Role guide · Finance

You work with numbers
all day.
Your CV has none.

It is the most common paradox in finance: the person who best understands the value of a figure is the worst at using one about themselves. A CFO CV without turnover, cash and debt forces the reader to assume. They usually assume low.

Scale + cash a CFO without figures is the easiest contradiction to spot
🇪🇸 ES
The underlying problem

You know exactly
which figure you would ask for.

If a company file arrived with no turnover, no debt and no cash position, you would send it back. And yet most finance CVs describe functions: "responsible for the close", "supervision of accounting", "relationship with auditors".

That is the job manual. It does not say how big what you ran was, nor what you improved.

And one part is almost always left out, the part that weighs most in a senior application: transactions. A refinancing, a due diligence, a capital increase, a post-acquisition integration.

What has to be there

Scale, cash
and what you moved.

As in any financial analysis: magnitude places you, variation proves you.

💶
Turnover under management
Revenue of the company or group, and perimeter: one entity, several, international consolidation. It anchors everything else.
💧
Cash and working capital
Treasury position, days receivable and payable, operating funding needs. If you freed working capital, how much and at what cost.
🏦
Debt and financing
Debt volume, refinancings closed, terms obtained, banking relationships. The fastest proof of craft.
🤝
Corporate transactions
Acquisitions, disposals, due diligence, capital increases, fund entry, integrations. Even as part of a team, state your exact role.
📋
Close and reporting
Days to close, whether you reduced them, standards applied (local GAAP, IFRS, US GAAP), audit and consolidation. In multinationals this filters.
👥
Team and systems
Headcount, and whether you implemented or migrated an ERP. A CFO who has been through a migration is valued differently.
What sinks it

Five things that cost you
on a finance CV.

✕
A CV without a single figure
The most visible contradiction in the field. Hirers reasonably conclude that if you do not quantify your own work you will not quantify theirs.
✕
Listing standards as achievements
"IFRS, consolidation" is on everyone's CV. What sets you apart is what you applied, over what perimeter and against what difficulty.
✕
Leaving out the perimeter
Running one entity is not consolidating fifteen across four countries. Without that figure your experience always reads low.
✕
Staying quiet about transactions
A refinancing closed in a difficult moment is the best proof of judgement you can offer. It usually ends up as one line at the bottom, if at all.
✕
Confusing controller with CFO
They are different profiles and the market knows it. If your role was management control, say so: there is demand for it and you compete better.
The ATS detail

Finance goes by
many names.

Finance runs under both local and English terminology, with a hierarchy that shifts with size: in an SME the "Finance Director" does what three people do in a group.

Make sure your CV carries the terms you have held, including management control if that is where you came from.

CFO Chief Financial Officer Finance Director Head of Finance Financial Controller Director of Finance and Administration Group Finance Director Treasurer Head of Controlling

These are related titles, not equivalents: responsibilities and scope differ between them. Only use the ones you have genuinely held — a title you never had collapses in the first interview.

How ZenitJob handles it

Your figures,
in the order each role wants.

A company seeking financing and one seeking efficiency do not need the same CFO. Your history serves both, if presented well.

1
Base CV
You cover each perimeter
You dictate block by block: scale, perimeter, debt, transactions, systems. The AI structures it into achievements with figure and context.
2
Job analysis
Its priorities are read
Financing, cost control, integration, IPO, fund entry. Each mandate calls for different emphasis.
3
Adaptation
Your material is prioritised
If the mandate is debt, your refinancings lead. If it is efficiency, your working capital and close improvements do.
4
ATS score
You check the match
You see which sector terms are missing before you send.
Start with your base CV

You quantify everything
except your own career.

Tell your track record out loud and ZenitJob turns it into achievements with scale, perimeter and result. Then it tailors that to each role.

Build my base CV — free See how it works →

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