Business Analyst resume skills. The words recruiters search for.
The 17 skills, tools and credentials that come up in business analyst job posts, sorted by type, and how to put them in bullets a recruiter believes.
By Nazir Elmurodov, Founder, LaunchCV · Updated
/ The list
Keywords by type. Use only the ones that are true for you.
Hard skills · 11
- Business analysis
- Requirements gathering (used in Natalie's sample resume)
- Business requirements document (BRD)
- User stories (used in Natalie's sample resume)
- Acceptance criteria (used in Natalie's sample resume)
- Process mapping (used in Natalie's sample resume)
- BPMN
- Gap analysis (used in Natalie's sample resume)
- UAT (used in Natalie's sample resume)
- SQL (used in Natalie's sample resume)
- Agile
Tools & software · 4
- Power BI (used in Natalie's sample resume)
- Tableau
- Visio (used in Natalie's sample resume)
- Jira (used in Natalie's sample resume)
Licenses & certifications · 1
- CBAP (used in Natalie's sample resume)
Soft skills · 1
- Stakeholder management
11 of 17 appear in Natalie's sample resume. See where
/ How to use them
Put keywords in bullets, not just in a skills list.
A skills list tells the software you have a skill. A bullet shows a recruiter what you did with it.
User stories, Acceptance criteria, UAT
Weak: Skills: User stories, Acceptance criteria, UAT
Strong: Wrote 180+ user stories with acceptance criteria and ran UAT with 25 business testers
Power BI
Weak: Skills: Power BI
Strong: Built a Power BI claims backlog dashboard that leadership reviews every week
SQL
Weak: Skills: SQL
Strong: Analyzed member complaint data in SQL, leading to a policy fix that cut complaints by 18%
Strong bullets come from Natalie's sample resume and our business analyst bullet examples. Names and figures are illustrative.
/ Use them honestly
Keywords get you found. Proof gets you hired.
Mirror the job post's wording for skills you really have. If a business analyst post asks for Business analysis and you've used it, say Business analysis, in the post's spelling, and show where.
Mirror the job post's wording
If a business analyst post says "Requirements gathering", write "Requirements gathering", not a near-synonym — as long as it's accurate. Recruiters search for the post's exact term.
Only claim what you can back up
Expect to be asked about every term you list. If you couldn't spend two minutes on Business analysis — what you did and what changed — leave it out.
Show it in a bullet
A skills list says you know User stories. A bullet like the one under Senior Business Analyst in the example above shows what you did with it.
No stuffing, no hidden text
Repeating a word or hiding keywords in white text doesn't make you a better match. A person reads the resume in the end.
Which of these does your resume say?
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/ Questions
Business Analyst keywords, answered.
Something else? support@launch-cv.com
How many keywords should a business analyst resume have?
There's no magic number. Natalie's sample resume uses 11 of the 17 terms on this page — the ones that fit that job. Cover what your post asks for that you can back up, each where it fits; repeating a keyword doesn't help.
Should I copy keywords exactly from the job post?
Use the post's wording for skills you really have. If a business analyst post says "Business analysis", write "Business analysis" rather than a synonym, so a recruiter searching for that term finds you. Don't add skills you don't have just because the post lists them.
Where should keywords go on my resume?
In your summary, a short skills section and, above all, the bullets under each job, where you show what you did with the skill. In Natalie's sample, User stories shows up in a bullet under Senior Business Analyst. Plain text in the body of the page is easiest for applicant tracking systems to read.
Which tools should I list on a business analyst resume?
The ones you've used and the post mentions. Common ones in business analyst posts include Power BI, Tableau, Visio and Jira. Name the tool in the bullet where you used it, not only in the skills list.
How should I list CBAP on my resume?
Spell it the way the job post does, and include both the abbreviation and the full name if you have room. Put licenses and certifications in their own section or next to your education, and only list ones that are current.
Keywords for related roles
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