Financial Analyst Resume Examples
Years of Experience
- Entry-level
- Mid-career
- Senior-level
Shayla Quinn
(234) 567-8901
[email protected]
8975 McArthur Avenue, Apt 7C, Miami, FL 33000
Profile
Enthusiastic entry-level financial analyst with two years of experience focused on using data to help businesses increase profits. Reduced waste and expenses for financial services companies and created dashboards for senior management and executive staff. Used MS Access and Excel to improve portfolios by at least 5.5% per year.
Key Skills
- Research to establish facts and draw conclusions
- Examine structures and systems with the help of SQL and other software
- Excellent presentation skills
Education
Bachelor of Science in Finance
University Of Florida, Gainesville, FL, August 2015 – December 2018
Professional Experience
Financial Analyst I, Enterprise Financial Headquarters, Miami, FL
January 2019 – Present
- Provide bi-weekly and monthly summary reports for North Florida and south Georgia offices and custom dashboards for executive staff
- Found and eliminated recurring errors and duplications, saving the company 2.7% in annual expenses in North Florida and 1.3% in South Georgia offices
- Built data visualization reports showing ways to increase monthly client spend while expanding profit margins by at least 5%
Junior Finance Specialist, Enterprise Financial Services, Gainesville, FL
May 2017 – December 2017
- Used SQL to pull important business intelligence data for executive presentation.
- Analyzed customer data to improve upsell and cross-selling opportunities by 10%
- Created a template that decreased data redundancy by at least 12%
Certifications
- ACCA Certificate in Data Analytics (CertDA), July 2017
- Microsoft Certified Data Analyst Associate, January 2019
Pedro Pennington
(111) 222-3333
[email protected]
123 First Street, New York, NY 10001
Profile
Energetic, detailed-oriented financial analyst who has over eight years of experience. Can lean on accounting background to process large amounts of financial information and investigate the strength of potential investments. Good communicator who is able to create digestible reports and give presentations that assist upper-level decision-makers.
Professional Experience
Financial Analyst, RRR Finances, New York, NY
November 2015 – Present
- Perform risk-assessment analyses on potential and current investments
- Help executive team formulate financial goals, then adjust as necessary each quarter
- Using spreadsheets to present data, report on the performance of current holdings and recommend courses of action
- Identify process improvements that have, to date, resulted in a 9% decrease in overhead costs
- Examine financial documents of businesses seeking funding to determine solvency and potential
Junior Financial Analyst, ACE Bank, New York, NY
July 2012 – November 2015
- Created reports on stock and bond trends
- Prepared technical reports, integrating graphs and charts to show data
- Maintained long-term database on income and expenses from ACE Bank’s 35 real estate property holdings
Education
Master of Finance
Buffalo School Of Finance, Buffalo, NY, September 2010 – June 2012
Bachelor of Science in Accounting
Rochester Business Academy, Rochester, NY, September 2006 – June 2010
Key Skills
- Microsoft Excel
- Interpreting business documents, including business plans and financial statements
- Conducting and contributing to meetings
- Communication through verbal and written means
Certifications
- Certified Financial Analyst, Finance Professionals’ Association of New York, 2020
Phoebe Collins
(959) 012-3456
[email protected]
876 Little Road, East Hartford, CT 06118
Profile
Chartered Financial Analyst with 12+ years’ experience in financial management, supply chain management and auditing. Highly capable of collaborating with senior-level staff and meeting multiple pressing deadlines. Deeply familiar with best accounting practices and financial management software systems. Proven relationship builder and motivator.
Professional Experience
Senior Financial Analyst, Hartford Engineering Consultants, Hartford, CT
April 2015 – Present
- Managing a $30M operating budget, including VOP analysis and functional expense forecasting for 75 cost centers
- Working closely with senior executives on financial and operational KPIs
- Supervising three financial analysts
- Led UX process implementation that reduced financial reporting preparation time by 50%
Financial Analyst, United Companies, New Haven, CT
July 2008 – March 2015
- Developed forecasting tools to analyze revenue variance and industry trends, resulting in the discovery of a $2M revenue opportunity
- Collaborated with accounting department in streamlining key processes, reducing labor overtime costs by 20%
- Executed core financial processes, including administration and reconciliations of bank accounts and operational expenses
- Reduced monthly forecast variance from 25% to 9% by communicating across departments to incorporate the most recent information in the forecasts
Education
Master Finance
William & Mary University, Online, September 2019 – September 2020
Bachelor of Science in Business Administration – Finance
University Of Hartford, Hartford, CT, September 2004 – May 2008
Key Skills
- Solid knowledge of financial and management accounting
- Financial modeling
- Value-added analysis
- Project management
- Team player and mentor
Certification
- Certified Financial Analyst, Finance Professionals’ Association of Connecticut, 2020
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.