How to write the perfect tax CV
First and foremost, when writing the perfect tax CV, and this may sound obvious, make sure you focus almost exclusively on your tax experience. This is what accounting firms are looking for. For instance, you shouldn’t start your CV off with how many GCSE’s you have or how many A levels you have or what your degree is, since it’s probably not relevant to your tax career.
In your CV, we recommend that you begin with a strong personal statement that encompasses your career in tax up to this point. It should be about four to five lines long. In it you don’t want to include generic statements like “I’m very well organised” or “I’m a hard worker” because those will be taken as red. How long have you worked in tax? This is what they really want to know. Are you CTA-qualified? And so on.
You could start by saying, “I am a CTA-qualified tax professional with more than seven years of experience”. Then discuss the areas of tax that you have worked on. There could be certain areas of corporate tax you have expertise in or you may have done a lot of compliance work and you may have also done some advisory work. You can provide examples in this area.
The first half of a CV is the most important part since most people only spend a few seconds reading it. Within those few seconds, they decide whether to read more and whether to take the candidate seriously. This is why the opening statement is so important. Your next step is to discuss the type of work you did in your most recent tax role. You should start with the most impressive work you have done.
I would give lots of examples of the type of tax work you’ve done. The types of clients you’ve worked with and your success stories. A great tax project you’ve completed or one you’re very proud of. The number of clients you have acted for, the types of clients, the size of the clients, and all the other details pertaining to your tax career are extremely important.
It’s very important to list your previous tax roles with similar amounts of detail on your CV if you’ve worked in other tax roles, but your most current job is most important. It’ll be your most recent position that employers are most interested in.
Describe any other jobs you held before you started your tax career on your CV. Although I wouldn’t go into too much detail about them because they’re not relevant to your tax career. It’s relevant that you’ve worked in other roles and you have broad experience, but it won’t help you if you get into too much detail about a role because it’s not relevant to your tax career.
After that, I would list your qualifications, starting with your recent ones and particularly your tax qualifications. These are the ones the person reading the CV will be most interested in. Include your degree, your A levels, and your GCSEs as well, but don’t go into too much detail about your GCSEs because they’re not relevant to your job.
It does no harm to mention perhaps a few of your hobbies or interests at the bottom of your CV. Just keep it brief. Nonetheless, they can be a good talking point during an interview.
The phrase “references available upon request” isn’t necessary since it’s sort of just expected. It’s somewhat unnecessary to put it on your CV since you need to provide references.
Ideally, a CV should be two pages long; however, a shorter CV is acceptable. Keeping it short isn’t an issue. There is no need to worry if your document is two and a half pages rather than two pages. Nonetheless, two pages seems to be a good length.
The 5 top tips for writing an excellent tax CV
1. On the first half page of your CV, you should focus exclusively on your tax experience!
2. Create a strong opening statement that illustrates your tax experience (do not include general statements like “I am very organised”).
3. Include a lot of detail about your most recent tax position
4. Avoid including too many details about work experience that was not related to tax
5. Your qualifications should be listed at the end of your CV