Financial Analyst CV example

What recruiters expect

Before writing anything, it helps to know what the person reading is checking for. In this field that is usually a short, specific list:

• The size of the P&L or budget you support, and which business areas.
• Forecast accuracy or variance figures, which are the clearest quality signal available.
• Modelling depth: three-statement models, scenario analysis, sensitivity, driver-based planning.
• Systems by name - the ERP, the planning tool, and how much of the work is still in Excel.
• Business partnering: who you sit with, what decisions they bring you, and how often.

Recommended CV structure

This is the running order the example uses. It is a starting point rather than a rule, but the order reflects what tends to be read first in this profession.

1. Profile — Three or four lines positioning you for the role.
2. Core Skills — Grouped skills, for example "Languages" and "Tooling".
3. Professional Experience — Paid roles, in reverse chronological order.
4. Professional Qualifications — Completed certifications with the issuing body.
5. Education — Degrees, diplomas and school-leaving qualifications.
6. Languages — Spoken languages with CEFR levels.

Sections worth adding

• Projects — Use for system implementations, pricing reviews or acquisition support.
• Continuing Professional Development — Relevant while working towards CIMA, ACCA or CFA.

Skills worth including

Grouped rather than listed in one block. Grouping makes a long list readable and shows that you can tell the difference between the things you use daily and the things you have touched.

Beyond the technical list: Business partnering, Presenting to non-finance leadership, Challenging assumptions, Managing a planning cycle to deadline. These belong inside your experience bullets, demonstrated, rather than in a list of adjectives.

Example professional summary

Three or four lines, positioned for the role rather than describing your personality. Two versions you can adapt:

Financial analyst with five years in FP&A supporting a £68m revenue division. Own the rolling forecast, which has landed within 3% of actual revenue for six consecutive quarters, and rebuilt the product margin model that led to two loss-making lines being repriced. CIMA finalist.

Commercial finance analyst working directly with sales and operations leadership. Comfortable building the model, challenging the assumptions behind it, and presenting the answer to people who do not want a spreadsheet.

Writing your experience

The difference between a CV that gets a call and one that does not is almost always in the bullet points. Each pair below shows a real rewrite of the kind of line that appears on most CVs in this field.

Taken from the example

The sample CV for this profession is fully written. A few sections from it, so you can see the level of specificity that works:

Experience

Senior Financial Analyst, Thameside Industrial Supplies

• Own the rolling 12-month forecast for a £68m revenue division across four product lines; the last six quarters have landed within 3% of actual revenue.
• Rebuilt the product margin model to allocate distribution cost by weight rather than revenue, which showed two apparently profitable lines were loss-making after freight; both were repriced the following quarter.
• Ran the annual budget cycle across 14 cost centre owners, moving from emailed spreadsheets to a single Adaptive Planning model and cutting the cycle from nine weeks to five.
• Built the business case for a £2.1m warehouse automation project, including sensitivity analysis on labour cost and volume; the project was approved and is tracking to the modelled payback.

Education

• BSc (Hons) Economics, University of Reading — Upper Second Class (2:1)

Certifications and registration

• CIMA – Strategic level, final case study booked — CIMA
• Financial Modelling and Valuation Analyst (FMVA) — Corporate Finance Institute

Common mistakes

ATS considerations

Applicant tracking systems behave differently by sector, and generic advice is often wrong for a given field. These points are specific to financial analyst applications:

• Write "financial planning and analysis (FP&A)" in full once so both forms match.
• Include "financial modelling" and "financial modeling" is unnecessary - use the local spelling, but do include "modelling" as a word rather than only "models".
• Name the planning system. "Anaplan" and "Adaptive Planning" are hard filters at organisations that run them.
• Keep "Excel" on the CV explicitly, with the specific functions rather than the word "advanced".

The Minimal ATS layout is built for this, and the ATS guide covers what parsers do to a file in more detail.

Guides that go deeper

This page applies general CV advice to one field. The full treatment of each part is here:

• How to Write an Accountant CV — Qualification status first, then the reporting cycle, the systems and the framework. In that order, for a reason.
• How to Describe Work Experience — The difference between listing duties and demonstrating impact, and a repeatable way to rewrite any weak bullet point.
• How to List Skills on a CV — Group them, be specific, and cut anything you would not want to be interviewed on for ten minutes.

Questions about financial analyst CVs