Looking for your next opportunity in finance? Every successful job hunt starts with a perfectly honed CV.
A great CV for a credit controller is one that:
Shows off your core skills and strengths
Helps you stand out from other candidates
Gives prospective employers everything they’re looking for at just a glance.
This is your personal sales pitch, so it’s crucial to get it right. It sounds nightmarishly difficult, but we have some tips to help you look at your CV with fresh eyes.
Get the structure right
An organised, well laid-out CV is easy for recruiters to read and instantly demonstrates why you’d be a good fit for the role. Consider this format:
1.Essential contact details
2.Profile– no more than 4-6 lines highlighting your expertise and suitability for the role
3.Core skills– short bullet points covering your key skills and technical capabilities (i.e. CPD Certified in Credit Control, accounts reconciliation, SAGE and NetSuite)
4.Career summary– relevant recent roles, with key responsibilities and achievements summed up in a few bullet points. You can be a little more detailed here, as you’re providing evidence that you have the relevant experience for the job.
5.Education and qualifications– in a simple list format, only include relevant and important ones.
Keep it short, snappy and relevant
You’ll hopefully have your chance to elaborate on your skills and experience at interview, so you don’t need to include it all on your CV. Keep yours to under 2 pages, or ideally less.
Focus all your attention on what will be relevant to the employer and the role, further reducing the word count by cutting out unnecessary cliches. It can be helpful to think of it as hitting all the recruiter’s keywords.
Don’t be afraid to use short sentences and bullet points. If you can say something in fewer words, do it. This can make what you do say stand out, rather than burying your point in a long, complicated sentence.
Once you’ve written your CV, go back to refine it
A good way to write a CV from scratch is to include everything at first, making sure to get the structure right. Then, you can go back and whittle it down to just the most important messages you want to get across.
Plus, this is a good opportunity for proof-reading. Remember that finance recruiters are hawk-eyed and easily put off when it comes to typos and mistakes.
Readability is everything
When it comes to the design and format of your credit controller CV, keep it simple and fuss-free. Everything you do with the formatting should be to help the recruiter find the information they need quickly. So, avoid fussy design details, absolutely no photos and stick to something professional and classic.
Back up your achievements with tangible facts and figures
One way to impress potential employers is to be specific on your CV when it comes to your achievements in previous roles.
You could say something like ‘I worked with customers to bring accounts current with suitable repayment plans’, but it’s far more impressive to say that you ‘I brought key clients such as A and B from 365+ days in debt to 14 days payment terms, in just 6 months’.
Looking for your next credit controller role? Find the perfect place to work with the help of our dedicated specialist finance recruiters here at Sewell Wallis –get in touch to start your search.