If you’ve got a head for figures and you’re looking for a varied role that offers generous earning opportunities, becoming a finance manager could be your best next career move.
But in order to grab the recruiter’s attention, you need to create a professional CV that effectively outlines all your relevant business and financial skills.
Below, we’ve put together a step-by-step guide, with an example finance manager CV, to talk you through how to create an interview-winning application.
Guide contents
- Finance manager CV example
- Structuring and formatting your CV
- Writing your CV profile
- Detailing work experience
- Your education
- Skills required for your Finance manager CV
Finance manager CV example
This example CV demonstrates how to effectively structure and format your own Finance manager CV, so that it can be easily digested by busy employers, and quickly prove why you are the best candidate for the jobs you are applying to.
It also gives you a good idea of the type of skills, experience and qualifications that you need to be including and highlighting.
Finance manager CV structure & format
Recruiters are busy, and if they can’t find the information they’re looking for in a flash, it could be game over for your application.
You need to format and structure your CV in a way which allows the reader to pick out your key information with ease, even if they’re strapped for time.
It should be clear, easily legible, well-organised and scannable – check out some simple tips and tricks below:
Formatting Tips
- Length: While there’s no ‘official’ CV length rule, the majority of recruiters agree that less is more. Aim for two pages of A4 or less. This is just enough room to showcase your suitability to the role, without overwhelming recruiters with irrelevant or excessive content.
- Readability: By clearly formatting your section headings (bold, or a different colour font, do the trick) and breaking up big chunks of text into snappy bullet points, time-strapped recruiters will be able to skim through your CV with ease.
- Design: When it comes to CV design, it’s best to keep things simple and sleek. While elaborate designs certainly command attention, it’s not always for the right reasons! Readability is key, so whatever you choose to do, make sure you prioritise readability above everything.
- Avoid photos: Ditch logos, images or profile photos. Not only do they take up valuable space, but they may even distract recruiters from your important written content.
Structuring your CV
When writing your CV, break up the content into the following key sections, to ensure it can be easily digested by busy recruiters and hiring managers:
- Contact details – Always list these at the very top of your CV – you don’t want them to be missed!
- Profile – An introductory paragraph, intended to grab recruiters attention and summarise your offering.
- Work experience / career history – Working from your current role and working backwards, list your relevant work experience.
- Education – Create a snappy summary of your education and qualifications.
- Interest and hobbies – An optional section to document any hobbies that demonstrate transferable skills.
Now I’ll guide you through exactly what you should include in each CV section.
CV Contact Details
Make it easy for recruiters to get in touch, by heading your CV with your contact details.
There’s no need for excessive details – just list the basics:
- Mobile number
- Email address – Use a professional address with no nicknames.
- Location – Just write your general location, such as ‘London’ or ‘Cardiff’ – there’s no need to put your full address.
- LinkedIn profile or portfolio URL – Make sure they’re looking sleek and up-to-date, though!
Finance manager CV Profile
Your CV profile is the first thing recruiters will read – so your goal is to give them a reason to read onto the end of the document!
Create a short and snappy paragraph that showcases your key skills, relevant experience and impressive accomplishments.
Ultimately, it should prove to the reader that you’ve got what it takes to carry out the job.
Tips for creating an impactful CV profile:
- Keep it brief: The best CV profiles are short, sharp and highly relevant to the target role. For this reason, it’s best to write 3-4 lines of high-level information, as anything over might be missed.
- Tailor it: Recruiters can spot a generic, mass-produced CV at a glance – and they certainly won’t be impressed! Before you write your profile (and CV as a whole), read through the job advert and make a list of any skills, knowledge and experience required. You should then incorporate your findings throughout your profile and the rest of your CV.
- Don’t add an objective: Want to talk about your career goals and objectives? While the profile may seem like a good space to do so, they’re actually much better suited to your cover letter.
- Avoid cliches: Clichés like “blue-sky thinker with a go-getter attitude” might sound impressive to you, but they don’t actually tell the recruiter much about you. Concentrate on highlighting hard facts and skills, as recruiters are more likely to take these on board.
What to include in your Finance manager CV profile?
- Summary of experience: Recruiters will want to know what type of companies you’ve worked for, industries you have knowledge of, and the type of work you’ve carried out in the past, so give them a summary of this in your profile.
- Relevant skills: Make your most relevant Finance manager key skills clear in your profile. These should be tailored to the specific role you’re applying for — so make sure to check the job description first, and aim to match their requirements as closely as you can.
- Essential qualifications: If the jobs you are applying to require candidates to have certain qualifications, then you must add them in your profile to ensure they are seen by hiring managers.
Quick tip: Remember to triple-check for spelling and grammar errors before hitting send. If you’re unsure, try using our quick-and-easy CV Builder for a quick and easy approach.
Core skills section
Next, you should create a bullet pointed list of your core skills, formatted into 2-3 columns.
Here, you should focus on including the most important skills or knowledge listed in the job advertisement.
This will instantly prove that you’re an ideal candidate, even if a recruiter only has time to briefly scan your CV.
Work experience/Career history
Recruiters will be itching to know more about your relevant experience by now.
Kick-start this section with your most recent (or current) position, and work your way backwards through your history.
You can include voluntary and freelance work, too – as long as you’re honest about the nature of the work.
Structuring your roles
The structure of your work experience section can seriously affect its impact.
This is generally the biggest section of a CV, and with no thought to structure, it can look bulky and important information can get lost.
Use my 3-step structure below to allow for easy navigation, so employers can find what they are looking for:
Outline
Start with a brief summary of your role as a whole, as well as the type of company you worked for.
E.g.
“Leading the Finance Team within this high-end luxury Hotel, I ensured that company financial reports were reviewed and highlighted areas for cost reduction to management”
Key responsibilities
Follow with a snappy list of bullet points, detailing your daily duties and responsibilities.
Tailor it to the role you’re applying for by mentioning how you put the target employer’s desired hard skills and knowledge to use in this role.
E.g.
- Analysing market trends and looking to mirror those of our leading competitors in both cost and time optimising exercises
- Liaising with external auditors and fully managing the end of year audit
- Assisting the Finance Director with optimising the P&L and cash flow processes
Key achievements
To finish off each role and prove the impact you made, list 1-3 stand out achievements, results or accomplishments.
This could be anything which had a positive outcome for the company you worked for, or perhaps a client/customer.
Where applicable, quantify your examples with facts and figures.
E.g.
- Highlighted an opportunity for significant expansion and increased the Hotel Chain’s revenue by 70%
- Radically changed the Hotel’s Payroll process by incorporating a new system, freeing up 15 hours of productivity a month across the team
Education
At the bottom of your CV is your full education section. You can list your formal academic qualifications, such as:
- Degree
- GCSE’s
- A levels
As well as any specific Finance manager qualifications that are essential to the jobs you are applying for.
Note down the name of the qualification, the organisation at which you studied, and the date of completion.
Interests and hobbies
The hobbies and interests CV section isn’t mandatory, so don’t worry if you’re out of room by this point.
However, if you have an interesting hobby, or an interest that could make you seem more suitable for the role, then certainly think about adding.
Be careful what you include though… Only consider hobbies that exhibit skills that are required for roles as a Finance manager, or transferable workplace skills.
There is never any need to tell employers that you like to watch TV and eat out.
Essential skills for your Finance manager CV
Tailoring your CV to the roles you are applying for is key to success, so make sure to read through the job descriptions and tailor your skills accordingly.
However, commonly desired Finance manager skills include:
- Cash flow – Understanding and evaluating a variety of cash flow scenarios.
- Analysing and forecasting – You must be able to analyse financial data and forecast future budgets and earnings.
- Mathematical proficiency – As a finance manager you’ll be working with large sums of money so you’ll be expected to apply advanced mathematics, create formulas and work with statistics.
- Software and IT skills – You need to be comfortable using relevant financial software, spreadsheets and databases and be able to use these to your advantage when analysing and reporting.
- Leadership and management – Leadership is vital for managing and overseeing a team of other finance professionals.
Writing your Finance manager CV
When putting together your Finance manager CV, there are a few key points to remember.
Always tailor your CV to the target role, even if it means creating several versions for different roles.
Additionally, remember that the structure and format of your CV needs just as much attention as the content.
Remember to triple-check for spelling and grammar errors before hitting send. If you’re unsure, try using our quick-and-easy CV Builder for a quick and easy approach.
Good luck with your job search!