Financial Analyst Skills for a Resume
Companies hire financial analysts to plan, forecast and help leaders make sound decisions. Show the size of the budgets and models you handle, your tools and the decisions your analysis supported.
Updated
14 skills at a glance
Hard skills
Hard skills
What the work takes, how a hiring manager judges each skill, and a bullet point that shows it.
Financial modeling
Show what the model was for and who used it.
Example bullet pointBuilt a unit-economics model by customer segment that guided the next year's sales hiring plan.
Budgeting and forecasting
Give the size and the accuracy of your forecasts.
Example bullet pointKept the quarterly revenue forecast within 2% of actual results for six quarters.
Variance analysis
Show variances you explained and what changed as a result.
Example bullet pointTraced a cost overrun to duplicate software licenses and recovered $90,000 a year.
Valuation (DCF, NPV)
Show the investment or deal decisions you supported.
Example bullet pointValued two acquisition targets with discounted cash flow models presented to the executive team.
Advanced Excel
Mention complex models, scenario tools or automation.
Example bullet pointBuilt a scenario tool in Excel that let leaders test price and volume changes as they talked.
SQL
Show data you pulled yourself to answer finance questions.
Example bullet pointPulled billing data with SQL to measure revenue by cohort without waiting for the data team.
Planning tools (Adaptive, Anaplan, Hyperion)
Name the tool and any build or rollout work.
Example bullet pointMoved the budget from spreadsheets into Adaptive Planning, cutting the budget cycle by three weeks.
Business intelligence (Power BI, Tableau)
Name the tool, and show dashboards leaders opened regularly instead of asking finance.
Example bullet pointBuilt a Tableau view of spending against budget that every department head checked each month.
Financial reporting
Show the reports and who relied on them.
Example bullet pointPrepared the monthly management report, with commentary on results, risks and actions.
Soft skills
Shown through what you did, never claimed as adjectives.
Business judgment
Show a recommendation that changed a decision.
Example bullet pointRecommended delaying a warehouse expansion after modeling demand, deferring $2 million of spending.
Clear presentation
Show how you presented numbers to leaders.
Example bullet pointCut the monthly finance deck from 30 slides to 10, built around decisions rather than detail.
Curiosity
Show an analysis you took further than the request.
Example bullet pointLooked into rising freight costs and found a carrier billing error worth $60,000.
Attention to detail
Show the checks that kept your numbers right.
Example bullet pointAdded checks to the forecast model that flagged broken links and unusual changes.
Working with non-finance leaders
Show partnerships with business teams.
Example bullet pointMet each department head monthly to review spending and update their forecasts.
Licenses and certifications
Give them a section of their own, with who issued each one and the year or expiry date.
- Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA)
- Certified Management Accountant (CMA)
- Financial Modeling and Valuation Analyst (FMVA)
Keywords from financial analyst job postings
Use the ones that are true for you, in your bullet points as well as your skills list.
- forecast
- budget
- variance analysis
- pricing model
- revenue
- CFO
- business cases
- SQL
- capital budget
Each posting has its own words. Our guide to tailoring your resume to a job description shows how to find them and where to put them.
Where to put your skills
- In a skills section: a short list of the hard skills the posting names, in its words.
- In your bullet points: every skill that matters should show up in something you did, with a result. That is where a hiring manager believes it.
- In your summary: two or three of the skills the job asks for most.
More on choosing them in how to choose and prove the skills on your resume.
Questions
What skills should a financial analyst put on a resume?
Financial modeling, budgeting and forecasting, variance analysis, valuation, advanced Excel, SQL, planning tools, BI dashboards and financial reporting, plus business judgment and clear presentation.
Do financial analysts need SQL?
More postings ask for it every year. It lets you pull data yourself, which makes your analysis faster.
How do I show impact as a financial analyst?
Name the decisions your analysis supported and their value: money saved, margin gained or risk avoided.
Put them to work
Start from a financial analyst resume that already uses these skills, for an invented person, and make it yours in the builder.