The finance department is a vivacious industry where you need to keep the money rolling in and out, maintain the payroll, report, and control financial activities with the utmost accuracy at all times.
However, when it comes to making a career switch, despite being a superstar in finance, you may end up suffering the disappointment of job rejections because you failed to promote your own skills on-paper.
This article documents 5 tips to help you write an impeccable finance resume so you can drastically improve your shortlist chances.
Let’s begin.
Make a master resume to compile your information
A master folder is basically the first stage of resume making where you simply dump all the information about your career in one single place.
Whether it is your working experience in the past, the internships you have done, or certifications, education, awards & recognitions, and personal information – all you have to do is compile all the information in one master document.
The best use of making a master resume is that it acts as a reference point. You can easily pick the information that will be relevant to the profile you are targeting without missing anything out!
For example, a marketing internship that you have done in the past would be of no use to you if your functional industry is strictly finance-related. You don’t need to mention it in your resume while chasing the most sought-after finance jobs that purely tests you in your financial expertise.
However, if the finance role you are targeting also demands a hands-on experience or some degree of exposure in the field of marketing, mentioning a past marketing internship would help you enhance your chances of getting shortlisted.
In other words, making a master resume helps you save both time and effort. It also helps you customize your resume easily as it eliminates the need for you to recollect on your memory each time you need to draft a resume. So make sure that you make a master copy of your resume.
Use a suitable resume format
Based on the career stage you are in, you need to frame your resume accordingly. There are 3 main resume formats that you can use to structure your resume.
Here’s a list of all 3 resume formats. Pick the one that is most suitable for you:
- Reverse Chronological Resume Format: In this format, fresh information comes first – followed by the latter. Use this format if you have extensive years of work experience without any career gaps. Best suited for mid-level and senior-level finance professionals.
- Functional Resume Format: . This format focusses on your skills and gives little importance to the timeline of your professional experience. Use this format if you often shift jobs or need to cover career gaps. Best suited for frequent job switchers and finance professionals with career gaps.
- Combination Resume Format: This format to give equal importance to your skills and professional experience. It combines the best of both reverse chronological resume and functional resume format. Best suited for entry level finance professionals, frequent job hoppers, and finance professionals with career gaps.
The reverse chronological resume is the most preferred format and the functional resume is the least preferred format.
Draft an impeccable Professional Experience Section
For your resume to stand out, each element needs to stand out. The professional experience section being the most important highlight of your career trajectory needs to be perfected.
Here are 3 ways to accomplish this:
- Frame one-liner points: Avoid writing lengthy paragraphs and use bullet points to frame one-liner points to write your professional experience statements. This helps you make your resume more reader-friendly.
- Create buckets and apply bolding: Create unique headings and list similar one-liners under the relevant buckets. Additionally, mark the most significant highlights of your career using bolding. Doing this will help your roles & responsibilities look more effective.
- Use performance figures: No one cares that you can make finance reports or handle budgets. What the recruiters want to see is the quantifiable aspects of your roles & responsibilities. Using performance figures can help you prove the validity of your finance expertise. So make sure you use them wherever possible in your finance resume.
Use keywords to enhance your shortlist chances
Recruiters do not have the luxury of time to thoroughly assess every resume and so they use the ATS (Applicant Tracking System) to filter through resumes. What this means is that your resume cannot reach the recruiter before it gets parsed by the ATS.
So to make your finance resume get shortlisted, it needs to be ATS-compliant too.
A fantastic way to do this is by using relevant keywords. All you have to do is scrutinize the job listing and look for them. Once you identify them, use the keywords that apply to you and sprinkle them generously in your resume.
Here’s an example of a LinkedIn job posting for a Strategic Financial Analyst:
In the above screenshot, you will notice at the right that some skill sets are laid out. These are the keywords in this job listing.
If you’re applying for this position, mentioning these resume keywords in your finance resume will ensure that your finance resume is ATS-compliant. What this means is that it will get easily parsed by the ATS and your shortlist chances will also drastically increase.
Here’s an example of how to incorporate these keywords in your financial analyst resume:
As you can see from the above screenshot, we did not simply incorporate the keywords as it is. Moreover, we have also put in more skills to correctly reflect the wholesome expertise of the finance analyst.
Provide educational details
To work in finance, you need to have a minimum of a Bachelor’s degree and it is a bonus if you have a major in a finance-related subject.
The key lies in providing this information in your resume as it helps you showcase your educational background and basic theoretical knowledge. It also helps you validate the fact that you have the right knowledge to be shortlisted for the targeted job profile.
Key Takeaways
Here are some key takeaways from our article to help you write a finance resume that can get you a job:
- Always create a master folder to gather all your details and pieces of information. It will help you write a customized resume according to your target job.
- Curate your resume according to the resume format that best compliments your professional requirements.
- Perfect the details of your professional experience section as it will help you show your industry expertise to the best.
- Highlight your core financial skills in the key skills section and put in relevant keywords as the latter helps you beat the ATS thereby enhancing your shortlist chances.
- Mention the details of your educational qualification as this is a must-have element of your finance resume.
Author’s Bio:
Aditya Sharma
A tech enthusiast with a vivacious interest in startups and finance; Aditya lives and breathes Hiration — a startup and AI-powered online resume builder to help job-seekers find their way in today’s highly treacherous job market.
Disclaimer: This content does not necessarily represent the views of IWB.