Business Analyst resume examples & templates

Business analysts empower companies to succeed by identifying problems and proposing solutions. When applying for this role, your resume needs to show a hiring manager you have the skills, tools, and confidence to make an impact.

Your resume should read like a meticulous business plan, outlining how your past experience has shaped your skill set and prepared you for the job’s demands. It should explain how you’ve used your analytical skills to create winning business strategies—and how you plan to do the same in a new position.

If your resume doesn’t show an employer what you can do for their company, it’s probably going to end up in the discard pile. Make a hiring manager believe you’re the best candidate for the job with a business analyst resume that shows off your business acumen and your track record of successful organizational outcomes.

Resume guide for a business analyst resume

With Resume.io, you can showcase your professional strengths to land your next business analyst job. With tons of helpful guides and resume examples, as well as our resume builder, you can create a business analyst resume to outperform your competition.

This resume guide and corresponding business analyst resume sample will cover the following:

• How to write a business analyst resume
• The right resume format for business analysts
• How to include your contact information
• Advice for writing a professional summary
• Tips to highlight your experience and skills
• The best way to list your education
• How to choose a design and layout
• A career and salary outlook for business analysts

How to write a business analyst resume

Before you start writing your business analyst resume, decide what information you want to include. A resume for a business analyst should have the following sections:

• A resume header
• A resume summary (also known as a profile or a personal statement)
• An employment history section
• A resume skills section
• An education section

Think of your resume as an elevator pitch. In one page, it should convince a hiring manager that you have the skills and knowledge to make targeted recommendations for the company’s improvement. It should focus on your previous accomplishments, showing an employer you understand how to make a company more profitable and efficient.

You have limited space to make your pitch on a resume. Follow these tips for success:

• Focus on accomplishments, not responsibilities. Any business analyst can say they’ve recommended strategic improvements for companies. Share how your recommendations have resulted in additional revenue, increased cost savings, or improved operations for an organization.
• Use a professional template. Companies want to work with competent, credible business analysts, so make a strong first impression with a polished resume template.
• Target your resume to the job. Carefully review the job description and include relevant information to show a hiring manager you understand the company’s goals, mission, and challenges.

Choosing the right resume format for a business analyst

For most business analysts, a chronological resume format will be the best choice when applying for new roles. This type of resume emphasizes your previous work experience. It can show an employer your broad knowledge of business operations or your expertise in a specific area, such as finance or logistics.

A chronological resume, also called a reverse-chronological resume, lists your experience in reverse order. It starts with your most recent position and works backward, showing how you’ve continually advanced in your career. It’s the best way to prove your abilities as an analyst. Additionally, a chronological resume works well with ATS software, improving your chances of getting past the first round of reviews.

There may be times, however, when another resume format may be better for your unique situation. For example, if you’ve worked independently as a business analyst in consulting roles, you may consider using a functional resume format. This type of resume focuses on your skills, instead of listing each consulting gig you’ve had. A functional resume can also be a good option if you have gaps in your work history.

Include your contact information

Just like the executive summary of a business plan, your resume header provides some context for a hiring manager. It tells them who you are and sets the tone for the rest of your resume.

Located at the top of your resume, your contact information should be concise and accessible. It should also be formatted in a professional, structured way.

• Full name and title. Provide your first and last name, followed by your job title. Use the title of the job you’re applying for, such as “business analyst” or “business systems analyst.”
• Professional email address. Don’t use the personal email you set up when you were a teenager. Make sure you’re using a professional format, such as firstname.lastname@email.com.
• Phone number. Include the phone number you use most often. Make sure you’ve recorded a professional voicemail greeting if recruiters need to leave you a message.
• Location. Provide the name of your city and state. For personal safety reasons, don’t list your full address with your house number, street name, or zip code.
• LinkedIn. If you have an active LinkedIn profile showing your experience and business network, include it in your resume header.

Don’t include:

• Date of birth. Providing your age can lead to potential discrimination, so leave it off your resume.
• Personal details. Stick to professional information. Other details, like your Social Security number or your passport number, don’t belong on your resume.

Make use of a summary or profile section

At the top of your resume, a professional summary is your first chance to make an impression on a hiring manager. You want to make a convincing argument for why you’re the right person to identify process improvements or implement business solutions for the organization.

Use your resume summary to introduce yourself to a hiring manager in two to three sentences. Highlight your top achievements in business, such as eliminating redundancies or improving project outcomes. Show confidence in your abilities by using strong action verbs, like evaluated, optimized, or resolved.

Remember to keep your summary focused on the position. An employer wants to know how you can use your skills and experience to help the company grow or improve. The best way to prove your expertise is by focusing on the value you’ve had in other roles. For example, “Successfully optimized an inventory management system to reduce excess stock, resulting in a cost savings of $200,000.”

You can find adaptable summaries for business analyst resume examples below:

Outline your business analyst work experience: a business plan for success

In your work experience section, describe your ability to analyze business requirements, translate technical data, and inform decision-making for companies. You can also include details about the budgeting or financial forecasting expertise you may have.

Outline your employment history, beginning with your most recent position. Provide information about the relevant jobs you’ve held over the past 10 to 15 years. If you’ve worked in other roles, you can include this information in a section called “Additional Experience.”

For each job on your resume, explain your contributions in the role. Using specific data and examples, describe how you improved operations or increased profitability for the organization. Use strong action verbs to highlight your impact, such as developed, analyzed, facilitated, spearheaded, strategized, revamped, or created.

You can use bullet points to draw attention to your professional achievements. Write statements that showcase your unique skills and value. Make yourself memorable by staying away from generic, task-focused bullet points, such as:

• Performed analysis to identify budget trends
• Prepared reports for the executive team
• Identified inefficient processes and recommended solutions for improvement

You might see these same bullet points on many business analyst resumes. Remember, hiring managers often review multiple applications for an open position. When you show an employer what you can do for them, you’re more likely to stand out from the crowd.

To set your resume apart, write results-focused bullet points, emphasizing the tangible impact you’ve made in other positions. Consider these revised versions of the above bullet points:

• Generated key insights through an in-depth financial analysis, leading to a 22% decrease in administrative costs with the elimination of unnecessary overhead
• Drove business strategy with detailed reports, providing the executive team with actionable ways to facilitate growth
• Implemented successful strategies for organizational efficiency after identifying bottlenecks in operations, resulting in a 14% boost in output and productivity

Check out the business analyst employment history resume sample below:

Include your relevant skills as a business analyst

Employers will review your resume skills section to make sure you have the expertise they’re seeking. You should focus on including hard skills that are relevant to the role, such as visual modeling and financial planning.

However, companies also want to hire business analysts who can communicate with different departments, present their ideas logically, and convince clients or management to take specific actions. Mentioning soft skills, like communication and decision-making, can show an employer you have a well-rounded skill set.

Here’s what the skills box looks like in our sample business analyst resume template. 

Hiring managers need to know you have the competencies to succeed in an analyst position. For this reason, highlight your skills in other areas of your resume, like your work experience section and professional summary. Describe how you’ve used your skills to achieve business success.

Here are some examples:

• Explain how you used your SQL skills to perform queries and extract data, allowing you to identify trends or patterns.
• Describe your problem-solving skills with an example of an operational issue you identified and your process for developing a solution.
• Highlight your communication and negotiation skills by discussing how you presented information that persuaded a client or management team to make an effective change.

Detail your education & relevant business analyst certifications

Compared to other parts of your resume, the education section should be fairly simple to write. List your academic credentials, beginning with your highest degree. If you have an MBA, for example, you should list it before your bachelor’s degree.

In addition to your relevant education, you can mention the professional development you’ve completed. For example, you can include:

• Relevant certifications. If you’ve earned a professional certification, like the PMI Professional in Business Analysis (PMI-PBA), you should include it with your education.
• Ongoing training or courses. You can mention standalone courses you’ve completed, like a data visualization class. If you’ve attended professional workshops or seminars, you can also list them on your resume.
• Professional organizations. Do you belong to a professional organization, like the International Institute of Business Analysis? You can include these memberships in your education section.

Typically, you should list your education section at the bottom of your resume, below your experience. If you have limited experience or you’ve recently graduated, however, you may want to emphasize your education. In this case, you can use a functional resume format to showcase your academic qualifications.

Pick the right resume layout and design suited for a business analyst resume

As a business analyst, you often have to create visual models. Your resume layout and formatting should reflect your design abilities. For example, think about how you present information visually to clients or executives. The same rules apply for your resume: the more streamlined and balanced the layout, the better a hiring manager can understand the key points you want to convey.

Make your resume clean and easily readable, so a hiring manager can quickly glean information about your qualifications. Use a professional font, like Times New Roman or Calibri, in a 10- or 12-point size. Bold your resume headers and leave some white space between each section to make it easier to skim.

Stay away from bold design elements, like graphics or bright colors. Stick to a neutral template to showcase your credibility and professionalism.

The good news is that Resume.io has expertly designed and tested resume templates to make the job easy. Why spend frustrating hours tweaking a resume format, when you can choose from dozens you know recruiters find appealing?

But using a template doesn’t mean your resume will look generic. You can customize our resume templates to suit your needs and personality. Your best choices will be within the professional category of resume templates, but you can also choose from simple, creative, or modern.

Business analyst text-only resume example

Business analyst job market and outlook

There’s good news if you’re looking for a job as a business analyst. This profession is expected to have significant growth over the next decade, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). You can expect steady employment with the opportunity for growth in your career. That’s especially true if you specialize in a high-demand industry or area, such as information technology or human resources.

Business analysts typically earn lucrative salaries. According to the BLS, the median annual wage for this occupational group is $99,410. Analysts who work in professional, technical, or scientific services can earn six-figure salaries, on average.

Some analysts who work for consulting firms may earn bonuses each year, in addition to their annual salaries. If you work independently as a contractor, you can set your own rates for each project, which may allow you to increase your earning potential.

Key takeaways for building a business analyst resume

Business analysts have many opportunities in the field, but there’s also competition for the top jobs. A well-written resume can set your application apart and convince an employer to hire you. When writing your resume, emphasize your record of success in other organizations. Provide examples of times when you recommended improvements or eliminated inefficient processes. Additionally, match your skills to the job, focusing on the technical proficiencies and interpersonal traits an employer has outlined.

You can make the resume-writing process less stressful with our online resume builder. Get industry-specific templates and insights to take your resume to the next level.