How to Write the Perfect Personal Banker Resume: Templates, Examples & Essential Skills

Whether you accidentally call them Bank Tellers or Clerks, Personal Bankers are one of the most important people you’ll come into contact with at a retail bank. That’s because they’re the ones in charge of opening your checking and savings accounts, and are the point of contact for anything to do with credit cards, financial services, and loans.

This makes them different from your average investment bankers, bank tellers, and retail bank clerks. And that’s not where differences stop; in addition to needing specific information on personal banker resumes, personal bankers also earn a high salary between $72,000 and $130,000 annually, which is much higher than that of a teller or a clerk.

So what job responsibilities can you expect for a personal banker? Here’s a quick overview:

• Opening and closing checking and savings accounts;
• Selling loans and investment products;
• Resolving customer-related issues.

Not sure how to integrate those JDs into a resume? Look no further than this article on how to write a professional personal banker resume that comes with three examples (including a personal banker resume with no experience), plus a detailed guide on how to craft your relevant work experience and skills sections. Oh, and four top secret tips.

A personal banker is a financial banking employee who helps resolve client issues at retail banks. Issues can include opening new checking and savings accounts (and closing them), investigating fraud, processing new credit cards, selling loans and retirement plans, and a whole lot more.

In other words, personal bankers are first and foremost customer service-centric. They’re the ones you talk to on the phone and in person behind the desk, and they’re the ones who sell you new financial products.

This means that the ideal skills and work experiences needed for personal banker resumes are quite different from bank teller resumes and general banking resumes as personal bankers do a lot more than just process deposits and withdrawals, and cash checks.

So, how should you go about writing a personal banker resume then?

The format of a personal banker resume is just like any other, with a resume headline, resume summary, resume objective, work experience, education, possible certifications, and a skills section. But how do you tailor each section to a personal banking position? Let’s find out.

Resume Headline

When it comes to resume headlines and resume summaries, the two are not the same. Where a personal banker resume headline is a short phrase that sums up your resume summary and is the first tactic used to grab the recruiter’s attention, a resume summary is a paragraph that expands on what you’ve already said.

Below are a few examples of stellar resume headlines for personal banking resumes.

Resume Summary

Now that you’ve caught the hiring manager’s attention, it’s time to deep dive into who you are, what your personal banking-related experience is, and what exceptional achievements and skills you can boast about. But you only have one or two sentences to work with; it is a summary, after all.

Help recruiters get an idea of who you are as a candidate by utilizing the structure in the following personal banker resume examples.

Resume Objective

Also known as a career objective, a resume objective is a quick sentence that lets recruiters in on what your career goals and motivations are. While they’re optional for personal bankers with experience, it is absolutely essential that candidates creating an entry level personal banking resume include a resume objective as it helps draw the attention to what you possess, not what you lack (which is experience).

Work Experience

Your work experience is the most important section of any resume, and a personal banker resume is no exception. Ensure your resume stands the test of the ATS and picky hiring managers by doing the following:

• Adopt Keywords From the JD: Adopting keywords from the JD (that’s Job Description) is the easiest way to tailor your personal banker resume to the application and to get yourself noticed by recruiters. Knowing how to pick keywords will also make you aware of what skills and experiences to highlight in your own resume.

• Use Action Verbs To Describe Achievements: Great resumes showcase what you proactively did, not what was done to you. This is why any resume writer worth their salt will emphasize the importance of using the active voice - and by association, active verbs - when discussing your achievements in the work experience section.

This is also why we’ve created the nifty table below with 30 action verbs specifically tailored to personal banker resumes.

• Quantify Results To Describe Achievements: When using verbs from the table above in conjunction with quantifiable results, you get a more convincing perception of someone that is actually capable of completing the responsibilities that they said they could. In other words, you get an effective personal banker resume. This turns into a killer resume if you use this template: Action Verb + Task + Quantifiable Result.

Below are some personal banker resume examples.

Skills

The way skills are formatted in a personal banker resume depends on the resume format, however you still need to consider what the most relevant personal banking skills are for your resume.

There are plenty of hard skills - technical skills - needed to perform well in personal banking roles, however recruiters are also looking for a decent number of transferable soft skills to determine whether you have the capability to ace the position. 

Luckily, we’ve compiled the top 40 skills that you’ll find on any professional personal banking resume. Just remember to include an equal number of hard and soft skills to really convey your comprehensive background.

Education

Though you may be considering omitting the education section if you have years of experience, it is still essential for personal banker resumes to indicate proof of studies, especially if you have a finance-related academic background in business, mathematics, economics, or finance.

This is still the case if you’re in the process of a career change, although in this case relevant work experience in financial roles should take center stage with your academic background in the wings.

Certifications

While you’re not expected to have this section for entry level personal banking resumes, anyone with personal banking experience should remember to list any licenses or certifications that they’ve acquired over the years. Not only will this make you stand out to recruiters, but this will also give proof to your professional caliber as a personal banker.

Adopt an ATS-friendly Resume Format

Choosing the right resume format is not as simple as selecting a pre-made personal banker resume template when it comes to considering the impact of the ATS (Applicant Tracking System). While a favorite of HR, ATSs are a pain for applicants because they struggle to recognize pictures, tables, charts, and columns.

This means that your personal banker resume could be rejected if the ATS didn’t understand the content of the stylish resume that you labored over for two hours, for example. Luckily, an easy way to steer clear of this issue is by using Cake’s ATS-friendly templates or by adopting a simple resume template.

Tailor Your Personal Banker Resume to the Job

Like taking keywords from the JD, you need to ensure that every element of your personal banker resume is tailored to the job you’re applying for. The first, and arguably the best, way to do this is by copying and pasting relevant keywords from the JD into your resume (as we’ve established).

The second, and equally easy way, is by doing your research on the company and the position in question. This may impact what you choose to state in your resume objective and the experience and skills you wish to highlight in your work experience section.

Include A Portfolio

In addition to your professional personal banker resume and cover letter, you should also consider adding links to any side projects, portfolios, or personal websites if they are related to the skills and experiences required for the position.

Cover Letter

It’s highly likely that, in addition to a personal banker resume, you’ll need to create a one-page stellar personal banker cover letter to make a full application. If that’s the case, be sure to focus on elaborating on the work experiences mentioned in the resume and how they make you the perfect candidate for the job.

Looking for professional personal banker resume examples? Look no further than these three samples that can also be used as personal banker resume templates - just remember to customize and omit the parts that don’t apply to you!

In this section, we’ll share with you:

• Entry level personal banker resume with no experience
• Mid-level personal banker resume
• Senior personal banker resume

Entry Level Personal Banker Resume

Mid-Level Personal Banker Resume

Senior Personal Banker Resume

How to write a personal banker resume with no experience?

When writing a personal banker resume with no experience, you need to first emphasize the skills you gained during your finance-related degree, as this will serve as formal proof of your knowledge of the personal banking industry. Next, you need to highlight the transferable skills developed during any relevant internships and work experiences that would help you in a personal banking position.

Additionally, entry level personal banker resumes need to include an attention-grabbing resume objective that can help shift the recruiter’s attention away from your lack of experience and onto your passion for being a personal banker. You may also wish to include a portfolio, as these make personal banker resumes with no experience look better qualified.

What format should I use for a personal banker resume?

There are four resume formats to choose when writing a personal banker resume, however the only two you really have to consider are the chronological format and the functional (skills-based) format. Deciding which is best to adopt differs from candidate to candidate as not everyone has the same academic or professional background.

That said, it’s important to remember to carefully evaluate your skills and experiences before selecting a resume format, as the wrong personal banker resume format can be detrimental to your success as an applicant.

What’s the difference between a CV and a resume?

CVs vs. resumes: is there a difference? While you’ll sometimes see the two used interchangeably, this is actually incorrect as they are not the same thing. Where CVs are used for academic and medical applications by outlining all of your past working experiences, resumes only address your most relevant working experiences, skills, and academic studies.

That makes resumes the most common document needed for job applications, such as your personal banking application.

As we’ve established throughout this article, there’s a lot that makes a personal banker resume stand out from other banking resumes. First, there are the basic job responsibilities, which are customer-focused in that they’re more about how you can help clients understand financial products, how you can prospect leads, and how you can deliver exceptional customer service.

Second, there’s the difference in personal banking skills and achievements, which draws us back to number one in that your work experiences have to indicate an active role in customer service and experience dealing with financial services or products. As long as you remember to highlight these two aspects, it doesn’t matter if you’re writing an entry level personal banker resume or a senior level resume.

Liked this article and looking for more tips on how to make the most of your banking career? Look no further than Cake, the internet’s best resource for resumes, cover letters, interview strategies, and application tips, featuring hundreds of articles geared towards making achieving your dream career a piece of cake!

--- Originally Written by Eva O'Mara---