If you are an accountant looking for a new job, you might face a lot of competition from other candidates with similar qualifications and experience. How can you make your resume stand out and impress potential employers? Here are some tips on how to tailor your accounting resume to showcase your skills, achievements, and personality.
The format of your resume should match the type of accounting job you are applying for and the expectations of the industry. For example, if you are seeking a public accounting position, you might want to use a chronological resume that highlights your education, certifications, and work history. If you are aiming for a corporate accounting role, you might prefer a functional resume that emphasizes your skills, projects, and accomplishments. You can also use a combination resume that blends both approaches and showcases your most relevant qualifications.
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Having helped several professionals in critiquing and creating a bespoke resume, one thing I always advise is to: see your cv as a tool to push yourself ahead of others, and while you try to blow your trumpet, let your CV speak for you. Try not to bore the recruiting team/the employer. Your CV must command RESPECT.
One of the ways to tailor your accounting resume is to use keywords and action verbs that match the job description and the accounting standards. Keywords are specific terms and phrases that employers use to filter and scan resumes, such as GAAP, CPA, audit, tax, budget, or reconciliation. Action verbs are strong words that describe your skills and achievements, such as prepared, analyzed, reported, advised, or improved. You can use keywords and action verbs throughout your resume, especially in your summary, skills, and experience sections.
Another way to tailor your accounting resume is to highlight your achievements and results, rather than just listing your duties and responsibilities. Achievements and results are concrete and measurable outcomes that demonstrate your value and impact as an accountant. For example, instead of saying that you managed accounts payable and receivable, you can say that you reduced invoice errors by 15% and improved cash flow by 20%. You can use numbers, percentages, or dollar amounts to quantify your achievements and results.
You should highlight what problem you have solved, the nature of the problem your approach and the result. Others will learn and it will make you standout.
My advise to accountants is to highlight examples they have hit a MSA (Made, Saved, or Achieved) milestone in their career. To elaborate anytime you have made a process improvement or enhancement and the resulting cost savings or a time savings for the company, using a quantifiable result as the metric to share on the resume. For example if the month end close process was 20 days long when you started at the company and you were able to shorten this time down to 5 days by implementing procedures such as pre-closing and introducing checklists to help streamline the process you would want to highlight that. Also any achievements, or awards that you are proud of while you were employed are important to highlight.
Your summary and objective are the first sections that employers see on your resume, so you want to make them catchy and relevant. Your summary is a brief statement that summarizes your main qualifications and goals as an accountant. Your objective is a short sentence that states your specific career intention and interest in the job. You can customize your summary and objective by using keywords from the job description, highlighting your unique skills and strengths, and expressing your enthusiasm and motivation.
The last tip on how to tailor your accounting resume is to show your personality and fit with the company culture and values. You can do this by adding some personal touches to your resume, such as hobbies, interests, or volunteer work. You can also use a professional and friendly tone to convey your communication style and attitude. You want to show that you are not only a qualified accountant, but also a person who can fit in and contribute to the team and the organization.
Make sure there are no mistakes, especially typos on the resume. You do need to qualify for the position you are seeking, however, it is amazing how many resumes I see with errors. From the interviewer's perspective, if you can't get your own resume correct then how can I trust you to get the client's work correct. A good cover letter is a plus and if all went well then a follow up email after the interview is a clincher.
Your resume is a sales statement to hiring mangers, most hiring managers will glance at a resume for a few seconds to see it warrants longer consideration. With this in mind, ensure that the job titles, companies and dates follow a format that allows the viewers eyes to snap from one role to another and clearly see when you were promoted within a company as opposed when you moved to another company. When you abide by these guidelines and have a crisp cleanly formatted resume, without typos or mistakes you will find you get more call backs. This way you are assisting the hiring manager in clearly understand your expereince and how your experience could transfer.