How to Write a More Effective Finance Resume

Resume summary or  objective

Your resume summary or resume objective showcases who you are in two or three sentences as possible. A resume summary summarizes your work history and skills, as well as any standout achievements. A resume objective is ideal if you lack work experience, as it specifically includes an objective statement indicating your career goals rather than your experience.

Skills

You may discover a wide array of skills that job seekers typically need to excel in finance. Here are a few relevant skills to consider for the bullet points in your skills section:

• Financial analysis
• Analytical skills
• Reading financial statements
• Problem-solving skills
• QuickBooks experience
• Risk management
• Appropriate valuation
• Understanding cash flow
• Utilizing Microsoft Excel
• Investment optimization

Your skills section needs to include both hard skills and soft skills. Technical skills are especially important for a finance job, so it’s important that your top skills include many of the skills you learned specifically for this industry.

Work experience

Whether you have many years of experience or this is your first job search in the finance field, your experience section should incorporate any experience you’ve previously been through. Remember that relevant experience may include volunteer experience, internship experience and entry-level experience.

Achievements and awards

Have you ever won any awards for your great financial management? Did you have someone previously point you out as doing something exceptionally valuable for a company? If so, then you can include that information in your achievements section. Alternately, during your job search, you may choose to include achievements and awards underneath the job you learned it at.

Certifications

There are many financial certifications out there. Here are a few you might have:

• Certified Financial Planner (CFP)
• Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA)
• Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC)
• Certified Investment Management Analyst (CIMA)
• Certified Public Accountant (CPA)

With so many of these certifications available, it’s important that you do the research necessary to determine what’s usually considered important for the type of financial needs included in your career path.