Finance CV templates and an FP&A example

One page or two in finance

Finance has two CV traditions, and it helps to know which one you are writing for. Investment banks, private equity, and graduate schemes in markets and advisory work tend to expect a single page, tightly formatted, with education first and grades in full. Screeners in those firms read a lot of CVs in a short window, so anything on page two may not be read at all.

UK accountancy, audit, FP&A, treasury and corporate finance roles are more relaxed. Two pages is normal once you have a few years of experience. Even so, the example on this page fits on one, because a finance reader tends to respect a CV that edits itself. If you are unsure, write two pages, then see what you can cut without losing a result.

Qualification and exam status, stated exactly

Put your professional qualification in your headline, then give the detail in its own section. Recruiters filter finance candidates on it, and "part-qualified" alone leaves them guessing. Say which body, which exams you have passed, what is left, and when you sit next.

• ACA: "Certificate and Professional Level passed. Advanced Level exams booked for next sitting."
• ACCA or CIMA: name the papers or levels passed and the ones remaining.
• CFA: give the level passed, not "CFA candidate", which can mean you have only registered.
• Newly qualified: the month you qualified and any first-time passes or prizes.

If you are studying through an employer's training contract, say so. It tells a new employer whether they will be picking up study leave and fees, which is a real part of the hiring decision.

Numbers need context to mean anything

Finance CVs are full of numbers, and many of them are useless. "Managed a £50m budget" says nothing about what you did with it. A reader wants the size of the thing, what you changed, and the effect. Keep figures honest and approximate where your employer would not want the exact number shown. Never invent deal values or put a client's confidential figures on a CV.

For audit experience, write about the clients by sector and size, not by name, and the areas you led: revenue testing, group consolidations, controls work. For FP&A, name the outputs you own, such as the board pack, the budget model or the variance commentary, and who uses them.

Technical skills: be specific enough to be tested

Excel is on every finance CV, so it proves nothing alone. Say what you build in it: three-statement models, driver-based forecasts, INDEX and MATCH lookups across large datasets, Power Query. The same goes for other tools. Name the ERP or consolidation system you use, the BI tool, and whether you write SQL or VBA yourself. Many analyst interviews include a modelling test, so list only what you could do with a stranger watching.

Moving from audit or practice into industry

A common move in UK finance is from an audit or accountancy firm into an in-house FP&A, reporting or commercial finance role, as in the example CV. Hiring managers in industry worry about one thing: can someone who has checked other people's numbers build and own their own? Answer it on the page. Pick audit work that looks forward or involves judgement, such as reviewing a client's forecasts for going concern, testing impairment models or building analytics for a large dataset, and put those points first.

Then translate audit language. "In-charge on a group audit" becomes "ran fieldwork for a team of four across three entities, reporting to the manager". Partners, engagements and sign-offs mean less to a finance director than deadlines met, people managed and problems found.

A formal layout, and what to leave out

Finance readers prefer a traditional look: one column, a serif or plain sans serif font, clear dates on the right, no colour beyond black and perhaps one dark accent. All three templates on this page are single-column and on the Pro plan. Finance & Accounting is the most traditional. Minimalist ATS is the plainest for firms that screen through an online system. LaTeX ATS Professional suits quant, risk and banking applications where a typeset look is common.

Leave out photos, date of birth, a long list of soft skills and an objective statement about "a challenging role". A two-line profile saying what you do and what you want next is enough. Interests can stay if they are specific and short. Recruiters for graduate finance roles sometimes use them to open the interview.