CV Structure part 5: Qualifications, memberships, and professional development

Content Cv Guide 5

CV Structure part 5: Qualifications, memberships, and professional development

If you are a graduate or recently qualified finance professional with little work experience, then your qualifications may be your greatest asset. In this case you might want to place this section near the front of your CV after the professional profile. For most job seekers, however, qualifications play a supporting role and should therefore be placed at the back of the CV at the end of the second page.

Qualifications

For graduates, or if you are starting out in your career, you might want to expand on your degree - especially if it is finance related. This could include modules, technical applications, presentations or dissertations. These will all have helped to develop your skills.

As an experienced finance professional, you will usually only include the name and type of qualification and the awarding body. For instance, ‘BSc (Hons) Business and Finance, University College London’. There is no need to include the year. Academic qualifications are carried for life. Not including dates can also help ward off any sub-conscious bias or age discrimination as you head towards the later years of your career. 

Memberships

You should include membership details of any professional body such as ACCA. Again, there is no need to provide the date your membership started so long as you are still a subscribed member. Many organisations have different levels of membership so you should also state the level of membership you have such as ‘Fellow’ or ‘Associate’.

Professional development

This section should contain all relevant post-graduate certificates or non-academic qualifications. As a rule of thumb, only include certificates or qualifications that are nationally or internationally recognised. Lots of organisations provide internal training but this information is usually meaningless to an external employer and can waste valuable space in your CV.

This article is written by Neville Rose, Director of CV Writers.

CV Writers are the official CV partner to ACCA Careers.

In addition to a CV writing service they can help with careers counselling, LinkedIn profiles, cover letters and interview coaching. You can get things started with a Free CV Review.

Back to listing