As a senior finance manager, articulating your extensive experience without overwhelming potential employers is a key resume challenge. Our guide offers tailored strategies to help you distill your expertise into a concise, impactful narrative that captures the attention of top-tier companies.
- Sample industry-leading examples to learn how to write your best resume yet.
- Improve the experience, education, and achievements section of your resume with insights from resume-writing professionals.
- Curate your technical expertise and personality to stand out amongst the pool of candidates.
- Succinctly focus on your unique skill set all through your senior finance manager resume.
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Designing your senior finance manager resume format to catch recruiters' eyes
Your senior finance manager resume will be assessed on a couple of criteria, one of which is the actual presentation.
Is your resume legible and organized? Does it follow a smooth flow?
Or have you presented recruiters with a chaotic document that includes everything you've ever done in your career?
Unless specified otherwise, there are four best practices to help maintain your resume format consistency.
- The top one third of your senior finance manager resume should definitely include a header, so that recruiters can easily contact you and scan your professional portfolio (or LinkedIn profile).
- Within the experience section, list your most recent (and relevant) role first, followed up with the rest of your career history in a reverse-chronological resume format .
- Always submit your resume as a PDF file to sustain its layout. There are some rare exceptions where companies may ask you to forward your resume in Word or another format.
- If you are applying for a more senior role and have over a decade of applicable work experience (that will impress recruiters), then your senior finance manager resume can be two pages long. Otherwise, your resume shouldn't be longer than a single page.
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The more time and effort you've put into obtaining the relevant certificate, the closer to the top it should be listed. This is especially important for more senior roles and if the company you're applying for is more forward-facing.
The five (plus) definite sections your resume for a senior finance manager job should include are:
- Header with your headline, contact details, and/or a preview of your work
- Summary (or objective) to pinpoint how your success aligns with the role
- Experience with bullets of your most relevant achievements in the field
- Skills to integrate vital job requirements (both technical and personal)
- Your further dedication to the field, showcased via relevant higher education and/or certifications
What recruiters want to see on your resume:
- Proven experience in financial planning and analysis, including forecasting, budgeting, and creating detailed financial reports and projections.
- Expertise in using financial software systems, ERP systems, and advanced proficiency with Excel for complex financial modeling.
- Demonstrated ability to lead and manage finance teams, along with cross-departmental collaboration to drive organizational financial performance.
- Strong knowledge of financial regulations, accounting principles, and the ability to ensure compliance with legal and corporate financial policies.
- Strategic thinking and decision-making skills with a track record of contributing to business growth and profitability.
Advice for your senior finance manager resume experience section - setting your application apart from other candidates
Your resume experience section needs to balance your tangible workplace achievements with job requirements.
The easiest way to sustain this balance between meeting candidate expectations, while standing out, is to:
- Select really impressive career highlights to detail under each experience and support those with your skills;
- Assess the job advert to define both the basic requirements (which you could answer with more junior roles) and the more advanced requirements - which could play a more prominent role through your experience section;
- Create a separate experience section, if you decide on listing irrelevant experience items. Always curate those via the people or technical skills you've attained that match the current job you're applying for;
- Don't list experience items from a decade ago - as they may no longer be relevant to the industry. That is, unless you're applying for a more senior role: where experience would go to demonstrate your character and ambitions;
- Define how your role has helped make the team, department, or company better. Support this with your skill set and the initial challenge you were able to solve.
Take a look at how real-life senior finance manager professionals have presented their resume experience section - always aiming to demonstrate their success.
- Directed a financial team in the restructuring of corporate debt, reducing interest expense by over 15%, which enhanced the company's long-term financial stability.
- Implemented a strategic investment initiative that diversified the company's portfolio, increasing ROI by 20% within the first year of deployment.
- Led the successful integration of a transformative ERP system that improved reporting timeframes by 30%, enabling more agile strategic decision-making.
- Orchestrated a cost reduction program saving $10 million annually through renegotiation of major supplier contracts and optimization of internal processes.
- Steered the due diligence and financial analysis for a $50 million acquisition, which expanded the company's market share by 10%.
- Developed and executed a capital raising strategy that secured $25 million in funding from institutional investors for new product development.
- Managed the company’s global budgeting process, resulting in the on-time delivery of a $500 million budget with a less than 2% variance from actual spending.
- Initiated a successful risk management framework that reduced potential financial risks by 25% across international markets.
- Championed a financial literacy program across the organization that improved cross-departmental understanding of financial KPIs and contributed to a 15% growth in sales performance.
- Enhanced the financial reporting mechanisms which increased the accuracy of financial forecasts by 95%, essential for making informed executive decisions.
- Played a key role in negotiating a merger worth $75 million, ensuring a smooth financial transition that retained 99% of pre-merger customers.
- Pioneered a cross-functional team initiative to automate accounting processes, which reduced manual workload by 40% and improved staff productivity.
- Initiated a company-wide operational efficiency program, which cut costs by 18% without sacrificing the quality of financial services.
- Led quarterly earnings calls and crafted financial presentations that clearly communicated financial results and strategy to stakeholders, analysts, and investors.
- Navigated the company through a tax restructuring plan that reduced the effective tax rate by 5%, boosting net income significantly.
- Coordinated cross-departmental efforts to identify $8 million in operational savings during a company-wide lean transformation program.
- Implemented a dynamic cash flow forecasting model that improved the accuracy of short-term cash management by over 30%, thereby optimizing working capital.
- Established new financial controls and compliance measures that minimized regulatory breaches by over 90% and enhanced the company's reputation in the industry.
Quantifying impact on your resume
- Highlight the size of the budgets you have successfully managed to demonstrate your capability in handling substantial financial resources.
- Detail specific percentage reductions in costs or expenses you achieved, to show your proficiency in optimizing fiscal management.
- Outline the exact amount of revenue growth for which you were responsible, to emphasize your contribution to the company’s top-line performance.
- Quantify the number of financial strategies or models you developed to underscore your expertise in financial planning and analysis.
- Include the monetary value of investments you have overseen, to reflect your acumen in portfolio management and resource allocation.
- State the number of fiscal reporting cycles you've managed, to convey your reliability in critical and regular financial operations.
- Mention the amount by which you increased financial efficiency or profitability to highlight your impact on improving financial performance.
- Enumerate any major financial transactions, such as mergers or acquisitions, you have executed, to illustrate your experience in significant financial negotiations and deals.
Action verbs for your senior finance manager resume
Lacking relevant senior finance manager resume experience?
Learn how to write your senior finance manager resume experience in spite of having no real-world (or applicable) experience for the job.
You should:
- Feature relevant projects or publications that could impress recruiters or showcase that you have the basic skill set for the job
- Shift the focus towards your people (communication, organization, etc.) skills to demonstrate that you're a quick learner and can easily adapt to a new environment
- Use the resume objective to not only highlight your accomplishments but also map out how your career plans are perfectly aligned with the company's vision
- Select either the functional-skill-based resume format (that puts the focus on your skills) or the hybrid one (balancing expertise with skills).
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If you happen to have plenty of certificates, select the ones that are most applicable and sought-after across the industry. Organize them by relevance to the role you're applying for.
Shining a light on your senior finance manager hard skills and soft skills
To win recruiters over, you must really have a breadth of skill set presented and supported within your senior finance manager resume.
On hiring managers' checklists, you'd initially discover hard or technical skills. Those are the technology (and software) that help you perform on the job. Hard skills are easy to quantify via your education, certificates, and on-the-job success.
Another main criterion recruiters are always assessing your senior finance manager resume on is soft skills. That is your ability to communicate, adapt, and grow in new environments. Soft skills are a bit harder to measure, as they are gained both thanks to your personal and professional experience.
Showcase you have the ideal skill set for the role by:
- Dedicating both a skills box (for your technical capabilities) and an achievements or strengths section (to detail your personal skills).
- When listing your skills, be specific about your hard skills (name the precise technology you're able to use) and soft skills (aim to always demonstrate what the outcomes were).
- Avoid listing overused cliches in the skills section (e.g. Microsoft Office and Communication), unless they're otherwise specified as prominent for the role.
- Select up to ten skills which should be defined via various sections in your resume skills sidebar (e.g. a technical skills box, industry expertise box with sliders, strengths section with bullets).
Spice up your resume with leading technical and people skills, that'd help you get noticed by recruiters.
Top skills for your senior finance manager resume:
Financial Analysis
Financial Reporting
Budgeting
Forecasting
Financial Modeling
Risk Management
Strategic Planning
Accounting Principles
GAAP/IFRS Knowledge
ERP Systems Proficiency
Leadership
Communication
Strategic Thinking
Problem Solving
Attention to Detail
Time Management
Teamwork
Adaptability
Negotiation
Decision Making
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If you happen to have some basic certificates, don't invest too much of your senior finance manager resume real estate in them. Instead, list them within the skills section or as part of your relevant experience. This way you'd ensure you meet all job requirements while dedicating your certificates to only the most in-demand certification across the industry.
The senior finance manager resume sections you may underestimate: certifications and education
Your education and certifications provide insight into both your technical capabilities and personal attributes, such as perseverance. When crafting your senior finance manager resume, consider how you present these elements:
- For your higher education degrees, prioritize listing those most relevant to the job or indicative of your academic dedication;
- Include applicable coursework as a stand-in for relevant experience or if it might impress recruiters;
- Include incomplete higher education only if it's pertinent to meeting job requirements;
- If your degree is from a renowned university, mention how often you made the Dean's list to underline academic excellence.
Regarding certifications, it's not necessary to list all of them. Instead, match up to three of your most recent or significant certificates with the technical skills required in the job description.
Below, we've selected some of the top industry certifications that could be vital additions to your senior finance manager resume.
The top 5 certifications for your senior finance manager resume:
- Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) - CFA Institute
- Certified Public Accountant (CPA) - American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
- Certified Management Accountant (CMA) - Institute of Management Accountants
- Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) - Association of International Certified Professional Accountants
- Financial Risk Manager (FRM) - Global Association of Risk Professionals
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Mention specific courses or projects that are pertinent to the job you're applying for.
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Senior Finance Manager resume summaries or objectives: real-world samples for best industry practices
Grasp recruiters' attention from the get-go of your application with a professional Senior Finance Manager resume summary or objective.
It's wise to select the:
- Resume objective , if you don't happen to have much experience alignment and would like to more prominently feature your dreams and personality.
- Resume summary , if you'd like to have a more standard approach to your application and feature up to five career highlights to help you stand out.
Writing your resume summary or objective should be tailored to each role you apply for.
Think about what would impress the recruiters and go from there.
But, if you need further help with this introductory section, check out some real-world samples in the next part of this guide:
Resume summaries for a senior finance manager job
- With a robust 10-year background in financial management for multinational corporations, this seasoned professional brings a proven track record of scaling fiscal performance and strategizing revenue growth. Expert in mergers and acquisitions, adept in international finance regulations, and credited with a 20% year-over-year profit increase for a Fortune 500 company.
- A strategic thinker with over 15 years of experience in the tech sector financial management, skilled in crafting fiscal policies that drive growth and stability. Spearheaded a comprehensive budget overhaul that resulted in a 30% cost reduction while enhancing efficiency for a major software company.
- Transitioning from a high-profile career in consulting to finance management, this candidate offers a fresh perspective combining business process optimization expertise with keen financial insight. Masters in Business Administration with a focus on strategic financial planning and a consistent history of increasing client portfolio value by over 25% annually.
- Migrating from a distinguished military career into finance management, armed with discipline and a keen analytical mindset honed through years of logistical planning and budget administration for complex military operations. Eager to apply transferable skills to optimize financial strategy and bottom-line outcomes in a corporate setting.
- Eager to embark on a career in finance management, this candidate presents a compelling blend of academic excellence from a top-tier university and a passionate commitment to honing financial analysis and portfolio management expertise. Desiring to leverage a strong foundation in economics and internships at leading investment banks to contribute to the financial success of a dynamic organization.
- As a recent MBA graduate with a specialization in finance, this individual is driven to launch a career in finance management. They possess advanced knowledge of modern financial theories, a dedication to rigorous financial research, and a thesis recognized for groundbreaking analysis on risk mitigation strategies, aiming to bring contemporary financial insights to an evolving marketplace.
Additional valuable senior finance manager resume sections to stand out
When assessing candidate applications, recruiters are often on the lookout for elements that go beyond meeting standard requirements and technical expertise.
This is where extra sections could play a key role in showcasing your unique skill set and personality.
Make sure to include sections dedicated to:
- How you spend your free time, outside of work. The interests resume section also goes to show your personality and transferrable skills; and may also serve to fill in gaps in your experience;
- Most innovative work. The projects resume section brings focus to what you're most proud of within the field;
- How you're able to overcome language barriers. The language resume section is always nice to have, especially if communication would be a big part of your future role;
- Industry-wide recognitions. Remember that the awards resume section should highlight your most noteworthy accolades and prizes.
Key takeaways
- Your resume layout plays an important role in presenting your key information in a systematic, strategic manner;
- Use all key resume sections (summary or objective; experience; skills; education and certification) to ensure you’ve shown to recruiters just how your expertise aligns with the role and why you're the best candidate;
- Be specific about listing a particular skill or responsibility you've had by detailing how this has helped the role or organization grow;
- Your personality should shine through your resume via the interests or hobbies, and strengths or accomplishments skills sections;
- Certifications go to provide further accreditation to your technical capabilities, so make sure you've included them within your resume.
