Accountant Resume Example

Follow these five resume writing tips to create a winning accountant resume that reflects your professional background, skills, and expertise in managing a company’s finances.

1. Prominently display your education & certifications

Having a widely recognized certification in accounting improves your resume and helps land you better jobs.

If you’re a corporate banker, comptroller, treasurer, or another accounting specialist, your resume should accurately reflect your knowledge, so research the types of accounting certifications and list the certifications you’ve earned on your resume.

Becoming a certified professional accountant (CPA) or certified management accountant (CMA) is highly regarded, while other certifications like certified quality auditor or accredited tax advisor give you an edge in niche industries.

If you want employers to notice your certifications, list them in a separate Awards and Certifications or Licenses and Certifications section so they’re highly visible.

You can also list your certifications in your education section if you want to save space on your resume and draw attention to your schooling and previous work experiences instead.

Every accounting certification you have requires the following information:

• Name of the certification
• Name of the organization that awarded it
• Date earned
• Exam score (if relevant)
• If completed in-person, the location (city, state)
• If completed online, just write “Online Course”

If you’re currently studying for your CPA or working toward another certification, write “In Progress” next to the name of the certification you’re completing, and include the date you’ll complete it:

• Name of the certification (in progress)
• Name of the organization that will award it
• Prospective date of completion
• If you’re completing it in-person, the location (city, state)
• If you’re completing it online, just write “Online Course”

Here’s an example from our applicant’s certification section:

Certified Public Accountant
American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA)
Passed in 2014
Score: 98/99

2. Make a strong argument with your resume objective

The resume objective is a classic way to start a powerful resume. A strong resume objective consists of two to four sentences and introduces hiring managers to your professional background in accounting.

Here is the resume objective from the above accounting resume sample:

Certified Public Accountant with 6+ years of experience of ledger processes, reconciliations and streamlining reports. Possess an MBA. Seeking to leverage my professional expertise and experience into a managerial role as a corporate banker.

Include these important pieces of information to create a persuasive and concise resume objective:

1. how many years of experience you have as an accountant and the main duties you’ve performed
2. the highest degree you hold and your certifications
3. which role you want to fill and why you’d be a good choice

Place your resume objective at the top of your accounting resume so employers will notice it right away and decide whether they’ll continue reading.

3. Show you have the essential accounting skills

Hard and soft skills are essential if you want to work in a financial team and advance professionally, so include these key skills on your resume to show the hiring manager you’ll succeed as an accountant.

The basic accounting skills required for an accountant include more technical skills than many other professions, so mention your hard skills.

Hard skills are essential for accountants, and are learned from schooling, training, or practical experience.

For instance, if you specialize in a particular branch of accounting, then include the relevant technical accounting skills on your resume, such as auditing or performing a facilitated risk analysis process (FRAP).

You also need advanced math skills because errors can end up costing a company a lot of money.

Additionally, include your strong computer skills to do the job effectively. List your knowledge of spreadsheet software such as QuickBooks, and experience with using operating systems such as Windows or MacOS.

These are other hard skills for accountants:

• Knowledge of financial regulations
• Industry reporting principles
• Bookkeeping analytics software (Mosaic, Oracle Essbase)
• Payroll processing (ADP, Paychex)
• Enterprise resource planning (Microsoft Dynamics, SAP ERP)
• Financial reporting
• Cost analysis
• Language skills

Soft skills are also important for accountants. Soft skills relate to your work ethic and how you interact with others at the workplace.

For example, you require strong organizational skills to keep up with project deadlines and stay motivated. You must also properly file paperwork (in both physical and digital forms) like receipts and invoices.

If you plan to work as an accountant for private clients, mention your customer service skills. Remaining patient when your client is being unclear about a problem or when they don’t understand your explanation is an asset.

Additionally, excellent communication skills will help you progress in your accounting career. Communicating well is important because accountants often work with several clients or within a team.

Here’s a list of other important soft skills for accountants:

• Interpersonal skills
• Leadership skills
• Management skills
• People skills
• Teamwork skills
• Problem solving skills
• Trustworthiness
• Professionalism
• Time management skills
• Critical observation
• Analytical skills

4. Use hard numbers to quantify your professional experience

Accounting is a numbers-based profession, and your accounting resume needs to reflect that.

Above all, your resume should showcase your best resume accomplishments, so use hard numbers to provide evidence of your achievements and show employers you’re comfortable working with large numbers, data, and budgets.

Below are some examples of ways to use hard numbers to quantify your accounting resume:

• size of the budgets you managed
• amount of any investments you’ve managed, and how profitable they were
• net worth of the company you’ve worked for, and what your main duties were
• size of the investments you’ve reconciled
• number of the contracts you’ve negotiated
• amount of money you’ve saved or earned the company by applying your knowledge, experience, and efforts

The candidate in the accountant resume sample uses hard numbers to enhance their resume in these three bullet points:

• Trained and supervised 2 new employees, ensuring they maintain high attention to detail
• Create 10+ financial reports per week and support all areas of responsibility within a 5-person finance team
• Manage a $350,000 budget, with a reduction of costs totaling 15% over 2 years

By using hard numbers, employers can see that this applicant has worked with large budgets and helped their previous company significantly reduce costs.

5. Use key action verbs

Include resume action verbs in your accounting resume to add depth, clarity, and purpose to your work history.

Action verbs make great openers for experience bullet points because they provide employers with more details about your previous roles and make you sound like a confident applicant. Here’s an example of a strong action verb from our resume sample:

• Forecast losses and earnings using quantitative/qualitative analyses to a high degree of accuracy, allowing the company to intelligently manage and invest resources valued at $14 million

A descriptive action verb like “forecast” gives hiring managers a clear idea of the applicant’s work tasks and shows that the applicant is highly analytical and careful with numbers.

Try replacing generic sounding verbs like “used” or “worked” with powerful accounting-related verbs to make more of an impact on employers. Here’s our list of action verbs for accounting resumes: