Business Analyst Resume Keywords and Skills

A Business Analyst is basically an interface between the needs of the business and the technical solutions available. A Business Analyst concentrates on analyzing processes, data, and requirements of the people involved before proposing solutions to the problem. By doing the above, the Business Analysts are able to contribute towards improving the efficiency of the business while cutting costs and improving the customer satisfaction of the company.

The requirement for business analysts has been on the increase with time around the world. Organizations in different industries focus on making decisions with the aid of data analysis and digital operations. A business analyst can fill the gap between requirements and solutions through technology. Therefore, these analysts become a very important part of different industries, including information technology, finance, medical technology, and online shopping. The increasing demand and interest in this profession show that this profession continues to be in high demand all over the world. Reports such as IIBA Global State of Business Analysis 2025 and expectations in different industries from organizations such as IIBA and Gartner support this claim.

While preparing an application for a Business Analyst position, a well-structured format in a resume should consider the aspect of readability. This you can achieve by incorporating a structured format in creating the summary, skills, experience, education, and projects sections to make it easier to read by the human resource personnel and the recruitment software. Note that a candidate should not use overly detailed designs in a resume.

1. Chronological Resume: A chronicled resume is the commonest type of resume. Here, your work experience is presented in a reverse order, starting with your most recent employment. A chronicled resume is most suitable for a candidate with a fixed working experience. Such a resume format is most preferred by recruiters since it is simple to read and enables them to immediately focus on your work experience.
2. Functional Resume: A Functional Resume stresses your skills and capabilities rather than your work experience. From the technical viewpoint, the strengths that one possesses in terms of technology skills, leadership qualities, or problem-solving skills should be emphasized through specific resume sections instead of emphasizing work experience. The format of the resume will prove highly beneficial for the person who changes careers, the newly hired employees, or the person with gaps in work experience.
3. Combination (Hybrid): The combination format is a combination of both the chronological format and the functional format. The combination resume begins with the listing of a skill summary, followed by the reverse chronological listing of the work experience. The combination resume format would be most appropriate for those individuals who possess specialized knowledge or experience in their field. This would include mid to high-level individuals.

The trick to ensuring a successful resume for a Business Analyst position is to make it evident how well you are able to interpret data and business requirements to ensure quality results. As a resume writer, it is important to ensure that the writing is more focused on how well the individual uses analysis skills in order to ensure quality results. In addition to this, it makes it very crucial to be as specific as required regarding the requirements gathering experience, data analysis, and the tools used. Metrics incorporated into your resume experience will stand out from the pack. 

Pick a ATS Friendly Template

• Why ATS-Friendly Resumes Matter: Almost all companies are using ATS systems in the recruitment process. This means that if you have an ATS-unfriendly resume, there's a possibility that the resume could be disqualified even before the recruiter sees it.
• Resume Formats You Should Avoid: Some format types may look excellent to the human eye but do not survive ATS screening at all. Do not use these types of format designs on your MS Word document, Canva, tables, graphics, or text box format designs, which most ATS can’t read properly
• Resume Formats You Should Follow:  You can use the Overleaf LaTeX format in preparing your resume to ensure a good ATS read. You can also use LaTeX, which utilizes an effective layout, simple texts, and proper alignments to provide ease to the ATS software in interpreting your resume.

Structure and Format

• Use a clear resume structure: Make sure your resume is properly formatted. It should have a simple chronological format, and clear sections. This helps ATS systems to scan your resume easily. 
• Choose basic fonts: The best fonts for an ATS friendly resume are Arial, and Calibri. Do not go for fancy fonts, it can make your resume look unprofessional
• Avoid symbols and tables: Do not add tables, images, or icons in your resume. Such elements are not easily readable by ATS and hence you might get rejected because of this.

Finalize the key sections 

• Include all essential resume sections: A Resume should contain all the necessary components such as the name and contact details of the Resume owner, work experience, Skill section, educational qualifications, and projects.
• Optional sections: If you are a fresher and you do not have much of experience to add in your resume, go for these sections. Highlight internships, projects, achievements, or position of responsibility to fill your resume 

Optimize for ATS

• Edit your resume for each job description: Read the job description carefully and add required keywords in the resume. This helps you get a high ATS score and your chance of getting shortlisted also increases.

Check ATS friendliness 

• ATS Score: Always check your ATS score before applying to any job. You can check your score at “ResuScan” for free.
• Best ATS score: Always make sure that your resume ATS score is more than 80%, as a higher score significantly increases your chances of getting shortlisted.

A good resume of a Business Analyst would balance technical skills and knowledge of the business. Hiring managers are looking for people who have analysis skills, problem-solving skills, and the capacity to make meaningful contributions in their work. Including measurable results would enable you to express value.

Types of Skills a Recruiter Would Like to See in a BA Resume:

• Data analysis expertise: The recruiters look for candidates who know how to analyze and make sense of the data, and who are able to offer analysis results that will help make better decisions
• Requirements Gathering & Documentation: The reason why recruiters need this skill is that it helps them ensure the business needs are accurately identified and interpreted into solutions together with meeting the expectations of the stakeholders.
• Stakeholder Management: This is one of those skill sets that a recruiter would look for, and it is a definite plus when it comes to communicating, aligning, and collaborating.
• Relevant technical skills: There is also the expectation of having the skill proficiency in technical tools and technologies that are necessary for such roles such as data analysis software and programming languages.

Your full name should be centered on the resume, with the emphasis on being noticeable at the first look. Under the name, information such as the email address, phone number, or professional sites on social networking should be placed in such a manner that is easily accessible. 

A summary section should be included only if you have more than two years of professional experience. If you are a fresher, avoid writing a summary since it will only take up space. Freshers should instead focus on skills, internships, and projects. A Business Analyst resume summary should begin with words such as “result-driven,” “experienced,” and “results-oriented,” which will emphasize your skills. It must contain achievement statements, a summary of your work experience, and your skills.

Remember to break it down into clear bullet points, when writing your experience section. Each point should start with a strong verb and be no more than one or two lines to make it easy to read and understand. 

Action verbs in the beginning of bullet points are great, don't use buzzwords though, they can be vague, and are not exactly professional. Coming across as a numbers person, quantifiable terms are the way to go, so instead of saying "improved sales process", you could say "boosted sales efficiency by 25% by streamlining the process".

Correct Format: Mention your job title and organization name on the left side, and align the employment dates (from–to) on the right side. Below this, describe your responsibilities and achievements using clear bullet points, focusing on your contributions, impact, and relevant skills. 

Business analyst- Mployee.me                                                      May 2023 - December 2025

• Each point should be in 1 or 2 lines (1 line – 15/16 words or 2 line  22/24 words)
• Add numbers or percentages in the experience at least 50% of the points should include quantification
• Each point should start with action words, like managed, conducted, implemented
• Do not use buzzwords like seamless, innovation, everybody, successfully, resulting in
• Do not use words like efficiency, productivity, decision making, performance, throughput
• Do not use repetitive points or words in each job

Points should be in technical and managerial both as per total points

Quantifying your experience on a resume means showing real impact instead of just listing duties. Adding numbers, percentages, time saved, revenue generated, or improvements made helps recruiters clearly understand the value you brought to your role. For example, stating that you “reduced processing time by 20%” or “supported a team of 10 stakeholders” paints a much stronger picture than vague descriptions. When your experience is backed by measurable results, it feels more credible, easier to scan, and far more convincing to hiring managers.

Ways you can add numbers to your resume: 

• Percentages: Use percentages to show efficiency gains achieved through process improvements, requirement optimization, or automation initiatives.
• Revenue impact: Mention cost savings or revenue impact in monetary terms to highlight your contribution to profitability and financial decision-making.
• Processing time: Quantify reduction in cycle time, turnaround time, or processing time after implementing new workflows, tools, or system enhancements.
• Engagement growth: Specify user adoption or engagement growth after delivering improved dashboards, reports, or user-centric system changes.
• Reduction rates: Highlight improvements in data accuracy or error reduction rates achieved through validation rules, testing, or better documentation.
• Stakeholder coverage numbers: Include stakeholder coverage numbers, such as teams supported, departments impacted, or regions enabled by your analysis.
• Volume: State the volume or complexity of data analyzed (e.g., records, transactions, KPIs) to demonstrate analytical depth.
• Service quality scores: Quantify increase in customer satisfaction, NPS, or service quality scores resulting from requirement gathering and solution alignment.
• Compliance: Mention compliance or risk reduction metrics, such as audit issues resolved or control gaps closed through your analysis.
• Delivery impact: Show delivery impact by stating the number of projects, releases, or features successfully delivered on time or ahead of schedule.

Some Business Analysts work in fields such as finance, technology, and the healthcare industry. Some might work solely in analyzing the data of a business's finances. Others might be concerned with ensuring the solution they design is implemented. Do not worry if the job posting involves different work than what you are currently doing; your skills are transferrable anywhere! You might also be able to customize your resume.

The most effective way to accomplish this is to refer to your target job description. The required skills that should go at the top of your skill section include job description skills. You could also organize your skills into business skills or soft and hard skills sections. It is also important to have your work reviewed before you submit it to avoid errors in grammar, punctuation, or spelling when submitting your application.

First, you will need to develop a list of technical skills that is basically the list of hard skills needed within the role of the business analyst in most companies. It is important that you create an area where these skills are observable right away by the recruiter.

Writing a Resume for Business Analyst Freshers seems to be a challenging issue, but following the proper structure can lead to making a good impression. By focusing on education, projects, skills, and achievements, one can establish their suitability for the role of BA. The following points highlight the method by which freshers can develop their portfolio and assist their resumes in making a positive impact on the recruiter and the ATS system..

• Place your education at the top: Since you have no work experience, your educational qualifications should follow. Your resume may include your educational qualifications and any relevant coursework you may have completed which may relate to business analysis, data, or problem-solving..
• Highlight academic and practical projects: Projects are an integral component of freshers. Please mention the projects that you have completed in college, case studies in which you handled data/business processes, and assignment works regarding analysis of requirements. Describe the tools and the outputs appropriately
• Showcase achievements and certifications: Add academic achievements, certifications, or online courses related to business analysis, data analysis, or project management. These show your willingness to learn and build relevant skills.
• Include a strong skills section: List technical skills (such as Excel, SQL, Power BI, or documentation tools) along with soft skills like communication and analytical thinking that are important for a BA role.
• Add internships or training, if any: Even short-term internships, workshops, or training programs are valuable. They demonstrate real-world exposure and practical understanding of business analysis concepts.

In a Business Analyst profile, many companies prefer candidates who have completed relevant certifications or hands-on projects in areas such as SQL, Python, data visualization, or business analytics tools. You can strengthen your resume by clearly mentioning the certification names, the institutes or platforms from which they were completed (such as universities, recognized training institutes, or online learning platforms), and the key skills or tools covered in each course. If you have worked on real-world projects, include a brief description of the problem solved, the tools used, and the business impact achieved. Highlighting certifications along with practical project experience demonstrates your technical proficiency, commitment to continuous learning, and readiness to apply analytical skills in real business scenarios.

This topic will enable you to effectively put forth your educational qualifications and credentials in an appropriate manner. The essential requirement in order to work as a Business Analyst is that one should have a bachelor’s degree in areas such as Business Administration, Marketing, Finance, IS, or any such similar discipline. However, in the event that the position is that of a manager, one should have a master’s degree in Business Analytics or any such similar discipline.

In your case, if you are a competent Business Analyst, your education section must state your degree and the name of your alma mater along with its geographical location, and when the said academic achievement happened, if it's been more than a decade. As a new employee and a college graduate, to make your education section a strong asset, your academic performance may highlight your GPA, honors, scholarships, and other academic recognition obtained in your chosen course.

Yes, extra curricular activities can be mentioned in a resume only if someone is a fresher and does not have enough experience. Here, achievements and notable things beyond academics and work experience should be highlighted. You can talk about state-level or national awards, leadership, wins at competition, certificates of excellence, and any kind of recognition that shows initiative, team spirit, leadership, or problem-solving skills. Achievements regarding academics, sports, volunteer projects, professional communities, and personal projects shall stand relevant. The Achievements section isn't necessary but gives an overall hint about your profile, your character, and the difference one would make other than technical and professional standing.

Most of the big MNCs use ATS to select and reject a candidate. Once you apply to a job, your resume is parsed through ATS. Application tracking system is provided with the job description or a list of skills based on which it selects a candidate. If your resume does not include the keywords or skills that are mentioned in the job description, chances are that your resume will not be sent further to the next round.

This graph below highlights the skills that are most frequently mentioned across the Business Analyst job descriptions.

Based on these skill requirements, multiple Business Analyst roles are currently open across companies and locations.