Top 12 Teller Skills to Put on Your Resume
Banking moves fast. Customers expect precision, warmth, and zero friction. A teller who blends accuracy with empathy becomes the quiet engine of trust at the counter. Shape your resume to reflect that balance—skills that keep lines moving, risks low, and conversations genuinely helpful.
Teller Skills
- Cash Handling
- Customer Service
- Cross-Selling
- Detail-Oriented
- Microsoft Excel
- Fraud Detection
- Problem-Solving
- Bilingual
- QuickBooks
- Financial Software
- Time Management
- Compliance Knowledge
1. Cash Handling
Cash handling for a teller means receiving, verifying, disbursing, and safeguarding cash with tight controls and exact recordkeeping.
Why It's Important
It protects customer funds, preserves branch integrity, and keeps the books clean. When the drawer is right, trust follows.
How to Improve Cash Handling Skills
Refresh currency knowledge: Know denominations, security features, and common counterfeit tells.
Standardize every move: One method for counting in, counting out, and verifying—no improvisation during rushes.
Use technology well: Cash recyclers, counters, and sorters reduce errors and speed end-of-day balancing.
Reconcile relentlessly: Mid-shift spot checks and end-of-day balancing against system totals; investigate variances on the spot.
Harden security: Dual control for vault access, locked drawers, clean desk discipline, and never leave cash exposed.
Document thresholds: Be fluent in reporting triggers for large cash transactions and escalation procedures.
How to Display Cash Handling Skills on Your Resume
2. Customer Service
In-branch, customer service means quick, clear, and kind help—executing transactions correctly while reading the room and easing tension.
Why It's Important
It turns routine visits into lasting relationships. Happy customers come back, ask for you by name, and refer others.
How to Improve Customer Service Skills
Listen actively: Paraphrase requests, confirm details, and avoid assumptions.
Explain without jargon: Short, plain-language breakdowns of fees, holds, and timelines calm nerves.
Empathize fast: Acknowledge frustration, then guide to options. Tone matters as much as policy.
De-escalate: Breathe, lower your voice, offer choices, and know when to bring in a supervisor.
Follow through: Close the loop—callbacks, confirmations, and documented notes in the system.
Mind accessibility: Be attentive to mobility, language, and hearing needs to create a smoother experience.
How to Display Customer Service Skills on Your Resume
3. Cross-Selling
For tellers, cross-selling means surfacing helpful products—only when relevant—based on what you learn at the window.
Why It's Important
Right-fit recommendations boost customer value and loyalty while driving branch growth. Pushy pitches do the opposite.
How to Improve Cross-Selling Skills
Diagnose first: Ask open questions about goals, habits, and pain points. Let needs drive the suggestion.
Know your lineup: Eligibility, fees, benefits, and common objections—have them at your fingertips.
Personalize: Tie the product to the customer’s situation—make the connection obvious and useful.
Respect compliance: Disclose clearly, never overpromise, and document consent where required.
Pass the baton: Warm-handoff to bankers for deeper conversations; track referrals so no one falls through.
Circle back: Check satisfaction later and adjust recommendations as life changes.
How to Display Cross-Selling Skills on Your Resume
4. Detail-Oriented
Meticulous attention to every field, every signature, every digit—transactions that leave no loose ends.
Why It's Important
Small errors snowball. Precision prevents write-offs, rescues customer trust, and keeps audits quiet.
How to Improve Detail-Oriented Skills
Run checklists: Daily opening, transaction steps, and end-of-day—no skipped items.
Slow to be fast: Pause to review amounts, endorsements, IDs, and holds before finalizing.
Two-person verification: Dual control for large cash and sensitive entries where policy requires.
Batch work wisely: Group similar tasks to reduce context switching and cut mistakes.
Log errors: Track the pattern, fix the system cause, not just the symptom.
How to Display Detail-Oriented Skills on Your Resume
5. Microsoft Excel
Excel powers tracking, reconciling, and reporting—handy for cash logs, deposit summaries, and quick analysis.
Why It's Important
It speeds up math, reveals patterns, and makes clean records easy to share. Less grunt work, fewer errors.
How to Improve Microsoft Excel Skills
Formulas that matter: SUM, AVERAGE, COUNT, XLOOKUP, IF, SUMIF/S, TEXT, DATE functions.
PivotTables: Summarize large logs fast—totals by teller, product, or day.
Data validation: Limit inputs to dates, amounts, lists—guardrails that prevent typos.
Conditional formatting: Flag exceptions—negative amounts, outliers, or missed fields.
Power Query: Import and clean CSV exports from bank systems without manual rework.
Dynamic arrays: FILTER, SORT, UNIQUE for nimble, formula-driven reports.
Shortcuts and templates: Keyboard fluency and reusable report shells shave minutes off daily tasks.
Macros (with care): Automate repetitive steps; follow your institution’s macro/security policies.
How to Display Microsoft Excel Skills on Your Resume
6. Fraud Detection
Spotting and stopping suspicious activity during everyday transactions—before money leaves the building.
Why It's Important
It protects customers, prevents losses, and keeps the bank compliant. Quick eyes, careful verification, confident escalation.
How to Improve Fraud Detection Skills
Tighten identity checks: Compare photo, signature, and behavior; verify multiple identifiers when needed.
Know red flags: Altered checks, unusual cash patterns, rushed withdrawals, third-party pressure, newly opened accounts with big swings.
Use holds properly: Apply funds-availability rules consistently and document reasons.
Monitor patterns: Notice deviations from a customer’s normal activity and escalate early.
Document and escalate: Capture details, keep copies where policy allows, and alert the right team without tipping off the customer.
Drill regularly: Scenario-based practice keeps instincts sharp.
How to Display Fraud Detection Skills on Your Resume
7. Problem-Solving
Untangling messy transactions, misposts, and misunderstandings—calmly, quickly, and with receipts.
Why It's Important
It restores customer confidence and keeps lines moving. Fewer callbacks, faster resolutions.
How to Improve Problem-Solving Skills
Clarify the issue: Ask targeted questions; restate the problem to confirm alignment.
Trace the flow: Review system entries, timestamps, and approvals; reconstruct steps in order.
Use SOPs: Follow decision trees for disputes, reversals, and corrections—consistency beats guesswork.
Escalate smartly: Gather evidence and context so back-office teams can act without delays.
Close the loop: Explain the fix, set expectations, and note the account for continuity.
Debrief: Capture lessons learned; update quick-reference guides.
How to Display Problem-Solving Skills on Your Resume
8. Bilingual
Comfort in two languages—listening, speaking, and explaining financial terms without dropping clarity.
Why It's Important
It opens doors to more customers, reduces misunderstandings, and elevates service in multilingual communities.
How to Improve Bilingual Skills
Practice daily: Short conversations, even five-minute role-plays, build fluency fast.
Learn bank vocabulary: Create a glossary for fees, holds, transfers, and disclosures in both languages.
Shadow and repeat: Observe bilingual colleagues and mirror phrasing that lands well.
Consume media: News, podcasts, and shows in your second language keep your ear tuned.
Mind cultural nuance: Adjust tone and examples to match norms and expectations.
Use approved scripts: Standard phrasing for compliance-heavy explanations prevents drift.
How to Display Bilingual Skills on Your Resume
9. QuickBooks
Accounting software knowledge that helps you understand small-business clients’ records, deposits, and reconciliations.
Why It's Important
When business owners ask transaction questions, you can read their reports, spot mismatches, and guide them faster.
How to Improve QuickBooks Skills
Bank feeds and matching: Understand how transactions import and match to registers to resolve posting questions.
Chart of accounts basics: Recognize common small-business categories to interpret statements.
Reconciliations: Know month-end workflows so you can explain timing differences and pending items.
Reports: Profit & loss, balance sheet, and transaction detail—read, filter, and export to CSV.
User roles and security: Awareness of permissions and audit logs for sensitive financial data.
How to Display QuickBooks Skills on Your Resume
10. Financial Software
Core banking platforms, teller systems, CRM notes, check imaging, cash recyclers—the tools you touch all day.
Why It's Important
Speed and accuracy hinge on how well you use them. The right clicks, in the right order, at the right time.
How to Improve Financial Software Skills
Master navigation: Shortcuts, hotkeys, and favorite screens reduce clicks and wait time.
Data hygiene: Enter clean notes and codes; today’s clarity prevents tomorrow’s confusion.
Integrations: Understand how teller, CRM, AML, and document systems pass data between each other.
Check imaging and RDC: Proper image capture, endorsement checks, and troubleshooting for rejects.
Permissions and security: Use your role wisely, lock sessions, and follow least-privilege practices.
Updates: Read release notes and adopt new features that shave time off routine work.
How to Display Financial Software Skills on Your Resume
11. Time Management
Orchestrating tasks, customers, and controls so the lobby flows and the drawer stays tight.
Why It's Important
Shorter waits, fewer mistakes, calmer days. Everyone wins.
How to Improve Time Management Skills
Prioritize the queue: Quick requests first, complex ones to seated desks when possible.
Batch tasks: ID checks, deposits, and prints in clusters to avoid constant context switching.
Routines that stick: Solid opening and closing rituals reduce surprises.
Use templates: Common explanations and forms ready to go—no hunting.
Protect focus: One transaction at a time; pause interruptions until you safely finish counting.
Time-box reviews: Midday mini-audits prevent end-of-day crunch.
How to Display Time Management Skills on Your Resume
12. Compliance Knowledge
Understanding and applying the rules that govern transactions, identity, reporting, and customer privacy.
Why It's Important
It shields customers and the institution, preventing fines, losses, and reputational harm.
How to Improve Compliance Knowledge Skills
BSA/AML and KYC: Be fluent in customer identification, monitoring red flags, and when to escalate concerns.
CTR and SAR basics: Know thresholds, structuring indicators, and documentation requirements.
Funds availability: Apply hold policies consistently and explain timelines clearly.
Error resolution: Follow required steps and timelines for disputed electronic transfers.
Sanctions screening: Understand screening checkpoints and how to handle potential matches.
Refresh training: Keep certifications current, review job aids, and ask compliance when uncertain.
How to Display Compliance Knowledge Skills on Your Resume
