Staff Accountant Resume

If you’re detail-oriented and love handling the finances of a business —analyzing balance sheets, making journal entries, tracking cash flows, and making budget projections — then staff accountant might be the perfect role for you.

Every company values a good staff accountant because poor money management often leads to a business’s failure. This value translates into actual income, with staff accountants enjoying job security and higher salaries.

However, getting a job as a staff accountant isn’t easy. You need to showcase your professional accounting skills, achievements, and necessary qualifications in a way that convinces employers you’re the best fit for the job.

Here are four resume-writing tips to help you write an effective staff accountant resume:

1. Highlight your staff accountant resume skills and certifications

The ideal staff accountant candidate possesses advanced computer skills, such as knowledge of accounting software, enterprise resource planning, financial analysis, and tax preparation.

To show employers you’re the right fit for the role, your resume’s skill section should touch upon your staff accountant-related achievements and skills.

Here is a list of key skills and certifications to add to your staff accountant resume:

• Certified Public Accountant
• Financial Planning & Analysis
• Cost Accounting
• Bachelor’s/Master’s Degree in Accounting (put in your education section)
• Accounting Management
• SAS
• Proficient in MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
• Intuit QuickBooks
• Salesforce
• QlikView
• Tableau
• Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft Access
• Time management skills
• Communication
• Data entry software
• Microsoft Dynamics
• SAP
• Swift
• R
• Unix
• Microsoft Project
• Google Docs

2. Add hard numbers to your achievements

Daily tasks for a staff accountant include making journal entries, creating budget projections, and tracking cash flows, and all of these responsibilities are tied up in numbers.

A hiring manager will thus evaluate your staff accountant resume in terms of the quantifiable impact you had on your previous companies. They’ll be looking for details like the dollar amount you saved, how your work impacted the business’s profitability, and how many projects you advised on.

In your resume experience section, quantify your accomplishments with hard numbers whenever possible.

Here are some examples of how you can quantify your achievements on your staff accountant resume:

Realized $2M savings in annual costs by identifying and fixing a recurring error in the accounting system

Managed client billing to vendors, ensuring the accuracy by comparing PO to invoices, and conducting bank/credit card reconciliations with 1,000+ transactions

3. Include strong action verbs related to accounting

Staff accountants perform a host of tasks that help a business run smoothly.

Including strong action verbs in your staff accountant resume will help better capture your ability to keep things level, plus they also better highlight your accounting-related achievements and accomplishments (which is a bonus).

Below are some strong action verbs for a staff accountant resume:

• Handle
• Audit
• Manage
• Develop
• Reconcile
• Prepare
• Distribute
• Process
• Assist
• Update
• Present
• Analyze
• Report
• Supervise
• Collect
• Inspect
• Advise

4. Open with a strong staff accountant resume summary

Given the stiff competition in this field, a staff accountant resume summary is the quickest way to stand out among other candidates.

A resume summary is a 2-3 sentence introduction at the start of your resume that briefly conveys your most important professional achievements to the hiring manager.

A well-written resume summary includes basic information like your current job title, your experience in the industry, and your primary responsibilities.

You should also add notable projects, achievements, skills, and qualifications to quickly prove your ability to handle the responsibilities of a staff accounting position.

Having an effective staff manager resume summary is crucial because many hiring managers take just 7 seconds to decide whether they’d continue reading a resume.

Here’s an example of an effective staff accountant resume summary:

Staff Accountant with 5+ years of experience in full-cycle accounting management. Proven track in developing and implementing accounting and financial systems, processes, and controls that enhance business profitability.