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Investment advisor skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025

5 min read

Quoted experts

Raymond Peters,

David M. Lang

Below we've compiled a list of the most critical investment advisor skills. We ranked the top skills for investment advisors based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 11.6% of investment advisor resumes contained exceptional client as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills an investment advisor needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 investment advisor skills for your resume and career

1. Exceptional Client

Here's how investment advisors use exceptional client:

Improved offerings and efficiency by leading strategic initiatives and processes, resulting in exceptional client experiences and company growth.
Developed exceptional client business relationships through the successful practice and execution of interpersonal sales skills.

2. Risk Management

Risk management is the method of recognizing, evaluating, and managing risks to an organization's resources and profits. Financial insecurity, regulatory liability, strategic management mistakes, incidents, and natural hazards are just some of the challenges or dangers that could arise. For digitalized businesses, IT security vulnerabilities and data-related threats, as well as risk management techniques to mitigate them, have become top priorities.

Here's how investment advisors use risk management:

Derived and analyzed computed records, interrupted data, and reports providing risk management and recommendations to clients.
Engineered custom-designed investment portfolios individually tailored to each client's specific needs and risk management strategies.

3. Client Relationships

Here's how investment advisors use client relationships:

Deepened and extended existing client relationships by delivering valuable investment solutions tailored to fit to their individual needs.
Cultivated solid client relationships through developing strategies for their financial goals utilizing financial planning and wealth management techniques.

4. Health Insurance

Here's how investment advisors use health insurance:

Completed requirements to obtain Florida Licensed Health Insurance Specialist.
Reviewed client life and health insurance policies and made appropriate recommendations to maximize coverage in the most cost efficient manner.

5. Business Development

Business development is the ideas or initiatives that work to make business work better. Selling, advertising, product development, supply chain management, and vendor management are only a few of the divisions involved with it. There is still a lot of networking, negotiating, forming alliances, and trying to save money. The goals set for business development guide and coordinate with all of these various operations and sectors.

Here's how investment advisors use business development:

Supported the business development group with management presentations, participation in commercial negotiations, and evaluation of pricing proposals and contracts.
Work individually and with marketing department to gather and analyze competitive intelligence on prospective and existing clients for business development efforts.

6. FINRA

Here's how investment advisors use finra:

Managed FINRA, NASD compliance, quality control and documentation for all stock, bond and option trades placed by team.
Identified and resolved FINRA, SEC and firm-level compliance issues for mandatory annual inspections to maintain license and practice integrity.

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7. Mutual Funds

Here's how investment advisors use mutual funds:

Recognized as a regional leader in selling mutual funds, annuities and life insurance products to bank clients and small businesses.
Conduct research and analysis of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, exchange traded funds and other securities for my clients.

8. Financial Services

Financial services are economic services that are offered by the finance sector, which includes banks, financial institutes credit-card agencies, insurance companies, accountancy firms, and others that handles assets. Organizations in the financial services sector are concerned with money and risk management.

Here's how investment advisors use financial services:

Delivered financial and investment advice to individuals and institutions for global financial services firm, performing goal-oriented asset management for clients.
Developed relationships with outside broker/dealers resulting in sales increases for both Oppenheimer and MassMutual Financial Services.

9. Securities

Here's how investment advisors use securities:

Ensured client retention by providing strategic investment recommendations in numerous investments instruments and trading scenarios, including fixed-income and equity securities.
Provided suggestions and hypothetical illustrations on securities and insurance products based on professional publications review and financial software and literature.

10. Asset Allocation

Asset allocation refers to a strategy of investment across diversified asset classes with the aim of balancing reward and risk to suit an individual's risk tolerance, financial goals, time horizon, and scope of investment.

Here's how investment advisors use asset allocation:

Implemented institutional-quality asset allocation through investment policy statements.
Gathered and analyzed data used in financial planning, asset allocation, portfolio diversification as well as general investment management.

11. Real Estate

Real estate is land that has buildings on it. This kind of property consists of permanent improvements either natural or man-made, which include, houses, fences, bridges, water trees, and minerals. There are 4 types of real estate namely; residential real estate, commercial real estate, industrial real estate, and vacant land.

Here's how investment advisors use real estate:

Develop trustworthy relationships with real estate investors and developers through prospecting, closing, and analyzing investment opportunities.
Translated featured functionality of Real Estate investments into clients financial value added benefits.

12. Wealth Management

Wealth management is the act of good wealth planning for purposes of growth and sustenance.

Here's how investment advisors use wealth management:

Developed and Executed Financial Strategies, wealth management services and strategies focusing on individual clients.
Provide individual investors with products to provide for investment growth and comprehensive wealth management.

13. Portfolio Management

Here's how investment advisors use portfolio management:

Marketed firm's Corporate Executive Services and portfolio management capabilities utilizing both proprietary and independent money managers to qualified clients.
Founded a financial advisory firm after identifying a local need for ethical, fairly priced portfolio management for diverse investors.

14. Asset Management

Asset management describes the management of assets that are invested on behalf of various industries. It is the process of developing, operating, maintaining, and selling assets for profit and managing the money for individuals and companies through stocks, bonds, and cash equivalents, among other things.Alternatively, asset management enables a business to keep track of all of its assets, helps ensure correct depreciation rates, helps identify and manage risk, and removes ghost assets from business inventory.

Here's how investment advisors use asset management:

Devised strategic financial plans and formulated recommendations regarding of asset management.
Performed investment and operational due diligence on asset management firms.

15. Investment Strategies

The investment strategy is a term used in finance that refers to a set of rules that helps individual investors to make the right decisions to achieve their financial goals. The investment strategies are made after having a closer look at the future needs of the assets, lifestyle, risk tolerance, financial situations, and expected returns.

Here's how investment advisors use investment strategies:

Resolved complex customer concerns and problems regarding retirement planning and investment strategies in a timely and client-focused manner.
Answered inquiries regarding investment allocation, resulting in increased customer knowledge and confidence in investment strategies.

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What skills help Investment Advisors find jobs?

Tell us what job you are looking for, we’ll show you what skills employers want.

What skills stand out on investment advisor resumes?

Raymond Peters

MBA Director & Leadership Instructor, Nicholls State University

We repeatedly hear from employers that "essential/soft" skills remain high on their recruiting wish list. As someone who has hired professionals for over 40 years, you generally assume that if an applicant has experience at a reputable institution, they should have the technical qualifications for the role. What you are looking for is credential separation. What makes them stand out? Have they been in parts to practice his/her communication skills? Similarly, with conflict resolution and problem-solving skills. Internships and applied work experience are always beneficial. Lastly, the customer service experience is desirable.

What investment advisor skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?

David M. Lang

Professor, California State University - Sacramento

The job market will reward people that require as little supervision and training as possible. Our pandemic times and likely, our post-pandemic times will involve a fair amount of remote working. As such, employers will want to make sure that the individuals they hire are self-motivated, quick learners who can hit the ground running without a lot of hand-holding. If taking a year off, I would make sure that job applicants devote some time to learning about the industry standards in which they plan to work. Does the industry use a particular software? Start learning about how to use that. Does the occupation use specific data or require coding? Devote some time to learning the basics of that as well. As always, don't forget the soft skills of communication (orally and written) and interpersonal relationships.

What type of skills will young investment advisors need?

Ann M. Ebberts

CEO, AGA

What I see as critical skills for newcomers to the government workforce in financial management roles, including budget development and analysis – will continue to be critically important.

Given the current state of the economy and the cost of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, recent graduates entering the workforce will need to leverage communication, collaboration, analytical, and problem-solving skills. The ability to leverage new technologies to analyze, develop, and communicate with others in government and with the public will be important.

Budget analysts (and all financial roles) need to be productive, collaborative and have strong communication skills. They will also need to be able to process a variety of information from different sources and develop an understanding of the priorities of the organization and interrelationships with other government entities.

Desirable skills and attributes for graduates entering the workforce:
· Good listening skills
· Math and writing skills -- preparing annual/special reports
· Comfortable learning new and applying existing technologies
· Need to be detail-oriented
· Need to understand the role of the government entity they serve and the role of the budget in government
· Data analysis abilities
· Developing and/or analyzing planned vs. actual reports and providing options for moving forward
· Leveraging textual and visualization methods to enable communication of budget priorities -- proposal evaluation (pros and cons), potential impacts of decisions
· Presenting analysis in a concise and convincing manner
· Evaluating programs to determine whether they are providing desired results

Do you want to know more?

List of investment advisor skills to add to your resume

The most important skills for an investment advisor resume and required skills for an investment advisor to have include:

Exceptional Client
Risk Management
Client Relationships
Health Insurance
Business Development
FINRA
Mutual Funds
Financial Services
Securities
Asset Allocation
Real Estate
Wealth Management
Portfolio Management
Asset Management
Investment Strategies
Investment Management

Client Service
Investment Portfolios
Investment Objectives
Investment Products
Fixed Income
Retirement Planning
Financial Markets
Due Diligence
Financial Institutions
Equities
Life Insurance
Investment Solutions
Annuities
Client Accounts
Multi-Asset
Financial Products

Client Portfolios
Estate Planning
Account Maintenance
Securities Transactions
Term Care
LLC
Hedge Funds
Client Assets
Investment Accounts
Brokerage Accounts
Insurance Products
Client Retention
AUM
Financial Objectives
ETF
Risk Tolerance

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

Updated January 8, 2025

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