what does a credit analyst actually do?

aside from the obvious generic answer "analyze credit."

In the commercial loan arena, a good analyst needs to understand how to read and extract information from tax returns, as well as understand and extract info from business financial statements. The ability to perform a cash flow analysis is one of the paramont skills. If the loan you are analyzing is income producing, you'll need to be proficient in completing an NOI analysis. Collateral values are usually provided by outside vendors, but you will need to develop a general understanding of how those values are determined (read the report), plus the abilty to match it against policy guidelines. If your employed, see if your employer will pay for continuing education classes related to credit analysis. Dun and Bradstreet also has training classes as well as local community colleges.