How to write an appealing investment advisor resume?

One of the biggest challenges in putting together an investment advisor resume is catching the eye and staying relevant. Ensure your skills and qualifications send you to the top of the shortlist with these tips!

Suppose you're passionate about numbers and you like to use your skills and experience to help people make the right financial decisions. In that case, a career as an investment advisor could be ideal. Indeed, you might already be deep into such a career and have decided it's time for an upgrade or a change of scenery. But, no matter where you stand, if you want a premium job in the highly competitive finance world, you'll need an investment advisor resume that stands out in the crowd.

The role is typically all about attention to detail and a desire to help others. It's difficult to put these skills across in a resume alone, but not impossible. Of course, it goes without saying that your resume should be compelling and error-free, but that applies to every industry.

To get the best jobs, you need to take your resume to the next level and truly stand out in the crowd, and these tips will make it possible.

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1. Use a chronological investment advisor resume format

No matter how skilled and experienced you are in providing investment advice, you're not the same person you were when you first started out. You're better, and you achieve more. Those achievements should be front and center on your resume. After all, a prospective employer is hiring you today – or in the near future – not the you of ten years ago.

A reverse chronological resume format works best for this as investment advice is often a career, not just a job. Whether you notice or not, you probably learn something new every day, which reflects your achievements. That's on top of the fact that recent achievements tend to carry more weight.

Your experience will often ultimately determine whether or not you get the job, but a few bullet points are rarely enough to capture the attention.

Choose your preferred template and make your resume shine.

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2. Open your investment advisor CV with a professional summary

Before digging deeper into your prior experience, it is important to open with either a resume summary or a resume objective.

This is the hook that encourages recruiters to keep reading. Think of it as a four-line autobiography of your working life. If you've got plenty of experience, focus on what you achieved and for whom in a summary. If you're fresh out of college and just picked up your bachelor's degree, talk about the relevant experience but also be willing to look to the future and demonstrate ambition.

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3. Make your education section stand out

You only need a bachelor's degree to make the cut in terms of formal education. Most brokerage firms prefer finance and business degrees, but there are no official rules around it, and it's generally up to the hiring manager's discretion.

If a bachelor's degree is all you have, it's not a problem, but potentially not necessarily worth focusing on. However, if you have a master's degree or even further qualifications, it may warrant being highlighted on your resume as it might well give you the edge over the competition.

4. Prioritise qualifications section in your investment advisor resume

Experience matters and will often take priority over education on an investment advisor resume, providing you have it, of course. However, while you don't need extensive, specific qualifications to become an investment advisor, they can make or break the hiring process on your behalf.

Along similar lines, it's also worth including other credentials necessary in the investment advisor profession. You might assume that nobody would apply for the role without them, but a recruiter would sooner discard a resume that doesn't include them than take the time to ask. Always include, where applicable:

• Your General Securities Representative license (Series 7)
• Your Uniform Securities Agent State license (Series 63)
• Your Uniform Investment Advisor Law qualification (Series 65)

These credentials are vital when carrying out many roles in the investment advice world, although there are many other professional licenses out there for different products. So it's worth including all the ones you hold on your resume, with priority given to those that will directly influence your chances of employment.

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5. Make your investment advisor work experience relevant

The most relevant experience for an investment advisor resume is clearly anything you've done previously in the same sector. If you have that and wish to continue in the industry, then it will often naturally sit at the top of your reverse-chronological resume. It's the experience that matters most to recruiters and, as such, should take up the majority of your effort, not to mention space on the page.

However, investment advice is somewhat unusual in the finance sector as brokerages rarely recruit directly from college. Many individuals who go on to work in the industry often work in a business or sales setting beforehand.

That means that applicants will often boast a diverse set of skills, but the most crucial task is tailoring your experience to the role at hand.

A great investment advisor can sell but can also solve problems, understand different viewpoints and work with their clients' best interests in mind.

When showcasing achievements in previous roles, focus on what you achieved previously that clearly demonstrates these skills.

Naturally, reaching and exceeding sales targets works in any setting. However, if you have the choice between discussing solving a client's problem and making a piece of software more efficient, the former will win out every time.

6. Tailor your hard and soft skills to the role

As you'll have noticed, a great investment advisor resume is all about making the skills, experience, and qualifications you have work best for the job at hand. However, even if you only have the job description to work from, you can better understand how the company operates and its values from other sources.

You only have limited space to work with. Furthermore, hiring managers love evidence. Try not to talk about what you did in general terms. Beating a target by 100% once carries more weight than meeting that same target every day for a year and demonstrates your capabilities in an authentic setting.

With that in mind, when listing hard and soft skills, choose ones that allow you to talk about specific instances of putting those skills to work.

Think of times you've demonstrated these skills and prioritize the most impressive ones. If nothing else, they'll be something to talk about when you reach the interview stage!

Don't overlook soft skills, either. Investment advice is an incredibly rounded profession, and employers love to see candidates that note abilities in.

Don't be tempted to include every last skill you have on your investment advisor resume. Remember that space is limited, and you need to impress in as little time as possible. Decide what will resonate most with the recruiter and combine that with facts and figures to back up your assertions.

Overall, investment advisors are often talented individuals with broad skillsets. Part of the challenge in putting together a resume is often cutting back on what you can do to focus on what you do best. Consider what the ideal investment advisor looks like in your mind, and tailor your resume to bring it as close as possible to what someone looking to hire that person would want to see.