for Writing a Better Financial Analyst Resume
Your resume has one purpose: to get you interviews for jobs you want. You can ensure your resume serves that purpose by focusing on your most relevant skills and displaying them as clearly as possible. The tips below will help you give your resume the focus and clarity it needs to move your job search forward.
Capture your relevant background
To write a great financial analyst resume, you’ll need to first take the full measure of your relevant background. Follow these three steps:
Step 1: For each job in your work history, brainstorm and write down your answer to the question: What are you most proud of about this experience? Write down memories as they occur to you, and don’t worry yet whether the details are relevant or well-organized. Resist the urge to complete this step in any more structured or linear way. The point here is just to generate plenty of positive information you can then review critically.
Step 2: Now with everything in front of you, go through and remove any details that don’t speak to your target job. Evaluate each detail one by one, always answering the same key question: Does this overlap with the duties you’d like to have in your next financial analyst job? When in doubt, move the detail to a separate document so it’s no longer part of your current writing process.
Step 3: Organize and format your remaining details as the basis for your financial analyst resume.
The order of these steps is important. Don’t start reviewing and removing details until you’ve brainstormed plenty about your positive work experiences. And don’t start organizing details until you’re done removing the irrelevant ones. Otherwise, you’ll probably waste time polishing up work details that you just delete later on. For a more detailed overview of this method, see the “How to write a successful resume” section of our Resume vs. Curriculum Vitae (CV) article.
Avoid non-finance jargon
Any time you write a long word when a short word would do, that’s jargon. A classic example: People use the words “utilize” or “utilization” when they should use “use”.
Jargon is especially tempting in finance, which has plenty of specialized terms (like “amortization”) with no shorter alternative. These terms deserve a spot on your resume, as long as they’re relevant to your goals. The problem is when you let words that should be short and simple become words (often ending in “-tion” or “-ment”) that are long and clunky.
Companies and other authorities use jargon all the time to soften the blow of bad news. For instance, General Motors once described a plant shutdown as a “volume-related production-schedule adjustment”. (You’ll find this and many other examples of corporate jargon in William Zinsser’s classic book “On Writing Well”.)
Take the opposite approach on your resume. Your goal with this document isn’t to conceal bad news. It’s to shed light on the good news of your candidacy for a job opening. Any time you find yourself using a long word, stop and ask: Is there a shorter synonym? This habit will help make your resume a clear, concise record of what you really offer employers.
Example:
Good
Used strong math skills to find viable amortization schedules and methods.
Bad
Utilized advanced mathematical abilities to identify potentially efficacious amortization schedules and methodologies.
Common Key Skills for Financial Analyst Resumes
You can make your resume stronger by giving extra attention to keywords.
That’s because companies looking to fill a position often use an applicant tracking system (ATS). This computer system scans each submitted resume for keywords relevant to the job at hand. When the ATS scans a resume with many relevant keywords, it’s prone to flag the document for the hiring manager.
To ensure your resume performs well on ATS, add a keyword-rich “Skills” or “Expertise” section to your resume (as in the examples above). Below are common keywords for financial analysts:
| Key Skills & Proficiencies | |
|---|---|
| Budget Management | Client Relationships |
| Corporate Financing | Data Management |
| Economics | Financial Modeling |
| Financial Planning | Financial Statements |
| Forecasting | Profit & Loss (P&L) Management |
| Regulatory Compliance | Reporting & Documentation |
| Strategic Planning | Task Prioritization |
| Team Collaboration | |
Common Action Verbs for Financial Analyst Resumes
One of the most common resume mistakes is using too few verbs. When you repeat the same generic verb (say, “Manage”) several times, it distracts the reader and fails to show the dynamic nature of your work. The following list will help you mix up the verbs on your financial analyst resume:
| Action Verbs | |
|---|---|
| Audit | Budget |
| Communicate | Ensure |
| Evaluate | Forecast |
| Interpret | Invest |
| Optimize | Organize |
| Present | Recommend |
| Reconcile | Research |
| Review | Strategize |
How to Align Your Resume With a Job Posting
For each job in your Experience section, consider adding a company description. You can place this description in brackets right next to or below the company name. It also helps to match formatting. For instance, if you’ve italicized the company name, italicize the company description too.
Company descriptions let you show any similarities between your past and desired employers. For instance, maybe you’ve worked for companies of a similar size or in the same industry. Or perhaps you’ve worked at organizations with a similar core mission or leadership philosophy. By working these details into your descriptions, you can make your resume more relevant to the job at hand.