In this episode of Ambition Talks Tax Careers, Tax recruitment specialists, Claire Cheung and Chris Cheng, discuss essential tips for crafting a standout CV for senior tax candidates.
They cover the importance of qualifications, relevant skills, and experience, as well as the significance of LinkedIn in today's job market. The conversation also addresses common questions about CV content, including the inclusion of hobbies and the use of AI in CV writing.
Key takeaways
A clear and concise CV is crucial for senior tax candidates.
Highlighting professional qualifications can set you apart.
Include relevant languages to enhance your CV.
IT skills are increasingly important in the tax industry.
Be transparent about your notice period to avoid surprises.
Include any gaps in your CV to provide context.
Emphasise soft skills and leadership experience for senior roles.
Directors should focus on business development and client relationships.
LinkedIn is a vital tool for networking and career advancement.
Including hobbies can create a personal connection with interviewers.
Watch the full webinar: How to create a standout CV for Senior Tax Professionals
Transcript
Claire: Welcome to episode two of Ambition Talks Tax Careers. I'm privileged enough to have my colleague, Chris Cheng, join me today as we share some really important tips and pointers behind How to Create a Standout CV as a senior tax candidate.
Chris: Hi everyone and thanks for having me Claire, I really appreciate it.
Claire: Amazing. Chris used to actually work in tax and joined us last year to focus on Manager and Senior Manager tax hires within corporate tax, transfer pricing and deals tax.
I personally cover Director and Partner hires across the board.
We have another colleague called Tasnima Rashid who covers senior manager roles within the private client and VAT space.
So firstly, thank you to everyone who's tuned in today. To summarise what we'll be covering today, we'll start off by going through the format of a clear and concise senior CV.
We'll also be sharing hints and tips along the way with examples. I'm also going to briefly touch on LinkedIn and the importance of having an up-to-date profile. Now, in terms of any questions that you might have, please feel free to type them into our Q&A box. We'll try our very best to answer them towards the end of the webinar. If we do run out of time, just drop them over to us over email or LinkedIn and we'll do our best to come back to you and through those means.
So just wanted to make a note that, you know, we understand not everyone's experience will be in the same format of the CV we're suggesting today, but that's kind of where we come in to help you best position your CV depending on your experience and personal circumstances.
Chris: Yeah, I mean, please, like, do utilise us. That's what we're here for. So please do.
Claire: So let's start with what we would expect to see in the CV when you first open it.
A profile summary
The profile summary is a really great way to highlight your top skills, your experience, career aspirations, achievements, and also it just allows the hiring managers to quickly capture the hiring manager's interest quickly and also encouraging to continue reading through the rest of your CV.
It can also help you set the tone of your CV and allow your personality to come through in the style you're writing. Obviously, you don't need to write an essay. Usually a paragraph or two will be sufficient.
Professional qualifications
Moving on from the profile summary, the next thing we would really want to see in a CV are your professional qualifications. Now, Chris, did you want to give your view on the importance of including professional qualifications into your CV?
Chris: Yeah, of course. So professional qualifications, especially within Tax, take a particular importance, whether that be your ACA, your ACCA, CTA, ATT, for example. You may be wondering how much detail you need to give regarding these.
If you have had first-time passes, definitely include these. It's definitely something to highlight because it just shows that you've done well in your exams. And also, as well, if you're a prize winner, then please do also include this.
Regarding the CTA specifically, I know it's obviously a prominent tax qualification. It's becoming more and more in demand over the past few years. Specifying which particular papers you've sat can be really useful because it highlights and demonstrates the sort of work that you are knowledgeable about. For example, whether you sat OMB or Taxation of Major Corporates or ADIT.
If it's not relevant to the role you're applying for, then be ready to also discuss this. For example, if you're applying for a corporate tax role but you sat the personal tax paper, this may have been due to a career change or something like that, but definitely be ready to discuss this. This is something that they might question within the interview.
Claire: I actually had a candidate go through an interview and they were asked which papers they took 10 years ago. So just be prepared, be ready for anything.
But just to add to also what Chris has mentioned, the market has shifted around qualifications. Back five to ten years ago, we would comfortably be able to place candidates who were certainly qualified by experience without any professional qualifications.
However, we do feel that has shifted quite significantly. There's been a lot more importance placed on qualifications, particularly within the tax industry. I've unfortunately had situations where firms were completely dismissive, purely because the candidate wasn't CTA qualified, despite them having some really solid experience.
So qualifications are very important. If you do have them, please include them as well.
Education
Moving on to education and how important is it to mention what university or school you went to?
So in my opinion, we find it to be quite important, also from a senior's perspective and from a networking perspective.
You may be part of a powerful university alumni which could demonstrate how wide your potential reach is.
With school leavers, you know, we would highly encourage you to make it apparent in your CV that you are a skilled school leaver and you can certainly do this by including your GCSEs or A-levels you sat before moving into a professional role.
At times it can demonstrate that you have a lot of grit and determination because going straight into the scary world of professional work straight from college can be extremely challenging for someone who was only 16 or 18 at that time. It's also a really great talking point if your interviewer went down the school leaver route as well.
I think back 10, 20 years ago, it wasn't really common, especially when I started working. We hardly saw these sort of school leaver opportunities.
Languages
I would include languages if they are relevant to the role that you're applying for or if you genuinely speak another language at business level.
This can be beneficial. Now Chris, I know you have your take on this.
Chris: Yeah, I mean, I think we're seeing such an expansion with firms in the UK focusing on international clients, particularly in Asia.
So firms have, or are beginning to, set up teams such as China Desks, for example, or Japan Desks. These would really benefit from seeing your languages on the CV, whether you can speak them at the native or business level, such as Mandarin or Japanese. I think it's useful from a business perspective if you can speak them, so definitely include them if you can.
Claire: Completely agree. Also Southeast Asian languages are also becoming highly sought after as well. I think that's a growth area. And also German speaking candidates within tax. That's been quite interesting.
Chris: Yeah, I did German at school for like five years, but I wouldn't put that on my CV for sure! Definitely a big caveat on this is it has to be at a business level. There's no point putting a language on your CV if you say, for example, I can order dim sum in a Cantonese restaurant. I'm not going to put that on my CV because I can't speak at a business level. So yeah, that's a big caveat for sure.
Claire: Agree. Because you don't want to be in an awkward situation where you're in an interview and they're kind of asking you how advanced is that particular language and it's kind of like, yeah, I can get through on a holiday. It's not going to be so relevant.
IT Systems
So moving on from languages, next thing we wanted to touch on were IT systems that you've used. Now, in tax in particular, it's going to be quite beneficial to include it into your CV, particularly when hiring firms are in need of candidates that are confident working with different systems and can support with creating process efficiencies.
More so as we move into the world of AI, it's becoming more more embedded into our daily lives. within tax, we are working with huge amounts of data. And we do really need to take into account the fact that we are going to be relying on systems. So being able to demonstrate what you do know, what you have used, and you are someone who is somewhat, system aware will be quite beneficial.
Chris: Yeah, Claire, I totally agree on that because when I worked in tax, I use software such as AlphaTax, I used their AI every day for my job. So it's definitely useful to show these skills on there for sure.
Claire: Agree, and we're also using AI in recruitment as well. So yes, it's a changing world now, I say.
Notice periods
The next thing I think we should discuss is notice periods. I've seen a lot of CVs in my time and I would say probably about 95%, if not nearly 100% of the time, candidates tend to just not include this on their CV and even after discussing with them a lot of the time, people don't even know what their notice period is.
I think as you become more senior, we do start seeing notice periods increasing. So we want to eliminate any assumptions or surprises for the hiring firm at the end of the day.
We expect also some more senior level candidates who are on three months notice, perhaps to even possibly progress to six months notice, especially when you get to the director level, that's not uncommon.
Claire: No, I agree. We highly encourage you to also have conversations with your recruiters. It's something that we always ask our candidates upfront, you know, what is their legally obliged notice period as such, but then we also understand if there is any flexibility around it.
I just wanted to point out that if you do have a long notice period, don't be afraid of that. As Chris mentioned, you know, we do expect senior candidates to be on slightly longer notice periods. The norm I would say is roughly three months, but I have also seen candidates that were working to six months. So, you know, just be open, have that conversation with the recruiter, include it on your CV though as well.
You know, one thing that I think, you know, we need to educate our audiences that with your CV, when it comes through into say the client's inbox or what have you, the supporting information to that CV may not necessarily travel with the CV as it's going through the interview process. know, senior processes can take up to four or five, even six rounds of interviews and your CV is getting passed around to different people. So some of the information that's not on your CV that was on say the initial email that was supporting the CV won't go through.
So including this on your CV is to eliminate any surprises. Some of the certain points of the interview, some interviews might be quite fixated on your notice period and assume that you might be able to join them in three months time, but actually you're on a six month notice period and potentially, it's not going to change the decision whether or not you're a great candidate, but it might just mean, right, okay, what is it that they need to do in advance to be able to close that gap or with regards to say, maybe hand over will it be feasible, will it be realistic to actually get a handover in place? So it's more just about managing expectations.
Don't be afraid of the fact that you are working to a long notice period, just to state it. One other thing is around flexibility of notice periods. do have, think both Chris and I have experienced this as well, candidates with a slightly longer notice period, they may then say, well, there is flexibility. However, they won't know until they actually formally resign.
So with the flexibility aspect of it, obviously, speak to your recruiter about it. They'll be able to give you guidance, speak to us about it. We can give you guidance in terms of how much of that we disclose or if it's the fact that it's not really going to add much benefit or it could potentially expose you in a way whereby we may mismanage expectations, we might not talk about it. Obviously, let your recruiter know, let us know. We'll give you guidance around that.
Experience
Okay. Now that's enough about notice periods. Let's move on to discuss experience. Now, Chris, did you want to start with your slide?
Include all gaps
Chris: Yeah, thanks, Claire. I think before going into the experience part of your CV, we do ask that all candidates ensure they have a full comprehensive CV, ensuring that the whole timeline is there. You'll be surprised how many candidates we come across that don't mention any gaps that they have in their CVs.
Now, everyone has their own reasons for this, whether that be you've gone on sabbatical, you've gone traveling, you've been on maternity leave, for example, but it is really important to include these in your CVs as it not only informs us, but also informs the hiring managers because if they don't have this information, they will ask us for this. it's best to just include this from the get-go.
Claire: Yeah, be as honest as possible as well with us. You know, we're here to help you. There's nothing wrong like Chris has mentioned, there's nothing wrong with having gaps.
In this day and age, it's great that people can actually take time out to work to develop themselves personally or spend time with their family, etc. So, you know, give as much information as you can speak to us, speak to recruiters and we'll give you much guidance around maybe how much information you do share in the interview may not be relevant.
But gaps are really important to include just so you're not going to be in a situation in an interview when you're going through your experience and it's like, OK, there's a bit of a gap here. What's happened here? You kind of want to be prepared and you kind of know what to say when you do come across that.
Chris: Yeah, definitely. Regarding the experience then, I think there's a few key areas which we feel should be included within the experience section of your CV.
Include the firms you have worked at
Firstly, quite basic, but include the firms that you've worked at. Our rule of thumb is to start with the most recent experience at the top and then work your way down from there. As at the end of the day, the hiring managers want to see your most relevant experience.
State the type of tax you've worked in
The next part should include your job titles, as you can see on the screen. So we'd highly recommend including the type of tax that you've worked in, particularly when you get to those more senior levels where, whether that be in corporate tax or personal tax, for example, it's really important to highlight these areas or specialisms to your potential employer to show that your experience is relevant.
You'll be surprised the amount of CVs or the amount of people I talk to who just put tax consultant on their CV. What type of tax do you do? That's pretty important to know.
Show progression
On that note, it's also really important to show progression.
So including the grades that you've progressed through, as well as the dates that you got promoted. This shows that you've grown in your role and also gives hiring managers confidence.
It may not always be the case, but if you happen to have quick promotions as well, it's even more of a reason to include these details. Again, a lot of people don't include this and they've jumped from, for example, a tax senior in their role to suddenly get senior management in their new job. But where is the progression there? So hiring managers would really want to see that.
List any secondments
One other thing to add actually is whether you've been on any secondments. So if you have, then I would definitely advise including these as they're likely to be very value adding to your experience.
It's beneficial to see what other skills you developed as well as if you worked in a completely different environment, for example, industry, as it not only shows you've got a a deep breath of experience, but also shows your adaptability over the day, being able to work in different environments. Claire, did you want to touch on any other areas?
Claire: Yeah, career changes. We've noticed, particularly within the world of tax, quite a few of our clients have had previous careers.
Chris, you have. I myself wasn't in recruitment before. doing auditing and banking. However, if you've had a career change, absolutely include into your CV. It just helps to show a full, complete timeline of your career.
But what I would say is you don't need too much detail, a summary of the dates that you were in this other profession and maybe what you were doing is more than sufficient. We've seen teachers turn tax consultants, we've seen engineers turn tax consultants, we've seen recruiters, the opposite of what Chris has done. So do include it just so you can see sort of the progression from maybe when you graduate from uni, when you finish up from school, and then sort of moving through your career path.
So that's pretty much what I wanted to add to that as well. Now, Chris, did you want to touch on some of the key points regarding senior manager CVs specifically?
Chris: Publications is something that I wanted to bring up. I think if you've been involved in any publications or articles, definitely include them into your CV and also include a link to the article as well.
I think it demonstrates your ability to communicate with a wider audience around key legislation, any changes or updates or major tax issues that are going on within the industry right now, for example, like BEPS Pillar 2.
And it effectively shows that you are keeping up to date with legislation and that you'll be able to provide some sound consultative advice. I think especially at the senior ends, like the senior manager, when you're really focusing on that consultative role for clients, it's really important that you are up to date with legislation.
Claire: Agree on that completely.
LinkedIn
So one last thing that I wanted to mention is regarding LinkedIn. I think, you know, what's it got to do with my CV? LinkedIn is so important, think, particularly at the senior end. You know, it's been such an important tool to help you build out your network as your focus becomes more on business development as you progress through your career.
Should I include hobbies and CV and interests on my CV?
Claire: Okay, my take on this, I think absolutely do include them into your CV. Benefits here, I would say is that, you there are, if you have a common interest with the interviewer, it helps to break the ice a bit. I remember actually, I had a client comment on my candidate's CV who had mentioned something about, you know, being a big golfer. And funnily enough, the client actually said, this will be beneficial that the candidate knows, or enjoys a good round of golf, because they've apparently had successful cases of winning clients whilst on the golf course.
There are benefits to that. Chris, did you want to add anything to that?
Chris: I mean from personal experience, I included hobbies into my CV. I I was a piano teacher for a good seven years before I joined Tax. So I think it's relevant and has skills that are relevant and definitely include because when I had my interview, they actually brought that up and they said, you taught for seven years and that's a really good skill to have. We like that, especially in Tax where they like people to coach people, especially at their senior level ends. So definitely include stuff like that, I think.
Is it okay to use AI to write my CV?
Really good question. Let me start this one off as well. Okay, AI is becoming very, very important. It's becoming, as mentioned, very immersed in our daily lives. And I'm, you know, I'm very keen to share my point of view on AI. It's an absolutely amazing and constantly evolving tool. And it is here to help us as humans to enhance the way that we do things. However,
When it comes to your CV, I would highly, highly discourage asking the likes of, say, GPT to write your CV. Now, not only is there software out there that will easily identify whether your CV's been written by AI or not, but also just removes the authenticity, I think, of your CV and the genuine experience that you have. Now, where I would encourage you to potentially look at using AI maybe to support your CV writing is, know, write your CV.
And it might be that you push it through AI, you know, through a program afterwards just to help it, help you make it more concise. Or if you're trying to still word something, you just can't get it right. Use AI in that sense, but please don't use it to write your CV. Yeah, we can tell as recruiters as well, but also as mentioned, there are tools out there where a lot of, think definitely the larger companies by default will run your CV through just to see if it was written by yourself or by the computer.
At the end of day. It's a document about you, so keep it.
Yeah, so I think yeah, write your CV yourself, but then just use AI as a supporting tool.
Should I include a photo of myself with my CV?
Chris: I get this so often, but we often do see people's photos in CVs. I'm just going to say straight up, there's no need to put photo of yourself on there. You just got to think from a business perspective, does it add any value to your CV? At the end of the day, it doesn't.
You have your photo on your LinkedIn as well anyway, but I think that's the place to get your photo, but not your CV. And also we're seeing as ED &I obviously becomes increasingly more important throughout the industry. I think there's a real push on that, particularly in the industry right now. Often firms application systems will automatically remove pictures anyway.
This just removes any unconscious bias. So I think just leave that out, no need for it.
How long should your CV be?
Claire: In our opinion, think it really much depends on how much experience you have and the role that you're targeting and whether all the information in your CV is relevant. I think, you know, don't get too fixated on the length of your CV. Obviously, I think a six page CV is quite lengthy in our opinion. Now, one thing I would say is if you're struggling to maybe cut back on the information that you have, it all and utilise us, know, utilise your recruiter to really help you sort of, you know, focus your CV on what it is that that particular firm might be looking for.
But I would say, like I said, don't worry too much about the length. I've even had candidates try to squeeze a senior CV into a page or two. And, you know, as you're going through, you're kind of like, okay, what about this? And what about this? What about that? So don't do that. It's another extreme.
At the same time, if you do find that there's a lot in there, someone reading your CV would probably feel the same as well. But as mentioned, If you are struggling, put in everything you've got and you need to in your CV and then sit down with us and we'll kind of take you through how we can potentially sort of highlight key things that would be more relevant to the role that you're trying to apply for. Right, okay, we've got another question that's come through.
What particular projects should I highlight in my CV?
Should I include part-time roles or internships I did before graduating?
Personally, I don't really see the point of including part-time roles or internships into a CV. I absolutely would encourage it 100 % if you were starting out your career or if you've had only a few years of experience behind you. But with a senior CV, I don't see much point of it, in honesty. That's not really going to add much value to your CV. Chris, has there been anything else that's come through?
I think that's pretty much everything. I'm just conscious of time. I think we should probably start to kind of wrap things up now. But as I mentioned, if we didn't manage to get to your questions, please do send us an email or just get in touch via LinkedIn after the webinar and we'll come back to you. We do have a CV template which we can send around to those who want this.
And if you do, then please do drop your email in the Q &A box and we'll send this over to you. I think you can find the Q &A box at the bottom of the Zoom. And if you need any tailored advice regarding your CV, obviously please do reach out to myself and Claire and we'll be more than happy to help you. Also on a last point, this has been recorded. So if you want the recording or you want snippets of it, then we can also send this as well.
Great. Thank you so much for joining us on the second episode of Ambition Talks Tax Careers. We hope you've been able to take away some useful points and we'll see you in our next episode where we're going to be deep diving into the interview processes. Thank you so much for joining.
Claire Cheung is an experienced Tax recruiter at Ambition, working closely with big 4, top 10, top 100 and boutique practices. Claire specialises in placing Director and Partner level candidates across all taxes, and US Tax and Global Mobility candidates at all levels .
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
%20(3).png)
%20(4).png)
.png)