How to Write a Management CV: Best Practices to Adopt

There are many management role opportunities across all sectors and industries - using a CV writing service can help you to highlight those key people, resource, project and stakeholder management skills which are essential for any management focused CV.

There is always a need for good, strong managers who can lead teams, departments and functions - and the salary always tends to reflect these increased levels of responsibility. A lot of the time, it can be beneficial to attain certain qualifications or certifications, i.e. PRINCE2 or Agile certifications for Project Manager roles and ILM Leadership courses for example.

CV Skills for a Manager's Role

Job advertisements will always detail requirements in terms of hard and soft skills needed for any management position. It is important that you address these points on your professional CV in a clear manner. Always include a 'Skills' or 'Expertise' section as we like to call it, and within this, show employers your skillsets and capabilities with respect to managing teams, delivering excellent customer service, coordinating projects / initiatives and driving process improvements. When you include all the right points, it will help your CV be favourable for ATS systems which recruiters use. For example, if you are applying for a Project Manager or Programme Manager job, then some important keywords would be PRINCE2, Agile, Scrum etc. A lot of other key points could be related to meeting deadlines, budgets, stakeholder management, risk mitigation and change / transformation.

It is always important to remain truthful and accurate in everything you include on your CV - do not exaggerate or mention skills which you do not have, because this will ultimately catch up with you at interview stages where you will get caught out!

Leadership / C-Suite and NED Jobs

When you are writing for more senior C-Suite / executive roles, you need to ensure the CV is much more strategic in tone and pitched appropriately. Some categories which you may want to include and expand upon for senior leadership positions may be related to commercial growth, business acumen, change management, financial oversight, governance, P&L responsibilities and negotiation skills amongst many others.

Highlight Achievements on your CV

It is always good to show some tangible, quantifiable achievements on your CV - this is something which is said a lot, but it does depend as well on the type of industry or sector you are in. For example, if you are in a sales management position, then it will be easier to identify these as you have targets and metrics for each quarter, for example. If you are a scientist in a laboratory management role, this might be more difficult.

Showcase your successes and emphasise your achievements clearly within each role, creating a sub-section if you have enough of these to warrant it. You can also mention how many staff you manage, how many departments you have responsibility for, budgets and P&Ls you have accountability for as well as many other points which can be directly linked to you.

Final Thoughts

Create a good personal profile section (or personal statement as some like to call it), keep it punchy, to the point and relevant with all of the management and leadership skills you possess. A strong opening section on your CV, paves the way for recruiters and hiring managers to take an interest in your background and keep reading about your career experience, which will help you to get responses, interviews and a new management job!

We provide an exceptional CV writing service and our writers have a wealth of experience in creating management as well as senior leadership CVs.