Financial analyst skills encompass a combination of technical expertise and interpersonal prowess. They allow professionals in this field to analyze and interpret information before communicating their findings to other experts and help drive business decisions.
Optimally highlighting these skills on your resume is essential in grabbing the recruiter’s attention and securing you a callback for a job interview. That’s why we’re going to explore the most sought-after skills for financial analysts that recruiters look for in resumes; we’ll explain what makes these valuable and how you should present them.
Key Takeaways
Financial analyst skills encompass both technical (hard) and transferable (soft) skills.
Notable technical skills for financial analysts include financial modeling, data analysis, budgeting, accounting, and more.
Soft skills required for this role include problem-solving, strategic thinking, research, communication, and collaboration skills.
You can enhance your skills and improve your employability by obtaining certifications, attending courses, seeking mentorship, and gaining practical experience.
13 Key Financial Analyst Skills to Add to Your Resume
Impressing recruiters with your financial analyst resume and cover letter involves showcasing a set of in-demand skills needed to perform optimally in the field of finance. This includes emphasizing both technical and transferable skills.
Technical Skills
Let’s start with the technical skills for financial analysts. These are also known as hard skills, as they are role-specific and typically obtained through traditional methods (e.g., in a college or via specialized courses).
#1. Financial Modeling
Financial modeling involves creating summaries and visual representations of a company’s financial operations. This is typically done through spreadsheets (e.g., in Excel). Models take into account previous spending and behaviors to help predict how a company might perform in the future.
As such, this is one of the key financial reporting skills that enables executives to make informed decisions, such as which projects to invest in or how to assess the value of their company.
Robust models consider all available data to provide several possible outcomes. This gives the upper management sufficient information to adjust their strategies and minimize risks.
#2. Data Analysis
Data analysis is one of the fundamental financial analyst skills that involves examining raw data and transforming it into usable information. Financial analysts often have large datasets to work with, which they need to clean up before finding trends and patterns that are useful for business operations.
For example, financial analysts can analyze yearly sales information about the company’s goods or services to discover that some costs were too high and that reducing them would increase sales.
The goal of data analysis is to take large quantities of incomprehensible information and extract precise details that management can understand, helping their decision-making.
#3. Budgeting
Next to financial modeling and analysis, budgeting is another core finance skill. It allows these professionals to figure out how much a company expects to earn and how much it plans to spend in a specified period.
Budgeting typically requires financial analysts to collaborate with other departments to get a complete picture of the organization’s economic situation. With the information gathered, financial analysts will be able to compare their projections to how the company is actually performing, which is known as the variance analysis.
If there are budgeting concerns (e.g., the spending is too high or too low), financial analysts should investigate the reasons and report their findings to ensure optimal use of resources.
#4. Accounting
Financial analysts need a thorough understanding of the essential accounting principles to do their work effectively. While they aren’t responsible for keeping track of every transaction, they need to have the necessary accounting skills to know how to read that information and which insights to extract for their financial reports.
For instance, financial analysts can analyze income statements and balance sheets to understand the company’s financial health. This information will aid further analysis and modeling, ensuring their final reports are perfectly in line with the company’s current conditions.
#5. Mathematical Proficiency
Mathematical proficiency is one of the top skills for a finance analyst job and a fundamental ability that underpins every aspect of an analyst’s work. It involves knowledge of complex mathematical theories and formulas that allow for high-level calculations and analysis.
By understanding statistical concepts like standard deviation, correlation, regression, and variance, financial analysts can calculate risk, assess intricate metrics, evaluate investments, and more.
Analysts combine this knowledge with the understanding of other financial principles, like the time value of money, net present value, or internal rate of return, to refine their models and predictions, spot errors, and ensure precision.
#6. Spreadsheet Software Skills
Financial analysts regularly use spreadsheet software for data analysis and reporting, with most professionals opting for Microsoft Excel. This skill encompasses more than surface-level knowledge of spreadsheet software. It involves mastering complex functions and formulas that allow for precise manipulation of large datasets.
Excel and similar software solutions enable financial analysts to perform complex calculations, automate repetitive tasks, and create intuitive graphs and charts to visualize their findings.
Demonstrating this financial analyst skill on a resume shows that you can work faster and more accurately than the competition. Plus, it indicates that you’ll spend less time doing menial tasks and more time doing valuable analysis.
#7. Programming Skills
Programming skills are invaluable for senior financial analysts as they make them much more effective in their work. These skills build on spreadsheet software proficiency to allow for much more complex data handling.
For instance, SQL (Structured Query Language) helps financial analysts manage databases and quickly pull the information they need. This is particularly useful when professionals encounter limitations with Excel.
On the other hand, Python and R are capable programming languages that enable advanced data analysis, design of predictive models, automation of complex workflows, and more. Financial analysts adept at programming languages can work with big data effectively, significantly improving their employability.
#8. Market Knowledge
Having an in-depth knowledge of the market helps financial analysts understand the context behind the insights they find. The information they extract doesn’t exist in a vacuum but has its value based on the market conditions in which the company operates.
Market knowledge encompasses the understanding of both macroeconomic trends and geopolitical events, as well as industry-specific circumstances and dynamics. Having a solid grasp of the latest global and local market situations helps these professionals make their analyses, models, and predictions more relevant and valuable in the decision-making process.
Top Transferable Financial Analyst Skills to List on Your Resume
Transferable skills—as their name suggests—are usable across different roles and even professions. These are soft skills primarily obtained through experience, and they encompass various traits and interpersonal abilities.
#1. Problem-Solving Skills
Problem-solving skills help financial analysts not just interpret data but also develop optimal solutions to the obstacles they uncover. These professionals will often encounter problems and then analyze data to find the root of these issues.
Once they have all the necessary information, financial analysts can use their problem-solving skills to come up with potential fixes. Strong problem-solving skills also help these professionals evaluate the risks and feasibility of their solutions and gauge the financial impact on the organization.
Some of the most common problems that financial analysts help solve include data discrepancies, investment ambiguities, and budget deviations.
#2. Strategic Thinking
Strategic thinking is the ability to approach a task with a wider context and a broader objective in mind. The data that financial analysts work with and the insights they discover aren’t isolated and are usually related to the market conditions, the company’s business model and goals, and so on.
Being able to think strategically as a financial analyst means you aren’t just reporting the numbers but valuable findings, opportunities, and risks. You can use the information, trends, and connections you uncover to help the company grow, fix its inefficiencies, and overcome threats. It’s a core skill needed for long-term planning.
#3. Research
Research skills allow financial analysts to take into account information outside their datasets. This helps them improve accuracy, validate their findings, see the bigger picture, and better understand complex situations. They need to be able to find and evaluate relevant information from various external sources before synthesizing it with company data.
Some of the most common sources that financial analysts look into during their research include SEC filings, industry publications, equity research reports, news articles, government data, etc. They also frequently look into other companies and market trends to build forecasting models that are well-grounded and relevant to the ongoing situation.
#4. Communication Skills
Communication skills are critical for financial analysts as they allow them to convey their findings to relevant parties. Manipulating complex information and extracting valuable insights is only useful when it can be used by other professionals in decision-making processes.
Stakeholders like senior executives, investors, board members, and other non-financial coworkers must clearly understand the intricate details and implications that financial analysts discover.
Communication skills encompass more than verbal communication. Financial analysts also need strong written communication skills when creating reports, as well as data visualization and presentation skills.
#5. Collaboration Skills
Collaboration skills are vital for financial analysts, as they rarely work alone and are typically a part of interdisciplinary teams. Effective collaboration involves constructive work with professionals from your sphere and other departments.
For example, financial analysts can collaborate with a marketing department and sales team to provide ROI and revenue forecasts. This approach allows financial analysts to ensure maximum data accuracy while assisting others in their efforts.
Collaboration requires strong interpersonal skills, including the ability to listen actively and communicate your ideas clearly and concisely. This helps all teams work together toward common goals.
How to Present Your Financial Analyst Skills on Your Resume the Right Way
To present your financial analyst skills on your resume, you first want to determine which abilities recruiters are looking for. To do that, you should research the company you want to join and read the job description. This will give you enough information to create a tailored list of skills for your financial analyst resume.
However, just listing your abilities in a dedicated section isn’t enough to prove your competence. You also want to validate your skills with relevant achievements. This is best done in the work experience and resume summary sections. Your goal is to show and not just tell.
When adding bullet points with your notable accomplishments and work-related results, make sure to mention a key skill that allowed you to achieve your goals.
Here’s a good resume sample of a financial analyst showcasing their modeling skills:
[box]
Modeling Skills Example
Developed precise forecasting models in Adaptive Insights to reduce financial planning errors by 13%.
[/box]
It’s essential to provide a notable achievement quantified with numbers to add credibility to your competence.
Otherwise, you’ll end up with a vague and unsubstantiated claim that doesn’t demonstrate your financial analyst skills, like in the following example:
Bad Example
Developed forecasting models for the company.
You can also use our resume builder and leverage AI to present your financial analyst skills like a professional. Our writing assistant will help make your accomplishments pop, helping prove your competence.
4 Strategies for Enhancing Your Skills as a Financial Analyst
Let’s finish this comprehensive guide on resume skills for finance professionals by giving you a few expert tips and strategies on how to enhance them.
Financial Analyst Skill-Building Tips
Obtain certification. Certifications like CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst), CPA (Certified Public Accountant), or FMVA (Financial Modeling and Valuation Analyst) represent strong proof of expertise as well as a willingness to learn and improve.
Take courses and attend workshops. There are many online platforms (e.g., Coursera or Udemy) where you can take specialized training in particular areas of finance. Courses allow you to learn at your own pace, while workshops are more involved but typically provide results faster.
Seek mentorship. You can engage with other professionals and ask for guidance. This is particularly important if you’re an entry-level financial analyst with little to no work experience.
Gain practical experience. Look for opportunities to practice your skills in actual scenarios through volunteering efforts, personal projects, and similar activities. You can then leverage these experiences if you’re writing a financial analyst resume with no experience to show that you have more than just theoretical knowledge.
By continuously improving your financial analyst skills, you’ll remain competent in the job market, and you’ll increase your chances of getting the role you’re after.
Closing Thoughts
An occupational outlook for financial analysts is 9%, which is much faster than average in the job market between 2023 and 2033. This results in about 30,700 new openings each year, and to have the best chance at grabbing one of those spots, you need to showcase your financial analyst skills on your resume.
Remember that presenting your skills isn’t just about creating a list in a resume but about proving them with relevant accomplishments. Convince recruiters that you’re an expert by showing them the results of your work, and you’ll be one step closer to an interview for a financial analyst position. Good luck!
