General Manager CV Examples & Writing Guide

This sample is for a general manager with 14 years in operations, the last six as GM of a four-depot equipment hire business. Before that he ran operations for a distribution branch and was deputy GM of a full-service hotel, which is a common path: GMs often cross industries because the job is the P&L, the people and the customers, not the product. The name and employers are made up.

GM searches are usually run by an owner, a regional director or a retained executive search firm. They spend the first 20 seconds answering four questions, and the CV either answers them on page one or goes in the maybe pile.

• How big was it? Revenue, P&L size, number of sites or units, headcount, fleet or room count, floor space. They are matching your scope to theirs. A £12M single-site GM will not be shortlisted for a £160M region of a FTSE 250 group, and a £160M GM will be seen as a flight risk for a £12M SME unless the personal statement explains the move.
• Did the numbers move? Revenue, margin or EBITDA, cost per unit, staff turnover, accident rates, customer scores, audit results. Direction and size, with a time frame.
• Who did they lead and who did they report to? Direct reports by title, total headcount, and whether you reported to an owner, a board, a regional director or a parent group. Board or owner reporting is a plus at GM level, and if you are a statutory director, say so: it is on the public register at Companies House.
• Is the industry close enough? Hotel, restaurant or pub, retail, distribution, manufacturing, services. GMs do cross over, but the personal statement must say why the skills transfer (same labour model, same margin structure, same customer type).

“The first thing I look for is the size of the P&L and how many people. Then I want two or three numbers that got better and the years they got better in. A GM CV without a financial figure on the first page tells me the person did not really own the results.”

At GM level use a personal statement, not a career objective. An objective ("seeking a challenging general manager role") wastes the most valuable three lines on the page. A personal statement gives scope, tenure, two results and the industry. If you are changing industries, add one clause on why the move makes sense. Examples:

Most GM CVs fail the same way: the bullets describe responsibilities ("oversaw all operations") instead of results. Every bullet should follow the pattern: what changed, by how much, over what period, and how. Below are rewrites drawn from real GM duties.

Keep the skills section to 10 to 14 items and make them the things a GM is measured on. Recruiters skip generic soft-skill lists ("leadership, communication, problem solving"). Show those in the bullets instead.

Financial and commercial:

• P&L ownership, annual budgeting and monthly forecasting
• EBITDA, gross margin and cost-per-unit management
• Pricing, key account management and contract negotiation
• Capex planning and business cases for new sites or equipment
• Cash management: debtor days, stock turns, working capital

Operations and people:

• Multi-site or multi-department leadership; direct reports by title
• Recruitment, performance management, succession planning and retention programmes
• Labour scheduling and productivity models
• Health and safety: HSE compliance, RIDDOR reporting, accident frequency rates, employers' liability insurance cost
• Quality and brand standards: audits, inspections, franchisor or brand relationships
• Lean, Six Sigma or continuous improvement tools

Systems (name the ones you used): ERP or accounting (NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, Sage), property management systems for hotels (Opera), EPOS and back-office for restaurants and retail (Lightspeed, Zonal, Oracle MICROS), workforce management (Fourth, UKG) and reporting (Excel, Power BI, Tableau). Systems matter more than most GMs think, because the hiring company wants to know how much retraining you need.

No licence is required to be a general manager in the UK. Education and qualifications are secondary to results, so they go near the end of the CV, but a few of them carry weight in specific industries.

• A degree in business, hospitality, engineering or a related field is expected by many larger employers, but plenty of UK GMs worked their way up without one. An MBA helps for larger P&Ls and group roles; list it with the year. A CMI or ILM management qualification at Level 5 or 7 shows formal training, and Chartered Manager (CMgr) status from the Chartered Management Institute is the senior credential. With no degree but 15 years of results, put education last and let the numbers speak; owner-run SMEs rarely care.
• Restaurant and pub GMs: a Level 3 food safety and hygiene certificate (Level 4 for multi-site roles) and a personal licence, because most operators need the GM to be the designated premises supervisor. List each with the year. Allergen awareness training is now a standard line too.
• Hotel GMs: membership of the Institute of Hospitality (MIH or FIH) is the recognised UK professional credential. Brand-specific GM programmes (completed through the franchisor) also belong here, and the US Certified Hotel Administrator (CHA) is recognised by international brands if you hold it.
• Operations, distribution and manufacturing GMs: Lean Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt, lean certifications, PRINCE2 or an APM qualification for capital-project-heavy roles, and the NEBOSH General Certificate or IOSH Managing Safely. CIPS or CILT qualifications if you came up through procurement or logistics.
• Retail GMs: brand or franchisor leadership programmes, retail management qualifications such as a Level 5 apprenticeship or CMI award, and loss prevention or licensing training if your stores sell age-restricted products.

• Two pages is normal and expected for a GM with 10+ years. One page if you are stepping up from operations manager or deputy GM with under 10 years. Never three.
• Order: header with a title line ("General Manager | Multi-Site Restaurant Operations"), a 3–4 line personal statement, an optional line of 4–6 key metrics ("£35M P&L · 4 sites · 85 employees · EBITDA 18% to 24%"), experience, education and qualifications, then skills or systems.
• For each job put the scope in the company line: revenue, sites, headcount, rooms, covers or floor space. Then 4–6 bullets for current and recent roles, 2–3 for older ones, one line each for anything over 15 years back.
• A clean single-column layout like the cvplex executive-black template reads well on screen and passes applicant tracking software. Avoid two-column layouts, photos, charts and skill-rating bars.
• Use "General Manager" as your header title even if your company called it Unit Manager, Site Leader, Branch Manager or Head of Department, as long as you owned the P&L. Keep the official title in the experience entry.
• No career objective, no references line, no full home address (town or city is enough), no photo, no date of birth.
• Export to PDF unless the recruiter asks for Word (executive search firms often do, so they can reformat it for the client).

Keywords to mirror from the advert when they apply: general manager, P&L, EBITDA, revenue growth, operating budget, multi-site, headcount, direct reports, staff turnover, retention, guest satisfaction or NPS, on-time delivery, health and safety, RIDDOR, HSE, compliance, KPIs, forecasting, capex, supplier negotiation, new site opening, board reporting, and the industry's own terms (RevPAR, GP, like-for-like sales, utilisation, OEE).