Finance leader resume examples for 2025

A well-written resume summary is basically an elevator pitch. You are summing up your skills and experience in a few sentences to wow recruiters, hiring managers, and decision makers into giving you an interview. Here are some tips to putting your best foot first with your resume summary:

Step 1: Start with your current job title, or the one you aspire to. Are you a passionate manager? A skilled analyst? It's a good starting point.

Step 2: Next put your years of experience in finance leader-related roles.

Step 3: Now is the time to put your biggest accomplishment or something you are professionally proud of.

Step 4: Read over what you have written. It should be 2-4 sentences. Your goal is to summarize your experience, not recite your resume.

These four steps should give you a strong elevator pitch and land you some finance leader interviews.

Use your Skills section to show you have the knowledge and technical ability to do the job. Here is how to make the most of your skills section and make sure you have the right keywords:

1. You often need to include the exact keywords from the job description in your resume. Look at the job listing and consider which of the listed skills you have experience with, along with related skills.
2. Include as many relevant hard skills and soft skills as possible from the listing.
3. Use the most up to date and accurate terms. Don't forget to be specific.

These five steps should give you a strong elevator pitch and land you some finance leader interviews.

Next you should include your work experience. Structure your work experience section by listing your most recent experience first, followed by earlier roles in reverse chronological order.

Start with your job title, company name, city, and state on the left. Align dates in month and year format on the right-hand side.

Include only recent, relevant jobs. Avoid including work experience over 20 years to avoid ageism.

Beneath each job, you should have bullet points to emphasize why you're the perfect fit for the finance leader.

Effective job bullet points do more than just describe your job duties. Instead, they should be specific and measurable accomplishments. Here are some strategies to mastering job bullet points:

• Use strong action verbs like Led, Built, or Optimized.
• Follow up with numbers when possible to support your results. How much did performance improve? How much revenue did you drive?
• Wrap it up by explaining the actions you took to achieve the result and how you made an impact.

Here are great bullet points from finance leader resumes:

The education section should display your highest degree first.

Place your education section appropriately on your resume. If you graduated over 5 years ago, this section should be at the bottom of your resume. If you just graduated and lack relevant work experience, the education section should go to the top.

If you have a bachelor's or master's degree, do not list your high school education. If your graduation year is more than 15-20 years ago, it's better not to include dates in this section.

Here are some examples of good education entries for resumes:

If you have any additional certifications or education-like achievements, add them to the education section.

Include the full name of the certification, along with the name of the issuing organization and date of obtainment.

If you have any of these certifications, be sure to include them on your finance leader resume:

1. Certified Management Accountant (CMA)
2. Six Sigma Green Belt
3. Chartered Certified Accountant (ACCA)
4. Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA)
5. Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA)
6. Project Management Professional (PMP)