Accounting Resume Examples to Help You Succeed

Accounting Resume Sample

Accounting is a term that refers to a variety of positions. To impress recruiters in this field, you’ll need to display more than just your accountant skills. You’ll need to know how to create a professional resume that highlights your best qualifications. Here are a few ways you can turn great accounting into a great accounting resume.

Types of Accounting Jobs

Generally, the resume tips on this page will work best for these and similar occupations:

• Certified Public Accountant (CPA)
• Senior accountant
• Entry-level accountant
• Staff accountant
• Accounting manager
• Financial analyst

If you predominantly work with an individual’s or corporation’s finances, then these tips should be of benefit. If your work leans more towards banking, however, then a banking resume might be more up your alley.

Important Elements of an Accounting Resumes

So, what should you showcase in a resume for an accounting position? You typically want hiring managers to understand you have both the technical skills necessary to manage accounts and the soft skills necessary to work with colleagues and interact with clients. Here’s how you can showcase these things and prove yourself to a potential employer.

Skills

Your skills section needs to showcase both hard and soft skills. Here are a few accounting-related skills in both categories you can use to flesh out your resume skills section:

• Financial reporting
• Microsoft Office Excel
• QuickBooks
• Account reconciliation
• Bookkeeping
• General ledger knowledge
• Reading financial statements
• Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP)
• Communication skills
• Time management

These are skills you can include throughout your resume as well, not just in your skills section. For instance, you can describe duties and accomplishments in your work history that make use of these skills (e.g., “Performed bookkeeping duties for firm handling 300 accounts” or “Managed account reconciliation for accounting firm with Fortune 500 clients”). Note how these examples use action verbs to energize them

Work Experience/Work History

Past experience in the accounting field helps hiring managers to know that you’ve succeeded here before, and you may be able to do it again. However, you can also spotlight jobs that might not be ordinarily associated with accounting as long as they relate to the job. For example, if you were a customer service representative but handled accounts payable and receivable records at a previous job, you can cite these experiences. You can also mention academic experience, volunteer experience, and internships, as long as they apply to the job you want.

Achievements and Awards

If you’ve ever won any awards for accounting, whether recognition through an external organization or recognition at an internal level, then you can list these on your resume. Depending on the resume format you use, you may even have a special section just to list achievements and awards.

Certifications

There are many certifications out there for accounting, including these:

• Certified Public Accountant
• Chartered Global Management Accountant
• Chartered Financial Analyst
• Certified Financial Services Auditor
• Certified Fraud Examiner

The above is just a sampling. Do some research into certifications common in your industry, and if you have them, list them on your resume.

Accounting Resume Examples You Can Use

If you want to know how to start your accounting resume, then look no further than the ResumeHelp resume builder. Not only can this resume builder help you with your resume writing, but you can also find over 50,000 different resume examples to use for your resume writing process. This can help you get the perfect resume by discovering accounting resume samples to base your resume on.

Tips for Creating Your Accounting Resume

• Include as many resume keywords as possible. More and more frequently, companies are using applicant tracking systems (ATS) to screen resumes before they get to a hiring manager, and including keywords – the important skills and requirements for a job that are mentioned in the job posting – in your resume will ensure it gets through an ATS scan.
• Tailor your education section to your resume. If you have a degree in something that isn’t related to accounting, then you can still list it; but, try to showcase coursework that could be beneficial to your accounting position.
• Be specific when listing your key achievements. Don’t be vague and write, “Increased customer returns.” Use numbers to illustrate your accomplishments, and describe the role you played. For example: “Created a process that allowed the firm to increase customer returns by 25%”.