Cost Manager Resume Example & Writing Guide
Use this Cost Manager resume example and guide to improve your career and write a powerful resume that will separate you from the competition.
As a cost manager or cost analyst, you’re responsible for managing the budget for a company or department. You work with stakeholders across different departments to identify areas of waste or inefficiency, then come up with ways to reduce costs while maintaining quality.
If you love analyzing data, finding solutions, and making things more efficient, then cost management could be the perfect role for you. Here’s some tips and an example to help you write a cost manager resume that hiring managers will love.
How to Write a Cost Manager Resume
Here’s how to write a resume of your own.
Write Compelling Bullet Points
Bullet points are the most important part of your resume because they’re the first thing recruiters and hiring managers will see. And they’re the best way to showcase your experience and qualifications.
So it’s important to use them to their full potential. And that means using them to describe your accomplishments and results. So rather than saying you “managed budgets,” you could say you “managed $10M annual budget to reduce costs by 15% while maintaining quality of services provided.”
The second bullet point is much stronger because it provides specific numbers and details about what you did and the results of your work.
Identify and Include Relevant Keywords
When you apply for a cost manager role, your resume will likely be scanned by an applicant tracking system (ATS) for certain keywords. ATS programs rank resumes based on the relevance of each applicant’s skills and experience to the specific job opening. If your resume doesn’t include enough of the right keywords, your application might not make it past the initial screening process.
To increase your chances of getting an interview, use this list of cost manager keywords as a starting point to help you identify the most relevant skills and experience to include on your resume:
- Cost Management
- Cross-functional Team Leadership
- Manufacturing
- Project Planning
- Lean Manufacturing
- Supply Chain Management
- Cost Analysis
- Root Cause Analysis
- Six Sigma
- Process Improvement
- Negotiation
- Program Management
- Budgeting
- Account Management
- Procurement
- Management
- Business Process Improvement
- Team Leadership
- Forecasting
- Cost Reduction
- Materials Management
- Business Process Design
- Energy
- Engineering
- Construction
- Contract Management
- Energy Management
- Operations Management
- Project Management
- Change Management
Showcase Your Technical Skills
As a cost manager, you need to be proficient in a variety of software programs in order to effectively do your job. This might include project management software, cost estimation software, and scheduling software. You should also be familiar with accounting software and spreadsheet software, like Microsoft Excel. If you have experience with any of these programs, be sure to list them in your technical skills section.