Pharmacists are the bedrock upon which the entire medication industry is based. Without these highly trained individuals to verify prescriptions, keep track of stock, and ensure that prescriptions are filled the right way and in good time, we’d have no way to use the medication that doctors prescribe to us.

Working as a pharmacist is an exciting, hands-on position, but you need to make sure your resume is perfect in order to land your dream job. In the following guide we’ll be walking you through everything you need to know to craft a resume that’s sure to get you through the door. If you’ve been stressing out over how best to structure your resume, this article will serve as the perfect starting point for you, and can serve as a reference point for later resumes as well.

Multiple Template Examples

How to Write a Pharmacist Resume That Will Get You Through the Door

How to Format It

The best format for a pharmacist’s resume is the reverse chronological structure. The logic behind opting for this layout is based on recognizing just how important your college experience is. As a result, you should really be mentioning it as soon as possible in the document. The reverse chronological structure will also demonstrate your most recent working experience as a pharmacist right away, rather than spending precious time talking about less relevant jobs you may have held early on in your working career.

You have to think about the recruiter’s point of view when you’re planning out your resume. They may well be going through a massive pile of resumes, so it’s very possible that you’ll only have a limited chance to grab their attention before their mind starts to wander. The reverse chronological format is the ideal way to make as strong a first impression as possible.

What Makes a Great Pharmacist Resume

Great pharmacist resumes typically feature a few different key elements. These include:

1. Relevant experience for the particular job you’re applying for
2. The perfect blend of hard and soft skills for the job in question
3. Any achievements you’ve managed to rack up over the years that are pertinent to the pharmaceutical industry
4. Which aspects of your personality and working capacity you’re most proud of
5. What makes you unique

However, it’s not enough to simply include the information mentioned above. In order to really blow the recruiter away and make it clear that you’re the right person for the job, you need to spare no energy in ensuring everything you include is formatted as clearly and attractively as possible. A good resume ticks all of the boxes above, whereas a great resume goes one step further and not only presents the above pieces of information, but also makes them easy to read and visually appealing.

Another way to elevate your resume from “good” to “great” is to make sure it’s specifically targeted to the particular job you’re applying for. We’ll be getting into targeting your resume for the job you’re applying to further on in this guide, but for the moment just keep in mind that every single line of your resume needs to be as accurate as possible in order to give yourself the best chance of impressing the recruiter.

How to Compose a Professional Experience Section in a Resume

Composing a professional experience section in a resume doesn’t need to take hours, but you do need to make sure you spend enough time on it to avoid any errors. There’s no point in having fantastic work experience littered with typos, spelling errors, and grammatical mistakes. The first key aspect to a great professional experience section is, therefore, doing your due diligence to ensure it’s spotless.

When you’re mentioning the jobs you’ve previously worked at, keep things as short and to-the-point as possible. We recommend including your job title, the name of the company you worked at, and the dates you started and finished working there. Underneath this quick overview, include a few bullet points that highlight your achievements — no more than four or five.

To really drive home the fact that you’re the best person for the job, craft your professional experiences section to the precise position you’re applying to. You’ll find more information on how to do that later on in this article, but the general idea is to pick out which traits the recruiters will be looking out for, and then tailoring your experiences to highlight why you’re the best choice for that particular job.

What Achievements to Mention and How to Do it Correctly

Mentioning achievements in your resume help paint a picture of yourself as somebody who doesn’t just stick to the status quo, but actively goes out of their way to succeed in everything you do. There are a few different categories of achievement to consider listing:

1. Clinical Achievements

By far the most impressive achievements you could mention on a pharmacist’s resume are those, which you accomplished in a clinical setting or during your residency. Throughout the course of your degree, you’ll, no doubt, have spent plenty of time getting practical work experience in the form of ward rounds, internships, etc. 

Often there are special prizes awarded to students or technicians who perform exceptionally well, and if you’ve been able to snag one of these awards at some point during your training or clinical work, they should be the first achievements you mention in this section.

To get the most mileage out of your clinical achievements, keep the information about them short and sweet. A simple two-line description of what you accomplished and in what clinical setting you accomplished it is more than enough to impress the recruiter, and should give you a strong head start over your competition, who don’t have clinical achievements to mention.

2. Academic Achievements

Similar to clinical achievements, but not identical, academic achievements refer to any prizes you were able to win during your degree. These could include prizes awarded for essays, research work, or group projects you played an important part in. They don’t have to be directly related to pharmacy or pharmaceuticals. In fact, if you’re able to mention achievements that come from other fields, it will be especially impressive to whoever’s reading your resume, as it demonstrates that you’re a well-rounded candidate with a few different strings to your bow.

When you’re mentioning your academic achievements, it’s often a good idea to include a brief description, detailing exactly what the award entailed. For example, if you’ve won an essay prize, quickly going through what the prize was for and what your essay was about will help ground the achievement itself in a wider context, which means the recruiter is more likely to remember it — and, by extension, to remember you as well.

Which Soft Skills to Put In Your Resume as a Pharmacist

Because your day-to-day work as a pharmacist will involve a significant amount of time spent interacting with people, your soft skills are arguably more important than your hard skills. The kinds of traits that successful, high-achieving pharmacists have are almost all more closely related to interpersonal skills and high-level organizational abilities than they are to the more scientific side of the craft. 

For that reason, it could be a good idea to mention your soft skills before the hard skills. Even though that seems to fly in the face of what’s usually recommended for writing resumes, in this specific instance it could be a great way to show the recruiter that you know what the job requires, and that you’re aware of which skills are likely to play the biggest roles in the daily routine. Here are some of the soft skills to mention in your resume:

• Communication and interpersonal skills
• Organizational ability
• Flexibility
• Teamwork
• Positive attitude
• Empathy

Which Hard Skills to Put In Your Resume as a Pharmacist

The hard skills that are used by pharmacists will relate to your ability to handle the more granular aspects of the job on a daily basis. For example, prior experience with prescription-tracking software, and being able to maintain neat and orderly inventory records will go a long way. 

Although you won’t necessarily be using all of the biochemical knowledge you picked up during your degree on a regular basis, it’s still a good idea to talk about your familiarity with different kinds of prescriptions and medications. What’s particularly important is being able to quickly and accurately keep track of the way different medicines will interact with each other, so that you can advise a patient in real time, as opposed to having to spend an age trawling through the Internet to find the information you’re looking for. These are some of the most important hard skills to consider including on your resume:

• Maths & science skills
• Management ability
• Till operation
• Accuracy
• Familiarity with prescription-filling software
• In-depth knowledge of medication interaction

How to Write a Resume Objective and Examples of This

Your resume objective is a great opportunity to show the recruiter that you’ve read the job posting in detail and you understand exactly what’s required, but in order to make it truly impressive you need to understand how to write it correctly. Good resume objectives are written in a dispassionate, objective tone, focusing more on how you can get the job done, than on how well you were able to perform in past roles. 

Take a close look at the job listing and work out which tasks are most important, and then craft your objective statement to reflect your ability to handle those tasks. Pharmacist resume objectives should be short and to the point — waffling on about the job is exactly the opposite of what you want to do, so don’t worry if you’re being too concise. Here are a couple examples of spot-on resume objectives that you can use for inspiration when you’re writing your own:

1. Pharmacy graduate keen to apply knowledge of chemistry and interactions between different medications to that role at XYZ Pharmacy in order to improve patient health and on-location experience. 
2. Driven, passionate pharmacist with 5 years of experience interested in bringing customer service skills, interpersonal communication ability, and in-depth knowledge of medication and its dispensation to ABC Pharmacy.

How to Write a Resume Summary and Examples of This

Whereas resume objectives should be dry and to-the-point, resume summaries are an opportunity to present a much more holistic picture of what you can bring to the table, should you be hired for the job. Avoid the passive language used in writing a resume objective and instead focus on writing actively and dynamically, about the value you were able to bring to past roles. 

Don’t be afraid to get specific in terms of numbers, percentages, or other hard figures that demonstrate concretely what a great idea it is to hire you for the role. See below for two examples of resume summaries that tick all the boxes, and pay special attention to how they differ from the examples of resume objective statements above:

1. Energetic, empathetic pharmacist with 8 years of experience in all areas of retail pharmacy work interested in applying strong work ethic, excellent interpersonal skills, and organizational ability to that position at ABC Pharmacy. In my most recent professional experience I was able to make suggestions about medication arrangements in order to improve the customer experience, and I managed to increase footfall by 15% over the course of a year by reimagining the way the pharmacy was laid out.
2. Organized, motivated pharmacist with two years of experience in retail pharmacy work interested in leveraging customer service skills and deep knowledge of medications in order to improve the customer experience and boost working efficiency at XYZ pharmacy. I handled a range of different jobs in my last professional engagement, including resolving insurance claim issues, training new personnel, and filling specialty prescriptions. 

How to Write a Pharmacist Resume When You Have Limited or No Experience

Although having direct working experience in the role you’re applying for is obviously a big plus for employers, there’s no reason you can’t get without experience, as long as your resume is top notch. It can be a daunting task, attempting to write your resume in a way that focuses more on your skills and qualifications than prior professional experiences, but there are a few simple strategies you can follow in order to give yourself as much of a helping hand in the application process as possible. Here are some of the best ways to write a pharmacist resume when you have limited experience working as a pharmacist.

1. Get Specific With Your Skills

Whereas you might want to keep your skill section concise, if you already have on-the-job experience - if you’re fresh out of college and trying to land your first position, it’s a great idea to be as specific as possible when you’re talking about the skills you can bring to the table. Rather than simply sticking with general hard skills, as mentioned in the skills section above, don’t be afraid to be much more granular. 

For example, instead of mentioning the fact that you have a wide array of clinical skills, talk about how you can count pills, operate the cash register, and quickly process possible interactions between medications in your head without needing to spend ages researching them online. Not only will this demonstrate that you’ve got the right skillset required to handle the demands of the role, it’ll also show that you got an intimate understanding of what day-to-day work of a pharmacist actually looks like.

2. Be Descriptive About Your Education

Everybody has to start somewhere, and pharmacists are no different. Because you’ve spent such a long time in college, working towards your degree, you already have an excellent supply of information you can call on, when you’re trying to distract from the fact that you don’t have much work experience. 

Entry-level pharmaceutical jobs don’t always require candidates to have prior experience, and if you can talk expressively about how well you handled yourself throughout the course of an academic career, it just might tip the balance in your favor and encourage the recruiter to give you a start by going through with a hire for their entry-level position.

How to Target Your Resume for Each Application

Targeting your resume for a specific position is probably the single best way to boost your chances of getting called in for an interview. The single best way to ensure your resume is as targeted and precise as possible is by spending plenty of time reading over the job listing in detail and focusing on what exactly the recruiters are likely to be looking for.

Keywords are your friend in this endeavor. If you notice lots of keywords that relate to interpersonal skills and organizational ability, it makes sense to highlight that aspect of what you can offer in your resume. One way to prioritize those soft skills is by including them before the hard skills in your resume, which will make it immediately obvious to the recruiter that you’re not just copy-pasting your resume and using it for job after job, but rather tailoring your resume to the specific position you’re applying for. 

Another way to make it clear you’ve read the listing and understand exactly what job you’re applying for is to customize your experience section, depending on what your potential employers are looking for. If, for example, they’re hoping for a hands-on, well-organized pharmacist to assist a more senior pharmacist in keeping everything neat and tidy, it may be a good idea to focus on experience you have working in a warehouse, or in stock at some retail position you have in your history. 

This will encourage the recruiter to make a mental note about your application, because when they read your resume they’ll already be thinking that you offer exactly what they’re looking for in a new employee. 

Pharmacist jobs are highly sought after, but if you’re able to put together a highly precise resume, you should be well on your way to snagging the position of your dreams. There’s plenty of upward mobility potential for pharmacists as well, with some of the most successful individuals going on to start their own pharmacies, so if you can get in at the ground level in an entry-level position, the chances for career advancement are high. 

By targeting your resume as much as possible, you’ll be giving yourself the best possible chance of getting the job and stepping onto the first rung in that particular career ladder.

How to Make Your Resume Stand Out

Everybody wants to make their resume stand out, but by definition not everybody can stand out. To make sure your resume marks itself out from the herd, you need to do things that other candidates wouldn’t even consider. Because the degree and working experience is such an important aspect of being a pharmacist, the best way to stand out from the crowd might actually be to focus on other aspects of your resume. 

It’s a given that your competitors will be focusing as much as possible on their experience and work history, which gives you a great opportunity, if you’re able to focus on the other, more commonly neglected aspects of your own application.

1. Make it Easy to Read

You’d be amazed at how many resumes make basic mistakes, such as being packed full of text, using more than one kind of font, or forgetting to leave white space. If you’re able to make your resume particularly easy to read, the recruiter will already be grateful, purely because they’re sick to death of reading awkward, clunky resumes that aren’t presented properly. 

2. Focus on What Makes You Different

Everybody you’ll be competing with will have a pharmacist’s degree, but not everybody will have spent time in the debating society in college, just like not everybody will have gone on a charitable trip to South America. No matter what it is that you’ve been able to accomplish in your life, it’s worth mentioning, since it’ll help you to elevate your resume from a dry, formal document to a dynamic, versatile representation of a real person. 

You’re the only one with your exact experiences, so whether it’s hobbies and interests, charitable work, or sporting excellence, talking about the things that only you can talk about will go a long way towards making your resume jump out at the recruiter and differentiate itself from the rest.

How Resumebuild.com’s Resume Building Tool Can Be Utilized for an Easy Resume Setup

The guide you’ve just read through probably seems like an awful lot of information, but don’t worry — there’s an easy, straightforward way for you to create a killer pharmacist’s resume, without needing to spend hours fine-tuning every last detail. 

Resumebuild’s resume building tool comes already-equipped with hundreds upon hundreds of professionally-designed resume templates, every one of which will help you make your mark on the recruiter. All you need to do is choose the template that appeals the most to you and fill out the various personal details with your own information. Once you’re done with those two steps, the last stage is to download the resume itself, which only takes one click.

Social workers are unsung heroes and we need more of them. Despite higher-than average median pay, the coming years will still see strong growth in demand for social workers. That said, the difference in hours, pay, benefits, and working conditions can vary widely. That’s why you want to get the best social worker job possible.

But getting hired as a social worker presents a unique set of challenges.

You’ll likely be working for a government agency, so you need to understand not just the needs of the community you’ll be serving but those of the agency hiring you. Nailing that balance perfectly is the key to getting hired in the social worker position you really want.

What this guide will show you:

• Resume templates to get you inspired
• How to target your resume to the right audiences
• Everything you need to know about ATS
• Proper formatting for a social worker resume
• How long your resume should be
• Which sections to include
• How to make your achievements stand out
• Which qualifications you should mention
• How to include certifications (and which ones matter)
• Hard and soft skills to include (and how to list them)
• How to write an objective or summary
• How to target your resume for each position
• How to make your resume stand out
• How to prepare for the job interview
• Why a resume builder will help you get hired

Social worker resume template examples

If you’re looking for your first social worker position or haven’t changed positions in years, chances are you haven’t looked at your resume in ages. If that’s the case, one lesson you need to start with is that resumes and untold writing rules have changed. These days, submitting the same old Word doc you’ve been using for a decade will simply scream “I put in the bare minimum.”

Have a look at these social worker resume template examples to see what a great resume should look like now. Notice how the clean and modern design makes them easier to read. If you were a hiring manager at a government agency going through stacks of resumes a day, these ones would be a welcome break from the norm.

Try going through these examples and listing elements you’d like to incorporate into your own social worker resume.

[Examples]

How to write a social worker resume that will get your phone ringing

Creating an effective social worker resume requires getting a lot of things just right (don’t worry, we’ll go over each and every one). But more generally, to be effective it needs to understand its audience and appeal directly to them. After all, you wouldn’t take an identical approach to every case you work on as a social worker would you? Well, sending identical resumes that don’t consider their audience would be about as effective.

Start by considering who will read your resume

One of the worst mistakes you can make starting off is to write your resume now and think about it later. You need to begin with a plan, and the first step of that plan is to know your audience. Easy right? Your resume goes to a hiring manager or recruiter who hires you because they can see you’re a great social worker.

Sadly, it’s a bit more complicated. So let’s take you through what you need to know.

Why you need to consider ATS

Today, a huge number of resumes that get sent out are never seen by a human. The reason is Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). You may have never heard of them, but they’re widely used by all sorts of companies to help sort through dozens or even thousands of incoming resumes.

While there are many different ATS companies out there and each one is slightly different, they all work in the same basic way. They use artificial intelligence to scan your resume for keywords to determine whether your resume should be sent to a human for further consideration. If the ATS doesn’t think your resume makes the cut, it goes straight into the digital trash bin.

So what do you need to do?

1. Use the right file format for your resume. You’d be shocked at just how many resumes get instantly rejected because they’re submitted in something like an image format, which ATS are not designed to read. Fortunately, the solution is simple, just use a .doc, .docx, or .pdf.
2. Be sure the file is ATS-friendly. That said, not all of those file types are designed to be effectively read by ATS. Make sure you use a resume builder which has been engineered to be easily read by the widest variety of ATS out there to maximize your chances.
3. Be smart about keywords. In most cases, an ATS is given a list of keywords and experience to search for. To get past it, you need to make it as obvious as possible that you have the exact skills and experience the ATS is looking for. The best way to do this is to look to the job description. By using the wording you find there, you’re maximizing the chances the ATS will see exactly what it wants on your resume.

How to give recruiters what they’re looking for

Once your resume has sailed past an ATS (or gone to a social work agency which doesn’t use one), it still needs to get a thumbs up from a recruiter or hiring manager. That’s why you absolutely need to take them into consideration when crafting your resume. They are your client, so give them the level of focus you would give a client (especially if you only had one).

So consider what the person who’ll be deciding on hiring you is most concerned about. Frankly, that could simply be hiring a social worker who can handle a high volume of cases without making mistakes (in which case, emphasize working well under pressure and attention to detail). Or, they might be looking for someone who has experience with a specific kind of client, like someone with a disability, people experiencing PTSD, people returning from prison, etc. In other words, your job isn’t to simply be the “best social worker” it’s to be the best social worker for that specific role.

So, begin by figuring out what those needs are. Obviously the job description is your first source of clues, but you can also check whether there have been any news stories about the agency or try talking to current or former workers there. If you’ve tailored your resume well, the person reading it will think “wow, this person is exactly what we’re looking for.” If that happens, you’re as good as hired.

How to target your resume for each application

While this has been implied in the advice so far, it’s important enough to repeat. You should create a single targeted resume for each social worker position you’re applying for. Yes, it means extra work, but that work pales in comparison to the benefits you’ll get when you get a better social worker job.

The reason is that different social worker positions will have their own requirements. By sending an identical resume to each one, you’re communicating that you put in the bare minimum. For a job as important as a social worker, that is not the message you want to be sending. By customizing each resume, you’ll be more likely to get hired and you’ll be making a stronger first impression.

How to format a social worker resume

Once you’ve put together a plan for how your resume will target the exact job you’re applying for, it's time to work out the proper format for your resume. What goes where and what should you include? The main rule of thumb that should guide you is to put the more important information towards the top. The person reading your resume is a human and they might skip over something towards the bottom, so make sure they see what they need to know.

The other reason to do this is to control the first impression you make. You know that the first impression you leave on a client will affect the rest of your relationship and the same goes for your resume. By considering this and writing your resume accordingly, you’re taking control and helping your chances at success.

So, be sure to write your experience in reverse chronological order, as your most recent work experience is more important and should therefore go at the top. We’ll explain more about using an objective or summary to craft a first impression later.

What’s the proper length for a social worker resume?

The honest answer here is “as short as possible.” Again, thinking about the person reading your resume, they don’t want to have to wade through pages of information with little relevance. If you make their experience learning about you from your resume easy, they’re more likely to develop positive feelings towards you. After all, you’ve helped them do their job.

That said, try and limit your social worker resume to one page. If you go long, just use this rule: if something doesn’t make your resume better, it’s making your resume worse. Using that rule, be ruthless and cut any words, phrases, or sections that are holding your resume back to get it to its ideal length.

Which sections should you consider including?

• Resume objective or summary
• Work experience
• Certifications
• Achievements
• Education
• Hard skills
• Soft Skills
• Languages
• Volunteering

What are ideal social worker job qualifications and how to list them correctly

Most social worker positions will require you to have a bachelor’s degree in a relevant field. This could be a degree in social work, or something like sociology, psychology, or public health. You may also need a graduate degree and a license. The legal requirements to be a social worker are decided by the state, so be sure to check the laws in your state to see what’s needed.

For educational qualifications, simply list them in an education section like this:

Masters in Social Work

University of California, Los Angeles

2012-2016, Los Angeles, CA

Licenses should be included next to your name or in a summary or objective (more on those below). Just be sure it’s immediately clear to the reader that you have the proper qualifications.

Which certifications should you consider obtaining and including?

Certifications send a powerful message. They tell the person reading your resume that you’ve gone above and beyond to become a better social worker and prove your skills. That’s why you should consider obtaining one if possible. There are plenty to choose from in the list below, but be aware that some are for more advanced social workers.

Even if you haven’t finished obtaining a certification by the time you apply, you can simply mention that you’re in the process (more on how to do that later).

• NASW Professional Social Work Credential
• NASW Advanced Practice Specialty Credential
• Certification in Cognitive Therapy
• Board Certified Diplomate in Clinical Social Work (BCD) certification
• National Certified Addiction Counselor, Level I or II
• Certified Social Work Case Manager (C-SWCM)
• Certified Advanced Social Work Case Manager (C-ASWCM)
• Diplomate in Clinical Social Work (DCSW)
• Qualified Clinical Social Worker (QCSW)
• National Certified Counselor (NCC)
• Registered Addiction Specialist (RAS)
• Accredited Case Manager
• Advanced Social Worker in Gerontology (ASW-G)
• Certified Social Worker in Health Care (C-SWHC)

How should you list your certifications?

When listing your certifications, simply begin with the certification name followed by the name or the organization granting it and the year you obtained it. For example:

Qualified Clinical Social Worker (QCSW), NASW, 2018

How to effectively list your skills

Both ATS and hiring managers will look to your skills to determine whether or not you’d be an appropriate hire for a social worker position. That’s why your skills section has two jobs. The first is to list the right skills. You want to try and list as many of the skills asked for in the job description as possible (while being truthful of course) and phrase them the same way they’re written there. Next, you need to show that you really possess those skills. That’s where concrete examples work wonders.

You can see the difference in these examples:

Capable of handling a large caseload

That’s a great skill to have, but writing it this way doesn’t add much confidence in your ability to really do this.

Capable of handling a caseload of over 40

The difference is subtle, but by being specific you’re giving the reader a much clearer idea of what you can actually do. It also implies experience in handling a caseload that large. In other words, try and be specific with your skills whenever possible and include examples (more on that below under the achievements section).

Hard skills to mention

• Case assessment
• Case planning
• Case management
• Crisis intervention
• Psychopathology
• Knowledge of relevant social worker policies
• Treatment plan development
• Mandt system
• Record keeping
• Drafting reports
• Organizing and running seminars
• Child counseling

Soft skills to mention

• Empathy
• Problem solving
• Organization
• Active listening
• Working under pressure
• Emotional intelligence
• Attention to detail

Just remember, the absolute best hard and soft skills to mention will always be the ones originally listed in the job description. So use that as your guide.

How to highlight your most important achievements

Whether they’re achievements in previous social work roles or elsewhere, highlighting your achievements properly can translate into them having a huge impact on a recruiter. They can show you have empathy, can manage complex projects, can get a difficult job done, and more. In other words, this is an ideal place to really show off the critical skills needed to be a great social worker.

I’ve been longtime volunteer at local Big Brothers, Big Sisters

While this is a great achievement to list on a social worker resume, it has a few issues. First, it speaks in the first person, which isn’t the accepted format for a resume. It should be written in the third person. Next, it’s unnecessarily vague about how long you’ve volunteered there and where you volunteered. Let’s see a version with those issues fixed:

5 year volunteer at the Riverside, CA Big Brothers, Big Sisters

Now the reader knows exactly how long you’ve been there and can easily contact them for a reference or to double check the information. Just by adding that information, you made the recruiter’s job easier.

Why your resume should start with an objective or summary

Remember when we mentioned the importance of making a strong first impression with your resume? That’s why it makes sense to start off with an objective or summary. These sections allow you to better control the first impression you make and to provide context for the rest of the resume. So, for example, before the recruiter notices a gap in your work history and wonders what happened, you can explain it in a summary.

But what’s the difference between the two? A resume objective will be a short sentence that simply explains who you are and what you aim to achieve. If your resume has a cover letter, this is all you’ll need because the cover letter will contain any other relevant information. If you don’t have a cover letter and need to include a bit more information, a summary is ideal. It can be a few sentences, but should still be concise and packed with information.

How to write a resume objective

The key goals here are to be concise and to pack in as much useful information as possible. Let’s look at some examples to see how this is done.

I’m an experienced and certified social worker looking to advance my career in a new position.

This example isn’t overly long but it still takes up too much space with vague or obvious information. How experienced is this person? What certification do they have? Why are they bothering to tell me that they want to advance their career? These are all valid questions a recruiter would have after reading this objective. Now let’s see that same objective with those issues fixed.

QCSW with 8 years experience looking to develop child counseling skills working in Fairfax public schools.

This version of the previous objective solves all of the problems it had. We know which certification they possess, how much experience they have, where they want to work (indicating this resume was customized for the role) and even why they want this specific job. After reading this objective, a recruiter has lots of useful information and context that will make the other information on your resume more effective.

How to write a resume summary

A resume summary should follow the same rules as a resume objective. The difference being that it can be a bit longer. Look at these examples to see how a summary can be used to explain something like a gap in work history.

It’s been a difficult few years taking care of my mother, who has dementia, but now that she’s passed I want to return to my previous career as a social worker. I previously worked largely in addition counseling but would be open to changing specialties.

This example certainly provides context, but it goes about it in the wrong way. First, it’s too personal. A recruiter reading this might think you’re trying to pull at their heartstrings and get some sympathy in the hiring process. In any case, these details might make a recruiter feel uncomfortable. It’s also written in the first person instead of the third. Let’s see a revised version:

Social worker with 8 years experience in addiction counseling looking to return to the workforce with a position at the Richmond Department of Public Health after taking several years off to care for a sick family member.

This version focuses more on you as a social worker rather than a caretaker for a family member. It keeps things professional while still explaining the gap in your work history.

How to make your resume stand out

The good news here is that as a social worker, you already have a sense of how your resume should stand out. That’s because, like a great social worker, the way to do this isn’t by being flashy or bragging. Your resume should be focused, diligent, and clear.

Combining modern design, carefully written text which contains plenty of information, while remaining concise, and a single page of content will make your resume a welcome break for any recruiter or hiring manager. When thinking about how your resume can stand out, don’t imagine it in a vacuum. Imagine your resume as the 100th a recruiter has read in a day and it will be clear why the best way to stand out is to simply be easy and effective.

How to prepare for a job interview as a social worker

More good news, as a social worker you should already have many of the skills needed to excel in a job interview. You’re calm, ready to answer questions, and a consummate professional.

That said, you should still prepare for your interview. Use the research you did to create your resume about the specific needs of this employer. What kind of social worker do they want? Are there any specific challenges their office or agency is facing that you could help with? For example, if they’re understaffed, focus on your ability to handle a large caseload.

The message you want to be sending in both your resume and interview is “I will make your job and life easier if you hire me.” If you approach the interview with this mindset, you’ll maximize your chance of success.

Why you should be using a resume builder

With so many things to consider when creating the perfect social worker resume, you need all the help you can get. That’s why a resume builder is a no-brainer. Choosing the right builder allows you to avoid worrying about ATS compatibility, great design, and all the frustrating formatting issues that inevitably arise when you create a resume in a doc.

That’s why using Resumebuild.com’s builder is the easiest choice you’ll make in your job search. With plenty of clean and modern design templates to choose from and expertly crafted social worker resume examples to inspire you, making a resume that will get you hired couldn’t be easier. So before you go on applying for jobs like it’s the 90s, see why a modern job search should be done with a modern resume.

American businessman and author Robert Kiyosaki once said, "It's not how much money you make, but how much money you keep, how hard it works for you, and how many generations you keep it for."

When it comes to making money work hard for you, there are few people more qualified to help you do that, than a financial advisor. After all, most people aren’t born with an inherent knowledge of how to effectively manage their finances. Consequently, those who are already struggling financially are vulnerable to falling into a cycle of debt. It is certainly sobering to think about the fact that household debt in the US alone has now topped $14 trillion.

A well-trained and experienced financial advisor has the expertise to help such people reconfigure their finances. They also have the know-how to guide people to make smart investment choices and other important financial decisions.

These are just a few of the reasons why the best financial advisors are worth their weight in gold. So how do you show recruiters that you’re one of them? Create a financial advisor resume that they can’t say no to. With the right formatting, words, and features, you’ll be able to establish yourself as a highly sought-after financial advisor.

We’ve compiled the following resume writing guide to provide you with the best insider tips for creating a strong resume. In it, we’ll answer all of the questions you have about putting together a winning resume including:

• What recruiters are actually looking for
• How to make a resume that passes the ATS (and what the ATS is)
• Which types of skills you should be targeting
• How to expertly match your resume to each job
• What tips experts recommend for making your resume shine

With the Bureau of Labor Statistics projecting that employment of personal financial advisors will grow 7 percent from 2018 to 2028, it’s a fantastic time to launch your job search. Be sure to set yourself up for success by following our expert guide.

1. Multiple Template Examples

2. How to Write a Financial Advisor Resume That Will Get Your Phone Ringing

How to format it

The format you choose for your resume may not seem like a decision that could impact the viability of your application. However, research has shown it is one of the most critical factors that influences how a recruiter views your resume. An eye-tracking study which pinpointed how recruiters read resumes found that they spent more time focusing on job titles, than on any other element in a resume.

This tells us two things: 

1. Recruiters are most interested in reading about your professional experiences. 
2. It’s beneficial to choose a format that positions your professional experiences prominently in your resume.

The format that is best at putting a spotlight on your professional experiences is the reverse-chronological format. In line with recruiters’ expectations, it features your most recent professional experience first and the ones that preceded it after.

The study also highlighted that recruiters have certain preferences when it comes to a resume’s layout, namely, “Clear, simple layouts with clearly marked section and title headers.” To ensure your resume reflects this, we suggest that you follow the layout rules we’ve outlined below:

• • Number of Pages: 1 page at most.
  • Fonts to Use: Only use professional fonts that are easy-to-read and will be processed by ATS, such as Georgia and Cambria.
  • Fonts to Avoid: A good rule of thumb is to avoid fonts you wouldn’t use to write a financial report for a client, such as Caveat and Ultra.
  • Margins: 1 inch on all sides.

• Line Spacing: 1 or 1.15.

• Header size: 14-16 point size.
• Text size: 11-12 point size.

What recruiters will look for

Each recruiter will have their own idea of the “x factor” that separates a good applicant for a financial advisor position from a great one. However, there are certain attributes that all recruiters will agree are absolutely essential for top candidates to possess.

Recruiters are essentially looking for financial advisors who have made a name for themselves for being naturals at what they do. Financial advisors who are looking to get hired should be skilled in providing their clients with reliable, trustworthy, thorough, and effective advice that supports them work towards their short and/or long-term financial goals. Recruiters are also looking for professionals who can equally contribute to the success of their company as a whole.

Needless to say, you will want to show a recruiter that you are the precise candidate they have in mind. Your resume is the key to doing this. When recruiters review it, they should see all of the attributes they’re looking for staring right back at them. You can discover our insider tricks about how to ensure your resume addresses recruiters’ criteria by reading each of the sections below.

How to get your resume past ATS

Impressing a recruiter with your resume is half the battle - you also need to get it past ATS. If you haven’t heard of ATS - prepare to be taken aback by the following information. ATS, which stands for Applicant Tracking Software, is a highly-advanced tool that millions of companies and HR professionals use to make the hiring process more efficient.

Instead of making a recruiter personally check over each resume one by one, resumes are fed through an ATS, which uses special algorithms to either instantly pass or reject a candidate. While the algorithm each company or recruiter sets on their ATS will differ, they generally program it to search for particular keywords on each resume. Resumes which feature the keywords will pass...while those that lack them will get rejected.

This means your resume could be rejected before it even gets read by a human! While it sounds like a sci-fi novel that the fate of your next job could be in the hands of a computer program, in reality, the use of ATS is surprisingly common. Research has found that more than 98% of Fortune 500 companies already use ATS. Moreover, an increasing number of SMBs are turning to ATS to streamline their recruitment process.

But before you get too disheartened, the good news is that you can easily get your resume past ATS by keeping a few things in mind. Here are the top ways to ensure your resume gets the tick of approval from an ATS:

• Use the right keywords: Incorporate keywords used in the job ad throughout your entire resume so that the ATS can detect them. Where possible, use the exact keywords found on the job ad rather than paraphrasing. 

• Ensure your resume can be read and processed properly: Most ATS have difficulty reading and processing any “non standard” fonts, line spacing, borders, and colors. To be on the safe side, stick to the standard layout rules we shared above. 

• Avoid using images, logos, or symbols: Another feature that most ATS struggle with is reading any graphics or symbols. This means that you should forget about including company logos, images, or symbols apart from bullet points. 

• Don’t include any information in your resume’s header or footer: Most ATS are only designed to read and process the content found in the main part of a page. Consequently, any information you include in your resume’s header or footer is as good as invisible. 

• Ensure your resume is free of typos: Typos on resumes are bad news all round, but if you’re lucky, a recruiter may not catch them. On the other hand, an ATS won’t be able to process a typo, which is particularly problematic if it is a keyword you’re trying to target. Avoid this faux pas by proofreading your resume until it’s 100% perfect.

Pro tip: Don’t be tempted to keyword stuff! While this technique may get you past the ATS, you need to remember that a recruiter will eventually read your resume as well. They won't be impressed with your attempts to game the system, so always ensure that the keywords sound natural and are written in context.

What skills to mention and how to do it correctly

To be a successful financial advisor, you need to constantly draw on an assortment of skills. You may not even realize how many skills you rely on to effectively carry out each task, because you now apply them like clockwork.

When you’re writing up your resume, you need to pinpoint which of your skills are most worthwhile to highlight for each job application. We have an insider trick that will help you get this right each and every time:

Instead of selecting skills that you think recruiters will find impressive, select the skills you know for a fact that they’re actively looking for.

You’re probably now wondering how you can manage such a feat without reading their minds. It’s much more logical than you think - all you need to do is scan the job ad carefully. You should identify any instances, where the recruiter mentions the skills that they’re after.  Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for both soft and hard skills. We’ll explain the difference between these skills as well as some helpful examples of each below:

Soft skills 

What are they? Intangible skills that relate to a candidate’s interpersonal or communication abilities.

Examples:

• Problem solving
• Empathy
• Ability to handle stress
• Analytical 
• Work ethic
• Time management
• Adaptability
• Confidence
• Sense of ethics

Hard skills

What are they? Tangible, technical skills that are often specific to your particular line of work or the finance industry.

Examples:

• Analyzing financial data
• Accounting skills
• Updating client portfolios
• Advising financial strategies
• Developing a client base
• Recommending services and investments
• Scrutinising investments 
• Generating client enquiries
• Maintaining high level compliance standards 
• Identifying opportunities for financial seminars

To include your skills on your resume, list 6 to 8 in a dedicated “Skills” section. You can also highlight 1 to 2 relevant ones in your resume objective or resume summary. If you’re really wanting to impress, try to incorporate one in each of your job achievements as well!

How to list your education correctly

Clients are rightly cautious about working with just any old financial advisor. After all, it’s their entire livelihoods at stake - so it makes sense that they are looking to get advice from a financial advisor, who has a deep theoretical knowledge and understanding to back up what they’re saying.

It’s for this reason that recruiters value candidates, who have an impressive educational background. Recruiters know that their companies’ clients will seek well-educated financial advisors, so it’s practical to hire someone who already offers one from the get-go. 

At minimum, the majority of financial advisor jobs require candidates to have a bachelor’s degree from an accredited educational institution. Ideally, your major should be in a field that is directly relevant to the profession, such as finance, business, statistics, or even marketing. If you’re applying for a more prestigious firm or a higher up position, you may be required to also have a relevant graduate degree or a Master's in Business Administration (MBA).

In order to correctly include details about your educational background on your resume, you should include them under a section called “Education”. When putting together this section, don’t make the mistake of writing about your degree/s in sentence case, like this candidate did:

Education

I hold a Bachelor of Business Administration with a major in finance from the Bauer College of Business, University of Houston. I graduated in 2016 with a GPA of 3.5.  

This reads more like the start of a resume objective (which we discuss further below), rather than being part of an education section. You only need to provide key details about each degree you have, with the order you list them dependent on the resume format you use.

Below, we’ve listed the key details you should include:

• Name of Degree (use an acronym of the degree to save space)
• Major
• Name of the college or educational institution
• State the college is located in
• Graduation year
• GPA (only include if more than 3.5)

Applying this rule to our candidate above, their experience section should instead look like this:

Education

BBA in Finance
Bauer College of Business

University of Houston, TX
2016

3.5 GPA

Pro tip: If you plan on becoming a certified financial planner (CFP), you must complete college or university-level coursework through a CFP Board Registered Program. 

Why additional certifications are especially important for this role and how to list them correctly

While including certifications on a resume is considered to be a “nice to have” feature in many professions, it is vital to include them on financial advisor resumes. Financial advisors need to demonstrate that they have undergone the required training to provide their clients with fair and effective advice.

The most important certification that you should feature on your resume is your Certified Financial Planner (CFP) certification. As Investopedia explains, “Unlike some certificates that are worth little more than the paper they’re printed on, the CFP designation is one of the most prestigious financial certificates around.”

This certification shows recruiters that you are a high caliber financial advisor, who has the knowledge, skills, and training to provide clients with world-class financial advice. Moreover, many clients are only willing to work with a financial advisor, who is a CPF, so most recruiters will give strong preference to those, who are already one. 

To include your CPF certification on your resume, you can state it right next to your name. For example:

Marianne Mayer (CPF)

You should also include details of your CPF in a dedicated “Certifications” section, using the following format:

Certifications

[Name of the certification], [Institution that issued the certification], [State (if applicable)], [Year you received the certification]

You can also use the above format to include any other additional certifications that are relevant to your profession. Including them will help to further demonstrate your commitment to your professional learning and development.

Pro tip: You should strive to consistently add new certifications to your arsenal to ensure you’re always growing as a professional. A recruiter will be markedly more impressed by a candidate who regularly completes relevant certifications than one whose last certification was many years ago.

How to write a resume objective or summary and examples of both

Every financial advisor resume should either feature a resume objective or resume summary section. Your level of experience will determine which one is optimal for your resume. Whichever you use, make sure to position it under your name and contact details, and keep it to 2 to 4 sentences.

Resume Objective

A resume objective gives entry-level candidates with little to no experience the chance to tell recruiters why they’re a top notch candidate. When writing your resume objective, aim to make the recruiter put aside your relative inexperience and focus on the many draw cards you offer instead.

You should ensure it features information about yourself, which is as relevant as possible to the position you’re applying to. In order to do this, highlight your relevant educational background, skills, and career aspirations. You should also mention relevant work, internship, or volunteer experiences, if you have any.

Be mindful to avoid writing in a way which emphasizes your weaknesses or highlights your lack of confidence in your own abilities, like this candidate did:

I dream about being a financial advisor, but I don’t have any work experience yet. If you would be kind enough to give me a chance and hire me as an intern, I think that I would be a great help to your company. 

Instead, focus your efforts on convincing the recruiter that your strengths would make you an asset to their company. Be confident in highlighting the relevant attributes you can offer, despite your lack of work experience. We’ve revised the above resume objective to show you what a difference changing your perspective makes:

Aspiring financial advisor and final year Bachelor of Science student, with a major in statistics at the University of Iowa (GPA 3.6), is seeking an entry-level financial advisor position at Purple Horizon Financial Consulting. I endeavor to bring my superior data analysis skills, ability to stay calm under pressure, and friendly demeanor to each task.

Resume Summary

In the finance industry, money talks. That’s why it’s vital that your resume summary positions you as a candidate who has what it takes to expertly advise clients about their financial matters as well as generate more revenue for the company itself.

You should ensure you don’t focus on what you can do for the company, as opposed to what you can do for the company, like this resume summary does:

Certified financial advisor with 4 years of experience who wants to work at Constellation Accounting so I can further develop the many skills I already have. Constellation would be lucky to hire such a one-of-a-kind candidate like me.

A recruiter would definitely not be impressed by this candidate! They fail to explain why they’re even worth considering, let alone that they use an unprofessional tone.

To make a resume summary that recruiters will actually look forward to reading, hone in on the relevant skills, experiences, education and training you can use to help the company reach its objectives. We’ve rewritten the above resume objective to show this in action:

Certified financial advisor with 4 years of experience, who endeavors to leverage my proven skills in client acquisition and portfolio analysis, in order to strengthen Constellation Accounting’s year-on-year growth. Along with my second-to-none work ethic, I bring along meticulous organizational and problem solving skills to each task.

How to target your resume for each application, including how to list only relevant skills and achievements for that specific company & position

In order to guarantee a recruiter doesn’t bypass your resume, you will need to target it to address the specific criteria a recruiter is looking for. The two sections you will need to be particularly mindful to do so are your skills and achievements sections.

The key to targeting your resume for each application is to modify your resume each time, so it matches a recruiter’s vision of their ideal candidate as closely as possible. The primary means of doing this is to naturally incorporate relevant keywords from a job ad into your resume. You can easily identify keywords by scanning a job ad and looking for nouns related to the main skills as well as competencies a job is calling for.

Once you have a list of the keywords used in a job ad, you will then need to work on naturally weaving them throughout your resume. For example, if the job ad contains the keywords “quality strategic advice,” you should provide an example, which highlights the impact your quality strategic advice had on a client in your job achievements section.

How to make your resume stand out

There’s no way around it; you need to make your resume stand out so it not only competes against other applicants’ resumes, but is also ultimately chosen over them.

If you’re diligent with following our guide above, you’ll be able to make a resume that is superior to the resumes of most other applicants. But to really differentiate it, you need to go a few steps further. Here are our expert tips to help you do this:

• Quantify your achievements: Make your achievements more eye-catching by quantifying them using numbers and percentages. For example, “Helped a client reduce their debt by 60% in 3 months.” 

• Highlight how much your clients love working with you: Recruiters want to know that in addition to your razor-sharp financial skills, clients actually like working with you. If you have access to them, it’s always helpful to include your client satisfaction rates. 
• Don’t be shy about including your awards: Did you win the “Financial Advisor of the Year” award in your company? Or have you or your team won an award in the industry? Be sure to mention it in your resume summary in a separate “Awards” section. 
• Get a second set of eyes to read over your resume: Ask your mentor or trusted friend or family member to read over your resume in order to offer constructive feedback and pick up on any typos and grammatical errors.

3. How Resumebuild.com’s Resume Builder Tool Can Be Utilized for an Easy Resume Setup

We’ve now shared all of our insider tips for making a stunning financial advisor resume. The good news is that it’s possible for just about anyone to do so. The bad news is that it’s no walk in the park. You’ll need to set aside hours - if not days - to write, edit, format, and proofread your resume until it’s just right.

Beyond being draining to work on it when you have a million other things on your mind, it is also difficult to schedule the time to do so. Then there’s also the financial cost of endlessly working on your resume - every minute you spend on it is one less minute of possible income. It doesn’t take a financial advisor to realize that’s not economically sound!

That’s why it’s a wise idea to outsource the task of making your resume. However, we’re not talking about hiring a professional resume writer, who can charge an exorbitant fee of upwards of $100.

We’re talking about using an innovative piece of software called a resume builder. High-quality options like Resumebuild.com’s resume builder tool allow jobseekers like yourself to quickly, easily, and affordably create an industry-specific professional resume that’s targeted for each application. Resumebuild’s resume builder will walk you step-by-step through how to expertly complete each section of your resume.

We’ve even sorted out the layout of your resume, thanks to the assortment of stunning, HR-friendly resume templates we’ve created for you to choose from. As an added bonus, we’ve made filling out the trickier sections of your resume a breeze by providing eye-catching pre-written examples for you to use.

In the end, you’ll be able to woo recruiters with a brand new financial advisor resume that not only addresses what they’re looking for, but also properly honors your professional accomplishments. Ready to begin? You can start making your resume in just minutes!

Financial analysts tend to be analytical individuals. After dealing with numbers, spreadsheets, and formulas all day every day, finding the creativity to write a resume can be tough. Combine that with how quickly the financial analyst career field is growing and it’s easy to see just how competitive the job market is.

In a fast-growing field like finance, you need a resume that’s going to stand out. Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. In this guide, we’ll cover what it takes to create a top-tier financial analyst resume. After reading it, you’ll know:

• How to format your resume
• What recruiters look for in a financial analyst resume
• How to ensure your resume passes through applicant tracking systems
• Which skills you should mention on your resume (and how to list them correctly)
• What to include in the education section of your resume
• How to write a concise and compelling resume objective or summary 
• How to reference job postings and edit your resume for each application you submit
• How to make your resume stand out to recruiters
• Top online resume builder tools

Job searching shouldn’t have to be a stressful, time-consuming endeavor. If you follow our resume writing tips, you’ll be on your way to interviewing in no time.

Let’s get started. 

Multiple template examples 

How to write a financial analyst resume that will get you the job

Resume writing isn’t as intuitive as you might think. Even if you have the experience and skills needed to succeed in a job, that doesn’t always translate into your application. Luckily for you, we know what it takes to impress a recruiter and write an award-winning resume.

How to format it

First things first, you need a properly-formatted resume. Recruiters decide in seconds whether or not they’re going to interview an applicant. If your formatting is off, that’s a telltale sign you aren’t up for the job.

Here are simple, straight-forward rules to follow when formatting your resume.

• Keep your resume to one page in length
• Use one-inch margins on every side
• Divide your resume into the following sections: header, summary, experience, skills, certifications, and education
• Hyperlink contact information so that it’s easily clickable
• List your experience reverse-chronologically
• Use bullet points to emphasis achievements in your experience section
• Use a font that is clean and easy to read
• Use section headers and subheaders to break up text
• Always export as a PDF

These are the very basic resume formatting guidelines every financial analyst should follow. Remember that when it comes to resumes, simplicity is key. You want a resume that is easily readable, with plenty of white space. Trying to cram in as much information as possible almost always does more harm than good.

Instead, keep only the most relevant and important information. A recruiter doesn’t need (or want) to read about things that don’t relate to the job you’re applying to. Conciseness is key. Brevity is your best friend.

What recruiters will look for

When reviewing resumes, there are a few specific things recruiters will look for. Firstly, they want to see that you have the experience needed to succeed.

For almost every position, a bachelor’s degree is required—preferably with a focus in finance or accounting. In addition to education, they’ll look at your past experience. This section is even more important than your education. To show you have what it takes to succeed, you’ll want to highlight your achievements rather than just list your responsibilities.

Secondly, they’ll look to see if you’ve tailored your resume for the specific job posting. And trust us when we say it’s obvious if you haven’t. You can keep a master resume that you use as a starting point for each application, but you should always adjust your summary, experience, and skills section for each job you apply to.

Thirdly, they’ll try to gauge whether or not you’ll be a good fit culturally. This might seem like a difficult thing to convey over a resume, but with a little extra effort, you can. The best place to do this is in your objective or summary section. Focus on how you work with others, the relationships you’ve built with clients, and your professional character.

In order to even get in front of a recruiter’s eyes though, your resume needs to pass through an applicant tracking system (ATS). 

How to get your resume past an ATS (Applicant Tracking System)

Applicant tracking systems are used by many large and even medium-sized companies to weed out unqualified candidates. If during the application, you have to submit information through an online system or form, you’re most likely dealing with an ATS.

An ATS uses algorithms to perform an initial screening of all resumes. In doing so, the ATS helps recruiters eliminate candidates that don’t fit the job posting requirements.

Obviously, you don’t want that to happen to you. If it does, there’s virtually no chance a recruiter will even see your resume. In order to ensure your resume passes an ATS, here’s what you need to do.

Include the right keywords

It doesn’t matter how much experience you have or which companies you’ve worked for; if your resume doesn’t include the right keywords, it won’t pass the system. To determine which keywords you need to include, read through the job posting and make a list of which skills and attributes are mentioned multiple times throughout. Be sure to include them wherever you can on your resume.

Just be sure you don’t go overboard. Stuffing your resume with keywords might help it pass the system, but it won’t impress a recruiter. The use of your keywords should feel natural, not forced.

What to include in your resume header

There’s a lot of conflicting information about what needs to be included in your resume header. The good news is, we’re here to clear that up. While it certainly used to be common practice to include your address in your resume header, that’s no longer necessary. It’s outdated and unnecessary.

The days of snail mail are long gone. A simple email and phone number should do. If you want, you can also include your city and/or your LinkedIn profile. Including a link to your LinkedIn profile can be especially useful if you find yourself struggling to keep your resume to a page in length. 

Luckily, your LinkedIn doesn’t have any page-length requirements. So even if you don’t have room for everything on your resume, a recruiter can click through and see it all on your LinkedIn. 

What skills to mention and how to do it correctly

You obviously need analytical skills to succeed as a financial analyst, but that’s pretty broad. To show exactly what skills you possess, you’ll need to break things down a little further. 

Start by making a list of all the skills you have. Don’t reference any job postings, just write down every skill that comes to mind, even if they aren’t necessarily related to your career as a financial analyst. 

This will be your Master Skill List and the starting point you use for each job application. Divide your skills into soft skills and technical skills. List them in order of how strong you think they are or how relevant they are to the position you’re applying to.

Now that you’ve created and organized your Master Skill List, you can start cross-referencing them with each job listing. Here are some top sought-after soft skills for financial analysts:

• Accuracy
• Attention to detail 
• Multitasking
• Organization
• Presentation and public speaking 
• Problem-solving
• Project management
• Prioritization
• Strategic planning
• Time management
• Teamwork 

And here are the top hard, technical skills for financial analysts:

• Budgeting
• Cost-benefit analysis
• Data validation techniques
• Data visualization
• Decision-making
• Economics
• Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems
• Financial forecasting 
• Financial modeling
• Financial planning
• Financial software applications
• Mathematics
• Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft Access
• Risk management
• Statistical analysis
• SAP
• SQL
• Trend analysis 

If you can, try to weave these into your experience section wherever possible. And remember that soft skills can be better demonstrated with on-the-job examples. Simply stating that you have problem-solving skills doesn’t mean much if you don’t have any examples to back it up.

How to list your education

The education section of your resume should be simple and straightforward. Include your college name, location, and the degree you obtained. There’s no need to mention your graduation year. Employers care that you have the degree, not when you earned it.

If you have the space for it, you can also include any notable achievements, including GPA, honors, student organization positions, and relevant coursework. Keep in mind, though, that these are more relevant for recent grads or financial analysts with only a few years of experience.

If you’ve been in the workforce for more than 5 years, there’s no reason to go into that much detail about your education. That space can be better used in your experience or skills section.

How to write a resume objective and examples of this

If you’re trying to decide between writing a resume objective or a resume summary, here’s a guide to helping you decide. If you have little to no experience, write a resume objective. If you’ve been in the workforce for a few years, write a resume summary.

If you’ve decided that writing a resume objective is the best choice for you, be sure to follow these tips. Write a resume objective that is specific to the job you’re applying to. Go into as much detail as possible about what you hope to achieve. A generic objective doesn’t give a recruiter any useful information. 

Wrong resume objective:

Financial analyst with more than 3 years of experience. Skilled in MS Excel, MS Access, and financial forecasting skills. Seeking a new position focused on strategic planning similar to what I did previously at Mizuho.

This resume objective is very meh. There’s not necessarily anything wrong with it, but it definitely isn’t going to catch a recruiter’s eye. It’s average at best.

Right resume objective:

CFA with 3+ years of experience working for Mizuho, a Fortune 500-company in the financial space. I worked closely with our CFO on strategic planning initiatives to increase revenue. Through financial forecasting, MS Access, and MS Excel, I identified low performing portfolios and adjusted as needed, resulting in a 12% increase in revenue. 

This objective, on the other hand, goes into much more detail and mentions measurable achievements. A recruiter will be much more likely to call this candidate than the first one.

How to write a resume summary and examples of this

Perhaps a resume summary makes more sense for you. Similar to a resume objective, you want to be as specific as possible in your resume summary. 

In a resume summary, the goal is to explain in a few sentences why you’re the best fit for the job. To do this, you’ll want to talk about your most notable achievements as well as what kind of value you can bring to an organization.

Wrong resume summary:

Organized and detail-oriented financial analyst seeking a new full-time opportunity where I can expand my skillset and grow my financial knowledge.

This resume summary isn’t specific at all. Pretty much any financial analyst could use it—which means it won’t stand out. And it certainly doesn’t tell a recruiter anything useful about you.

Right resume summary:

CFA Financial Analyst with 5+ years of experience. Seeking a full-time position where I can leverage my financial forecasting and cost-benefit analysis skills. Saved Miller/Coors $1.3 million through improved pricing and low-margin projects.

This resume summary goes into much more detail about the candidate as well as their past experience. A recruiter can get a sense of their top skillsets as well as the scale of financial planning projects they’ve worked on.

Whichever you end up choosing, a resume objective or a resume summary, remember not to write in first-person. In fact, you don’t need to use any pronouns at all. Just sentence fragments are fine.

How to list certifications on your resume

In some industries, certifications are optional. For financial analysts, they’re not. You absolutely should include a certification section on your resume.

The main certification for financial analysts is the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) certification. To obtain it, it takes four years of work experience and a three-part, extensive exam.

That said, if you hold this certification, it needs to be prominently featured on your resume. If you don’t, that’s okay. Here are other certifications worth including on your financial analyst resume:

• Chartered Financial Analyst
• Certified Financial Planner
• Chartered Financial Consultant
• Certified Public Accountant
• Certified Fund Specialist
• Certified Investment Management Analyst
• Chartered Investment Counselor
• Personal Financial Specialist

It’s also helpful to add any major certifications you hold in the header of your resume. For example, “Samuel Jones, CFA” sounds much more credible than just “Samuel Jones”. It’ll also ensure a recruiter knows right away that you’re certified.

How to list any additional details, like hobbies, interests, and/or volunteer experience

If you find yourself with extra space, you can add an extra section to your resume. In a business-oriented industry like finance, though, you need to carefully consider what you want to add. 

Hobbies or interests that are unrelated to your career or the industry you’re working in don’t deserve space on your resume. You might think it gives a recruiter a better sense of who you are as a person, but that’s what interviews are for. Your resume should be strictly professional and work-related. For example, you wouldn’t want to include craft beer as an interest if you’re applying for a position at Capital One.

If you’re applying for a position at Miller/Coors though, that can show you have a keen interest in the industry you’ll be working in.

If you do have hobbies or interests that are finance-related, by all means, add them. Just make sure that information is more important than adding an extra bullet to each of your job descriptions. 

You want every word on your resume to be a strong selling point and making the best possible use of space is key to doing that. 

Volunteer experience is certainly appreciated by recruiters, but again, that’s always something you can mention in your interview. Whether or not you include it on your resume is unlikely to determine whether or not you’ll get called in for an interview. 

How to target your resume for each application

We touched on this earlier, but in order to stand out to a recruiter, you need to target your resume for each application. If you just send out a generic version, it’s unlikely you’ll hear back from many companies. Most recruiters receive hundreds of resumes for every open position. 

To target your resume for each application, you’ll want to reference the job posting. Make note of any important words, phrases, or skills that are mentioned throughout. 

When you write your resume, work them in when you can. Edit your experience section so you highlight previous experience that most closely relates to the position you’re applying for. In doing so, a recruiter will see you’re a qualified candidate instead of just someone who works in the field of finance.

How to list only the relevant skills for that specific company and position

Next, you’ll want to cross-match your skills so that you’re only listing the relevant ones. To do this, reference your Master Skill List we mentioned making earlier. Whichever skills appear on both the job posting and your skills list should be added to your resume. 

After you’ve cross-matched your skills, add any others that you think will help you stand out. Think about which skills from your list you would use most in this position if you were hired and add those to your resume.

How to make your resume stand out

Okay, now you know how to format a resume. You know to highlight your achievements, tailor your resume for each application, and cross-match your skills. Those are all important but it doesn’t necessarily mean your resume will stand out.

So, how do you ensure your resume will impress a recruiter? Here are some top tips.

Use power verbs to further emphasis achievements

When talking about your past places of employment, use verbs that emphasize the ways you solved problems. Instead of just stating your day-to-day duties, use verbs like “increased,” “improved,” or “spear-headed.”

Quantify your achievements 

When you use numbers on your resume, they instantly catch the eyes of a recruiter. And as a financial analyst especially, your resume should be filled with numbers. Here are some top quantifiable achievement examples for financial analysts:

• % of cost reductions
• Size of budget you managed (in dollars)
• % increase in operational efficiency 

Use a resume template

Trying to design your resume is difficult. Instead of starting from scratch, consider using a professionally-designed resume template. This way, you only have to worry about adding in content, saving you valuable time and energy you would otherwise spend on formatting and design. 

How Resume Build’s resume builder tool can be utilized for an easy resume setup

If you’re interested in using an online resume builder tool, check out Resume Build. In just three simple steps, you can create a resume that’s sure to stand out.

1. Choose a template: With more than 20 tailored-built resumes, we have options for every industry that are professionally-designed and HR-approved.
2. Show the world what you’re made of: Start adding in your content! You can copy and paste from previous resumes. Or, if you’re struggling to find the right words, use a pre-written resume, and simply adjust as needed.
3. Download your resume: Get a PDF, ready-to-send resume.

It’s really that easy! We’re here to do the heavy lifting for you so you can focus on finding the right positions to apply to. Job searching shouldn’t have to be stressful—or overly time-consuming. With our guides, we help you work smarter, not harder.

Start building your resume today.