Audit CV Writing: Our Advice For Auditors When Writing A CV

In this guide Audit CV Writing we’ll share our advice for auditors preparing for their next career move. Read on to find out how to write an auditor CV.

There are well over 4,000 audit firms in the UK. Moreover, the number of audit firms earning over £100m in income has grown by 50% in the past five years, according to the CCAB.

Before we start sharing our auditing CV tips, here’s a quick explainer on what the role itself entails. Current auditors, feel free to skip ahead to the next section on this article!

Those outside or new to the profession often want to understand the differences between an auditor, actuary and accountant. In short…

Accountants focus on recording, analysing and reporting financial transactions for individuals and companies. Actuaries analyse risks related to financial products and often, those associated with insurance.

Auditors review financial statements and internal controls, mitigating risks and providing recommendations to ensure compliance with the law and industry regulations:

• Internal auditors work within a company to oversee its control processes, governance and risk management
• External auditors’ work focuses on risk in particular, assessing processes and systems, ensuring the preparation of financial statements in accordance with legal requirements and accounting standards

It’s a highly skilled role so let’s take a look at some of the accomplishments that auditors would typically include on their CV.

Auditing CV skills and achievements

It goes without saying that your certifications need to feature on your CV – that’s the case whether your credentials lie with the ACCA, ICAEW, or another body. Where exactly – and how prominently – depends on several factors.

For example – what stage are you at in your auditing career, what level of certification have you reached and how many other impressive achievements do you have for your CV?

As with a CV for any industry, it’s important to grab the reader’s attention quickly. The layout of your CV needs to work in your favour.

Some of your most unique attributes and impressive achievements should feature high up on the first page of your CV. That means either within your personal statement near the top or the next section of your CV.

That way, if someone only skim-reads the CV, they should still get a good first impression and hopefully decide to consider the rest of your application. Always remember that employers often receive hundreds of applications for every open role.

No matter whether you’re highlighting soft and hard skills or past achievements, specificity is really important:

• This partly involves tailoring your CV to the job description. Which aspects of your skillset are the most relevant and in what way?
• When outlining your achievements, quantify them wherever possible – can you explain what you did in terms of %s or £s, for example?
• If there are any areas you specialise in – e.g. cybersecurity assessments – highlight your related hard skills to make your CV stand out
• If you have any experience in team leadership or mentoring individuals, this could also help to separate you from the pack

Now let’s look at some general pointers for your CV.

CV checklist

If it’s been a while since you last wrote a CV, let’s go back to basics – here’s our comprehensive guide, how to write a CV.

Whatever you do:

• Leave out personal information e.g. age
• Check it thoroughly for mistakes before sending
• Do not include a photo on a CV in the UK
• Don’t mention salary expectations
• Don’t lie on a CV

As mentioned, feel free to play around slightly with the layout and format so that the best bits are easy to see.

Don’t go too crazy though, there are still several important aspects you need to include – here is our CV checklist, with everything it needs before you send it.

Putting all this into practice, here is an example auditor CV to give you some inspiration:

Auditor CV example

[Name]

[Address] – [Phone number] – [Email address]

Personal Statement

Use a few lines to say who you are, what you can offer and your career aims. Personalise it – show how you stand out and what makes you unique. Here’s a sample first sentence:

Multilingual external auditor specialising in cybersecurity with 7 years’ experience and a proven track record of identifying and mitigating risk for FTSE Index companies.

Key Skills

If your skill section looks strong, include it here – otherwise, put it after your work history section. Relate your skillset to the job description and use bullet points – for example:

• Cybersecurity audits
• ISO 27001 consultancy
• Internal controls
• Statistical analysis
• Fluent in French
• Fluent in Spanish

Work History

List your previous roles or companies worked at in reverse chronological order, starting with your current or most recent position – also include the dates. 

Then, add bullet points, to describe your most relevant achievements or responsibilities, e.g.:

[Role, company] [Dates]

• Identified and mitigated cybersecurity risks that could have resulted in potential losses of over £1 million.
• Assisted client in reducing cybersecurity insurance premiums by 15% through the implementation of recommended security measures.
• Successfully identified and resolved a material misstatement in a client’s financial statements.

Qualifications and Education

Start by including any relevant qualifications – e.g. ACCA, ICAEW, CIMA and so on. Then provide your education details: 

• [Auditing qualification(s) obtained] [Dates]
• [University name, degree subject, grade] [Dates]
• [School name, A-Levels, grades] [Dates]
• [School name, GCSEs, grades] [Dates]

Interests

If you’re short of space on your CV, this section is not compulsory. Any hobbies you include should strengthen your application in a relevant way, if possible.

References available on request

Final thoughts: Audit CV Guide

In summary, don’t take a long time to highlight your unique selling points on the CV – start with a bang with a punchy personal statement and make the next section strong too.

Highlight your most impressive achievements and use figures, factors or other evidence to back them up. Remember that your CV will be up against many others.

Tailor your CV for the role you’re applying to – don’t send the same one to every employer, differentiate it each time.

Check the CV several times before sending it and we also recommend asking a friend or family member to read it too, in case they spot something you miss.

If you found this guide helpful, we also recommend taking a look at some of our previous how-tos for similar CVs.

Here is our guide on writing an accountant CV… And more generally, a finance CV.

Recently we also wrote How To Become An Accountant UK Guidelines And Qualifications for those looking to get started.

For other useful articles, including a wide range of tips for improving your LinkedIn profile and passing interviews, take a look at the PurpleCV blog. 

We are CV writing experts and have supported applications across every industry under the sun – including auditing.

So if you would like a professional to improve your CV or write a brand new one from scratch and send it back to you in just a couple of days, please don’t hesitate to contact us!