Standing Out in the UK Finance Job Market: Key Tips for Accountants and Finance Professionals

In today’s competitive UK job market, accountants and finance professionals must go beyond technical competence to truly stand out.

This is undeniably challenging, so our Senior Consultant Bea – part of our Financial Services team at Trace – shares her top tips for Accountants and Finance professionals trying to navigate the tough UK jobs market.

Standing out takes two forms: initially through your CV or LinkedIn profile, and subsequently in-person during the interview stage.

Take the best first step with your CV

For the first part, a clean, concise CV or LinkedIn profile is always the best approach.
A concise CV should include:

• Your full – relevant – experience and career history, with your current role highlighted first and in most detail.

• Relevant education & qualifications - While qualifications like ACA, ACCA, or CIMA remain essential, employers increasingly seek individuals who can offer more than just number-crunching.

• Professional skills - relevant to the role e.g. Leadership or Management training.

• System experience - highly valuable in a rapidly advancing technological world.

• Hobbies and interests – include examples of fun or quirky interests, they could be the difference in connecting with the hiring manager

• LinkedIn – although should include some of these key features – should also highlight some additional – but equally important – aspects, which employers consider:

1. Personable skills
   Showcasing your understanding of leadership and management training, communication style, personal interests and industry knowledge can all be effectively highlighted through your LinkedIn content and engagement.

2. Networking and Growth opportunities
   Who and how you connect with people is often pivotal when it comes to Senior roles, in particular. The ability to connect with others and nurture a relationship is an important skill that isn’t easily shown on a CV, but can be reflected on via LinkedIn connections, groups and engagement.
   Once you've garnered positive feedback from your CV application and received an interview request, the client or company already believes your experience could be right for the role. The next step is to articulate why you are the perfect candidate over the hundreds of other candidates.

3. Following up face to face
   An interview is the opportunity to stand out further, expanding on the key information that was highlighted on your CV. This is a great opportunity to elaborate on points from your CV and add more detail or background but be careful not to ramble too much. Many candidates fall short here, as they naturally assume discussing their own CV required little to no preparation. This is a costly mistake, as they often get tangled in irrelevant points or not providing enough detail.

Time to impress face to face

When preparing for your interview, focus on these key areas:

• Previous experience
  Be prepared to expand further on your previous experience mentioned on your CV. Highlight key points that relate to the job specifications, company, sector, and business size.

• Research the company, thoroughly
  Prepare detailed, thoughtful questions, and go further than researching basic information. Check the website, LinkedIn page and recent News articles to prepare detailed, thoughtful questions - Have they recently gone through an acquisition? If so, how has this affected the finance team and business? Have they opened a new fund or portfolio? etc.

• Align your career path to the position and organisation
  Identify how you see this role helping you achieve your career goals.
  Where do you want this role to take you? How do you want to grow professionally? What skills do you possess that align well with succeeding in the position, such as strong communication skills, the ability to manage multiple tasks, or being tech-savvy with a passion for automating processes etc.?

• Relax and be yourself
  As nerve-wracking as interviews can be, try to relax and enjoy the experience; you won't get that 30 minutes to 1 hour back, so you might as well have some fun with it. Don't change or act differently to secure this role. Integrity and honesty are crucial components in any company, and often, you can sense the difference between authenticity and insincerity.

Ultimately, being able to stand out as the skilled, individual professional you are, will highlight how aligned you are with the role and company, and the person who typically gets the role is the one who best aligns with the team and company.

At Trace, we have always been passionate about assessment, and providing our clients with great candidates and candidates with roles they will thrive in. We meet every person we work with, ensuring time, money and motivation is saved for the applicants, businesses and roles which are most aligned.

We’re always looking to meet new accountancy and finance professionals. Take a look at the accountancy and finance roles we have live here and get in touch with the team to apply.