Finance Resume Sample and Tips

What does it take to build a successful career in the finance sector? Apart from education, skills, and qualification, to land a job you also need a job-winning resume for finance positions. A well-written finance professional resume can help you get more interviews and finally get hired. And we are here to show you how to create a flawless finance resume example!

How to Write a Finance Resume?

Although you may not recognize it yet, a resume plays a crucial role in your job search. Today, the finance job market is way more competitive than ever. To succeed in your search, you need to make the right impression on recruiting firms and show that you are the best applicant.

If you can show it with your resume, you win. And that’s why it is so important to have a strong and professional financial resume.

So, how to write a resume that will win you a job?

Emphasize your key skills. Your skills section will be of the utmost interest to a recruiter. As a finance specialist, you are expected to possess a large number of hard and soft skills, so you should do your best to highlight them.
Add some hard numbers. To make your accomplishments look more convincing, try adding some hard numbers to them. Hard numbers that confirm your past achievements always look good on a resume, especially when it is a resume for a job in finance.
Tailor your resume for the job post. Finally, to prove that you are the right candidate for a specific position, you should customize your resume to meet the requirements stated in the job post.

These are the basic steps to writing a brilliant resume that can make recruiters and potential employers want to hire you. Further on, we are going to take a closer look at each section of a financial resume, give you some more writing tips, and share some strong finance resume examples with you.

Choose the Best Format for Finance Resume

Choosing the right format and template are among the biggest dilemmas all job seekers face when writing their sample finance resume.

There are three common formats that can be used:

reverse chronological;
skills-based;
hybrid.

Each of them has a different point of focus. A reverse-chronological format puts your experience first. A skills-based resume, on the contrary, emphasizes your professional and personal skills. Whereas a hybrid format is a combination of both.

Which format to choose for your finance resume sample? There is no one-fits-all formula for success. We recommend choosing the format based on your needs. For example, if you don’t have much work experience yet, then a skills-based format will be your best pick. But, if you have been in the finance industry for quite a while, you would want to stick to a reverse-chronological format to show what you’ve got.

How long should it be? The core tip to write the best finance resume is to keep it short, but yet ensure that it shows what a good fit you are for a particular company. Due to this reason, the standard one-page resume template is the most commonly used one. One page should be enough to show your strongest skills and experience, without making hiring managers bored.

Write Finance Resume Summary or Summary Objective

Your resume summary is a kind of introduction to your job application. Recruiters always quickly scan resumes first. It is claimed they spend only seven seconds on identifying whether a particular candidate deserves more attention. Thus, your finance resume summary is your chance to grab their attention.

How to write a perfect summary for your finance major resume? A good summary should be clear, concise, straight to the point, and engaging. Typically, this part of a resume should be 3-4 sentences max. This should be enough to deliver your strongest points and make a recruiter want to see the rest of your resume.

Some other tips to help you create a perfect resume summary include:

Choosing a few key achievements that showcase your professionalism most and focus on them in your summary;
Only mentioning your strongest skills;
Making sure a resume explains why you are a good fit for a job.

Later we will provide you with a few complete financial resumes samples. But, now, let us show you a perfect example of a finance resume summary:

Proficient financial specialist with strong analytical and interpersonal skills and a results-driven approach. Expert in financial analysis and risk assessment. Saved company over $1M by identifying low margin to high-profit opportunities, created and managed monthly billing reports for over 50 high executive portfolios. Looking forward to leveraging my experience and skills at [Company Name].

Describe Your Finance Experience

When writing a resume for finance job, you have to make the biggest focus on your past experience. How to make the right impression and get an invitation to the interview? There are a few tips we can give you here:

Always read the job post very carefully and tailor your resume to it.
List all relevant experience and achievements that can give you a competitive advantage.
Support your accomplishments with some numbers to add real value to them.

Further in this article, you will find effective resume samples for finance jobs to help you craft a winning resume yourself, but here is an example of how to list your work experience the right way:

Financial Specialist

[Company Name]

[Years of work]

Prepared monthly billing reports for 55+ high executive portfolios
Identified low margin to high-profit opportunities and saved the company $1,1M
Introduced new strategies that maximized portfolio value by 10%

Put Your Education on Resume for Finance

There is no secret that a resume finance skills section plays one of the most decisive roles in the hiring process. Every recruiter looks at the candidate’s practical soft and hard skills first to define whether he is the right fit for a job. However, apart from the finance skills resume section, the part with your education also plays a huge role.

Most positions in the finance sector require applicants to have a minimum of BA degree in FInance or related fields. To land an interview, you must meet the minimum requirement. And the higher your level of education is, the more chances you have to get hired. But, in any case, mentioning your education is vital for success.

Here is a sample education entry for a finance professional resume:

2016-2019, B.A. in Finance

University of California

Secretary of the student finance club for 2 years

That’s how you should put your education on a finance resume. Now, let’s move on to discussing financial skills for resume.

Put Skills on Finance Resume

The finance resume skills section is your most powerful weapon to show that you are the right fit for a chosen position. That’s why it is vital to pay due attention to this part of your resume and we have some great tips to help you succeed.

So, how to determine the most important skills for finance resume and list them the right way? In general, all finance jobs require candidates to have a strong mix of analytical and people skills. That is, you have to mention both soft and hard skills in this section. As for the presentation, most often, skills are listed in bullet points.

Here is the essential finance skills list to help you get started:

Accounts receivable and payable
Interpersonal skills
Cash handling
Due diligence
Time management
Debt and credit management
Problem-solving
Computer skills
Negotiating
SAP
Communication skills
Financial analysis
Account reconciliation
Collaboration skills
Conceptual skills
Risk assessment
Microsoft Office skills

Add Contact Info to Your Resume

One part that should be inevitably included in all resume examples finance is the contact info. Typically, you are expected to share the basic details such as:

Your full name
Phone number
Email address

Apart from these basic details, some specialists prefer to mention their physical address with a zip code. This is not mandatory, but you can choose to do this as well. Also, you are free to add links to your social media profiles, LinkedIn account, and/or personal website. This is up to you.

Adding a contact section to your resume is probably the easiest part. Still, to help you get everything right, we’ve prepared a few handy tips:

Always double-check your contact details to ensure that there are no errors.
Regularly ensure that your contact info is up to date.
Whether you include links to social media or not, you should still check your social media footprint to ensure that potential employers will not discover anything unethical or unprofessional there.
Optimize your LinkedIn profile to get an extra chance to get your finance skills for resume noticed.

Add Other Sections to Your Effective Resume

All the resume sections we’ve discussed so far are the necessary basics that have to be included. However, to give recruiters even more solid grounding to recruit you, you should also consider adding some extra sections to your resume.

To create job-winning resume examples finance specialists should cling to every opportunity to make themselves stand out from the crowd and prove that they are the best candidates. To make this happen, don’t hesitate to mention other skills, achievements, awards, interests, and even hobbies that can give you a competitive advantage!

Here are a few finance resume tips to help you shape effective additional sections:

If you are multilingual, be sure to mention your language skills.
Mention your finance-related hobbies and interests to show that you’ve got a genuine passion for your work.
If you have any relevant awards, interesting projects, volunteering experience, or other achievements, mention them too.
Don’t forget about the certifications section, as it can really get you ahead of the competition.

Use Key Action Verbs

Strong action resume keywords are used to ensure that your bullet points drive attention and engage the reader. Also, using such words can really make you stand out from the crowd, unlike those cliche phrases that make your resume look like hundreds of others.

Where to use action verbs? Typically, they are used to make sure that you communicate your achievements and past experiences to the hiring manager effectively. That’s why these verbs are usually incorporated into the work experience section.

Here are some of the most effective finance resume keywords you can use:

Analyze
Calculate
Recommend
Evaluate
Optimize
Maintain
Implement
Forecast
Report
Examine
Reason
Present
Advise
Prepare