The full example
Everything below is fictional. The venues are described rather than named, and the achievements are the kind of thing a real duty manager does — written the way they should appear on a CV, not inflated.
Duty manager CV — example
Header
[Full Name] [Town, UK] · [phone] · [email]
Professional summary
Duty manager with five years in hotels, currently the senior person on site for evening and weekend shifts at a 150-bedroom hotel with a leisure club, a restaurant and a bar. Responsible for guest escalations, the cash-up across all outlets, the fire and emergency procedure and the handover to the morning team. First Aid at Work and fire marshal trained. Looking for a front office manager or operations manager role.
Core skills
Shift leadership across reception, F&B, housekeeping and leisure Guest escalation and service recovery · Overbooking and walk procedure Fire alarm response, evacuation and roll call · Incident reporting Cash-up and float reconciliation across outlets · Night safe and banking Keyholding, opening and closing · Lone working and security checks Written handover and shift log · Rota cover and sickness decisions Systems: Mews PMS, Zonal EPOS, fire panel and BMS alarms
Experience
Duty Manager — 150-bedroom hotel with leisure club, Bristol
Oct 2022 – present
· Senior person on site for evening and weekend shifts, covering reception,
the restaurant and bar, housekeeping late checks and the leisure club.
· Handle guest escalations the departments cannot close — room moves, billing
disputes, noise complaints — and record each one in the shift log.
· Run the end-of-day: cash-up and float reconciliation for every outlet, the
night safe, and the Mews end-of-day once reception has balanced.
· Lead the fire alarm procedure: investigate the panel, call evacuation when
needed, run the roll call at the assembly point and liaise with the fire
service. Took the hotel through two full evacuations and quarterly drills.
· Make the sickness and cover calls on the night, moving staff between
departments and calling in casuals against occupancy and the events diary.
Reception Supervisor — 90-bedroom hotel, Bath Mar 2020 – Sep 2022
· Ran the front desk across shifts with a team of six, including arrivals
briefings, overbooking decisions and the walk procedure on sold-out nights.
· Held the duty phone on late shifts when no manager was on site, and wrote
the overnight handover for the general manager.
· Reconciled reception takings and chased unpaid folios before departure.
Receptionist — 60-bedroom hotel, Swindon Jan 2019 – Feb 2020
· Check-in, check-out and reservations on the PMS, including group arrivals.
· Covered the bar on quiet evenings and ran the breakfast desk at weekends.Education and certifications
First Aid at Work (3-day) — 2023 Fire Marshal training — 2022 Personal Licence (APLH Level 2) — 2021 Level 2 Award in Food Safety in Catering — 2020 Level 2 Award in Health and Safety in the Workplace — 2021 Manual Handling — 2020 A-levels including Business Studies — 2018
Additional
Systems: Mews PMS, Zonal EPOS, fire panel and BMS alarm response Availability: evenings, weekends and bank holidays; driving licence
Templates that suit this example
- Modern Rail — A side rail holds certifications and systems where a hotel manager will look for them first.
- Essential Serif — Plain and legible, suited to a hotel group with a formal application process.
- Compact Scan — Short, scannable blocks for a CV that has to cover several departments in one page.
Want this structure with your own experience in it?
Build your duty manager CVWhy each section is written that way
Professional summary
- Why it matters.
- A duty manager is hired to be left in charge. The general manager reading your CV wants to know, in the first three lines, what size of site you have held alone and which problems you can be trusted to handle without a phone call.
- A strong version.
- The property, the departments you cover on a shift, what you own at end of day, your emergency responsibility and your safety training. Then the move you want to make.
- Common mistake.
- Describing yourself as a restaurant or reception manager who sometimes does duty shifts. If the summary does not say you are the senior person on site, the reader will assume you have not been.
Core skills
- Why it matters.
- Duty management has its own vocabulary — escalation, walk procedure, roll call, handover, cash-up, keyholding — and it cuts across departments. A skills list that only speaks one department’s language reads as a supervisor CV.
- A strong version.
- The cross-department responsibilities, the emergency and security duties, the end-of-day controls and the PMS and EPOS you close the day in.
- Common mistake.
- Filling the list with service adjectives. A duty manager is hired for judgement and procedure; show the procedures you hold.
Experience
- Why it matters.
- The title says little. A duty manager in a 60-bedroom hotel is a senior receptionist; one in a 300-bedroom conference hotel runs five departments overnight. Describe what you actually covered on a shift.
- A strong version.
- Property size, the departments and outlets under you, the shifts you held, and the specific things you own: escalations, cash-up, fire procedure, cover decisions, handover.
- Common mistake.
- Listing routine tasks from each department as if they were yours. The reader wants the judgement calls — a sold-out night, an evacuation, a complaint the restaurant could not close.
Emergency and safety responsibility
- Why it matters.
- When the alarm goes at 11pm, the duty manager is the fire procedure. A hotel cannot roster someone into the role without seeing that they have led one.
- A strong version.
- Fire marshal and First Aid at Work with years, a sentence on how you run an alarm — panel, investigation, evacuation call, roll call, fire service — and any drills or real evacuations you led.
- Common mistake.
- Treating the training as a tick box. "Fire safety aware" tells the reader nothing; having run a roll call for 200 guests tells them everything.
Certifications
- Why it matters.
- A duty manager is often the only person on site who can give first aid, authorise alcohol sales or sign off an incident report. The certifications are the job, not a bonus.
- A strong version.
- First Aid at Work, fire marshal, Personal Licence, Level 2 health and safety and food safety, manual handling — each with a year. Lead with first aid and fire, not with food safety.
- Common mistake.
- Holding emergency first aid (one day) and calling it First Aid at Work. Hotels check, and the three-day course is usually what the risk assessment requires.
If your experience looks different
Most people are not the candidate in the example. Three common situations, and what to change for each.
First duty manager role — moving up from reception or floor supervisor
Your summary. Name the step: "Reception supervisor with three years in a 90-bedroom hotel, holding First Aid at Work and APLH, looking for a first duty manager role." The reader assesses you on what you have held when no manager was in the building.
What to emphasise. Every time you were the senior person present — late shifts, holiday cover, the duty phone — plus keyholding, cash-up, overbooking decisions and any alarm you responded to.
Bullets you could adapt
- ·Held the duty phone on [X] late shifts a week when no manager was on site, writing the overnight handover.
- ·Reconciled the reception and bar takings and posted the night safe as keyholder.
- ·Responded to [X] fire alarm activations, investigating the panel and resetting or escalating by the procedure.
Certifications. First Aid at Work (3-day) and fire marshal training before you apply. They are the two things a hotel cannot roster a duty manager without.
Experienced duty manager — going for front office, operations or assistant GM
Your summary. Shift from holding the building to improving it. Lead with the property size, any GM cover you have given, the procedures you rewrote and the results that came from them.
What to emphasise. General manager cover, procedures you changed — closing, cash-up, handover, escalation — the KPIs you reported on, and the supervisors you coached.
Bullets you could adapt
- ·Covered the general manager for [X] weeks, holding the weekly revenue meeting and the labour review.
- ·Rewrote the closing and cash-up procedure, cutting the weekly discrepancies the finance team had to chase.
- ·Coached [X] supervisors through their first duty shifts with a written escalation guide and a debrief after each.
Certifications. IOSH Managing Safely, Level 3 food safety if you will own F&B, and mental health first aid — increasingly asked for in operations roles.
Moving into duty management from leisure, retail, security or the services
Your summary. Lead with the spine the job actually needs — being responsible for a site, a team and the public when something goes wrong — and name what is new: usually the PMS and the hotel vocabulary.
What to emphasise. Keyholding and lone-site responsibility, cash reconciliation, incident reporting, emergency procedures you have led, and any licensed or late-night experience.
Bullets you could adapt
- ·Keyholder for a [X]-member leisure centre, responsible for closing, alarm response and the incident log.
- ·Led the evacuation procedure for a retail unit of [X] staff, including the roll call and liaison with the fire service.
- ·Reconciled daily takings across [X] tills and investigated discrepancies before banking.
Certifications. First Aid at Work and fire marshal usually transfer straight across — put them on with dates. Add APLH if the venue serves alcohol; it is the one most career changers lack.
Next steps
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