Financial Analyst resume skills. The words recruiters search for.
The 15 skills and tools that come up in financial 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
- Financial modeling (used in Olivia's sample resume)
- FP&A (used in Olivia's sample resume)
- Budgeting (used in Olivia's sample resume)
- Forecasting (used in Olivia's sample resume)
- Variance analysis (used in Olivia's sample resume)
- Financial reporting
- DCF (used in Olivia's sample resume)
- Valuation (used in Olivia's sample resume)
- SQL (used in Olivia's sample resume)
- GAAP
- KPI reporting
Tools & software · 4
- Excel (used in Olivia's sample resume)
- Power BI (used in Olivia's sample resume)
- NetSuite (used in Olivia's sample resume)
- SAP
11 of 15 appear in Olivia'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.
Variance analysis
Weak: Skills: Variance analysis
Strong: Prepared monthly board reporting packs and variance analysis for the CFO
Forecasting
Weak: Prepared forecasts
Strong: Improved revenue forecast accuracy from ±9% to ±3% with driver-based models
Savings
Weak: Helped reduce costs
Strong: Identified $3.1M in vendor savings through a cost review with procurement
Reporting
Weak: Did monthly reporting
Strong: Cut month-end reporting from 6 days to 3 by automating variance reports
Strong bullets come from Olivia's sample resume and our financial 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 financial analyst post asks for Financial modeling and you've used it, say Financial modeling, in the post's spelling, and show where.
Mirror the job post's wording
If a financial analyst post says "FP&A", write "FP&A", 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 Financial modeling — what you did and what changed — leave it out.
Show it in a bullet
A skills list says you know Variance analysis. A bullet like the one under Financial 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
Financial Analyst keywords, answered.
Something else? support@launch-cv.com
How many keywords should a financial analyst resume have?
There's no magic number. Olivia's sample resume uses 11 of the 15 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 financial analyst post says "Financial modeling", write "Financial modeling" 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 Olivia's sample, FP&A is in the summary and Variance analysis shows up in a bullet under Financial Analyst. Plain text in the body of the page is easiest for applicant tracking systems to read.
Which tools should I list on a financial analyst resume?
The ones you've used and the post mentions. Common ones in financial analyst posts include Excel, Power BI, NetSuite and SAP. Name the tool in the bullet where you used it, not only in the skills list.
Keywords for related roles
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