Hirerizz teamCorporate finance and FP&A readers look for two things: that you can build the numbers, and that you can explain them to non-finance people. Your resume should name the reports, models and cycles you owned, and the decisions they helped make.
Keywords to put on a Corporate Finance resume
Use the words that match your real experience. Do not copy a list you cannot back up in an interview.
Planning and reporting
FP&A, budgeting, annual operating plan, rolling forecast, variance analysis, MIS reporting, board reporting, investor reporting, P&L ownership, management accounts.
Modelling and analysis
financial modelling, unit economics, scenario analysis, sensitivity analysis, cash flow forecasting, working capital, capex evaluation, cost control, margin analysis, EBITDA.
Tools and standards
advanced Excel, Power BI, SAP, Oracle, Anaplan, Hyperion, Tableau, SQL, Ind AS, IFRS.
Business partnering
business partnering, stakeholder management, cost saving initiatives, pricing support, fundraising support, due diligence support, cross-functional teams.
How to write them into your bullets
A keyword on its own is easy to ignore. A keyword inside a result is hard to ignore. Replace the brackets with your own numbers, and only keep a line if it is true.
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Weak: Prepared monthly MIS reports. Stronger: Built the monthly MIS pack for [X] business units, cutting preparation time from [X] days to [X] days with a standard Excel and Power BI template.
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Weak: Handled budgeting and forecasting. Stronger: Led the ₹[X] crore annual budget and a rolling forecast, and kept forecast accuracy within [X]% of actuals for [X] quarters.
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Weak: Supported business teams. Stronger: Partnered with the [X] head on pricing and margins, finding ₹[X] lakh in annual cost savings.
Mistakes that hold a resume back
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Listing Excel without level. Name what you built in it, such as three-statement models, dashboards or automated variance reports.
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Leaving out the size of the numbers. Revenue, budget or cost base you worked with tells the reader your level.
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Writing only about reports. Add the decision your analysis changed.
Where to place the keywords
Put your strongest keywords in three places: your headline or summary, your skills section, and the bullets under your most recent role. Use the same spelling the job post uses. If a term has a long form and a short form, write both once, for example "Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)", and use the short form after that. Keep the resume to what is true, and keep it readable for a person as well as for software.
Check your resume against a real job post
Paste the job post and your resume into the resume keyword check to see which of its words your resume already uses.
See open Corporate Finance jobs: browse jobs.