Of course there’s no such thing as the perfect CV or resume and nobody ever got a job offer from the quality of their CV or resume alone. Still, optimising your presentation to the job market will certainly make it much more likely. First step is to get the basics right – you need to demonstrate the right skills, pinpoint quantifiable achievements and showcase your ability to deliver results for your previous employers. Clarify skills, keywords and value-add outcomes to produce a brochure that is as appealing to first-stage agency researcher as it is to a CFO or CEO with a wealth of experience.
Standing out in a tough job market requires a CV that illustrates your finance toolkit, including relevant keywords and sector-specific language, as well as wider business acumen in a succinct, two-page format. Agencies get thousands of new candidate submissions a week, so recruiters will spend somewhere between five to ten seconds average on their first parse. A senior search exec will give it a little more time – perhaps a minute – but will then condense into a brief summary for their client, maybe a couple bullets. Understanding this, and how to make it easy for them to like your application, is the cornerstone of a good CV or resume.
Keep it concise.
It’s critical that your CV is written in plain, simple and punchy style, rather than an in-depth historical record and depiction of complex technical accounting concepts – this will confuse first-stage recruiters and will mean the document will lack achievements. Eliminate the detail and maximise audience engagement. Illustrate outcomes that show how a skill has strengthened your employer’s P&L; keep the bullet tight by beginning with a keyword plus a great result. No need for long explanations about the ‘how’, it’s the ‘what happened next’ that counts.
Optimise keywords.
Four out of five candidate submissions never even get seen by a human. Every day, thousands of CVs and resumes are automatically rejected by Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). They’re mostly just simple databases that extract keywords and relevant data, but they are the core of recruitment operations these days, so it’s essential that your CV includes relevant keywords. If you’re responding to a target job advertisement, check out the skills they ask for and the terms they use. It’s not complicated, just straightforward matching of little duos and trios of words. If there is no target job ad, the best way to ensure your CV is full of great keywords is to check accounting competency frameworks from eg CIMA or ACCA.
Know your competencies.
Before creating or adapting your CV or resume, it’s critical that you understand the skills that the target job requires. Mostly, they make it easy for you by including a ‘candidate essentials and desirables’. It’s always a good idea to review the list of responsibilities as well – sometimes these two parts of a job ad are written by two different people (eg HR plus a line manager), so it’s important to check that no competency that is obviously important to the position is missing. Remember to stay high-level – avoid detail at all costs. Don’t forget to demonstrate business skills such as stakeholder engagement, team culture building or business partnering. If you’re not sure what skills to include, CIMA’s CPD courses and competency framework is useful.
Demonstrate quantifiable value-add.
Probably the most important element of a great CV is the use of examples to demonstrate competencies. Your CV shouldn’t look like a job description, it should be two pages full of great competency examples with solid outcomes. Skills or knowledge areas are best illustrated via achievements with measurable impact. If you can’t remember the exact quantifiable data, then think about what you were trying to achieve then make an informed approximate guess. As long as this is done with integrity and you’re not being misleading, this will be no problem. Thinking about business outcomes, rather than technical, will help to keep the language simple and accessible for non-finance recruiters.
Illustrate commitment.
In tough job markets with highly competitive hiring processes, it’s crucial to show that you’re highly motivated. Research from Stanford University shows that including examples of hard work, dedication and commitment in your resume has a profoundly positive impact on decision-makers. It’s also a great idea to demonstrate a growth mindset, a concept developed by Professor Carol Dweck at Stanford. Look for examples that show enthusiasm, optimism, learning and commitment to continual personal improvement. You need a persuasive story about why you want the job so using strong, powerful and enthusiastic language will help to demonstrate that to target employers.
If you’re a qualified accountant or other senior finance professional who needs help writing your CV or resume, why not try consulting an expert – email devintill@gmail.com.
