Business and finance

Financial Manager in the United States

137 postings read · sampled 2026-09-01 · source ats

What employers actually ask for

Credentials named in the 137 postings we read, ranked by how many mentioned each one.

CPAAICPA / State Boards of Accountancy
20%
28 of 137 postings$1,500 exam · fee checked 2026-08~400 hrs prepAICPA / State Boards of Accountancy →
Bachelor's DegreeAccredited institution
16%
22 of 137 postingsAccredited institution →
Master's DegreeAccredited institution
15%
20 of 137 postingsAccredited institution →
CFA Level ICFA Institute
5%
7 of 137 postings$1,290 exam · fee checked 2026-08~300 hrs prepCFA Institute →

What it costs

Exam and application fees plus typical self-study hours. Almost nobody needs every credential on this list — start with the top line.

Most-asked-for, on its own

$1,500CPA · ~400 hrs

asked for in 28 of 137 postings — 20%

If you earned all 2 of them

$2,790

fees checked 2026-08

700 hrs

700 hours — over a year at 10 hrs/wk

Not in the total: Bachelor's Degree — cost varies by institution; Master's Degree — cost varies by institution.

Lower signal for this role

Credentials that barely appeared in this sample. That is not a claim they are worthless — plenty are valuable for a different job, a different city, or a promotion later. It is a claim that employers here mostly did not ask.

PMPProject Management Institute
2%
3 of 137 postings$555 exam · fee checked 2026-08~200 hrs prepProject Management Institute →
Secret Security ClearanceU.S. Government (DCSA)
1%
1 of 137 postingsU.S. Government (DCSA) →

What the official taxonomy says

O*NET surveys people already doing this job. That describes who got hired over a long window, not what employers are asking for now — where it disagrees with the counts above, the counts are the more current answer.

Education reported by people doing this job

56%reported bachelor’s degree

Bachelor’s degree56%
Post-baccalaureate certificate21%
High school diploma or equivalent14%

Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed. Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.

O*NET 11-3031.00 · pulled 2026-09-01 · percentages are of surveyed workers, each rounded separately, so they need not total 100

What it pays

BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. A different survey from the postings above, so the two do not share a sample.

$94,310

10th percentile

$166,570

median

$323,270

90th percentile

Every credential above costs $2,790 — about 4 days' pay at the median.

Who was hiring

Employers with at least one matching posting in this sample.

Anduril Industries · Stripe · Coinbase · Anthropic · Databricks · Murgado Automotive Group · OpenAI · Bosch · Brex · HelloFresh · Pinterest · Scale AI · Affirm · Checkr · City of New York · Current · Decagon · GitLab · Harbinger Motors · Latitude Inc · Lyft · McWane Inc · MongoDB · Samsara · SpaceX · Tomra · Verkada · Advanced Technology Group · Agility Robotics · Apptronik · Attentive · Boyd Gaming · Cogent Talent Solutions · Collabera · Crestwood Behavioral Health · Elastic · Elite Dental Partners · Faire · Fanatics Commerce · Flexport · Focus Financial Partners · Headway · Instacart · Instawork · Integrated Resources Inc · J&J Snack Foods · Klaviyo · Kodiak Robotics · Lucid Motors · Luminis Health · Mercer Advisors · Mercury · Multiverse · Notion · Parent Network · Postman · Premier Truck Group · PSI CRO · Ramp · Reddit · Redwood Materials · Relativity Space · Robinhood · SBT Global · Scout Motors · Sierra · SoFi · SpawGlass · Stem Xpert · Success Academy Charter Schools · System Canada Technologies · Toast · Torc Robotics · Traeger Grills · Turing · Ursa Major Technologies · Vercel · Zoox

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