Accounting Resume Sample

If you are a certified public accountant (CPA), you will most likely already have a good deal of job experience as an accountant by the time you write your first resume identifying yourself as such.

The resume above is a good example of how to leverage that experience to get that bigger, better job you want. Let’s examine some of the particulars:

1. Nail the objective statement.

Your prospective new employer is less interested in what you hope to get from them than what you can do for them. If you want to catch their attention with your resume objective statement, it should reflect that. Let’s look at the example above sentence-by-sentence:

– Licensed Certified Public Accountant with over 6 years of experience.

It is also a good idea to let the employer know what amount of experience you have. More about this in 2.

– Member of the AICPA and NYSSCPA seeking to apply diverse accounting and administrative knowledge as a supervising accountant at your company.

This second sentence identifies several strong qualifications to the employer. Membership in the AICPA or state CPA association for your particular state strongly suggests your reputability and integrity as an accountant. If you are not a member of such an association, consider becoming one.

This sentence also mentions administrative experience, which makes the candidate stand out for the specific position (supervising accountant) being applied for.

– Possess a B.S. in Accounting from a top-50 accounting school.

As a CPA you will have to have had at least one year of college in addition to the four your bachelor’s degree required.

There is a good chance that the person reading your resume doesn’t know as much about schooling for accountants as you do

However, since lots of different kinds of businesses need accountants, unless you are applying to an accounting firm, there is a good chance that the person reading your resume doesn’t know as much about schooling for accountants as you do–including that the school you attended is a top school for accounting.

Therefore, it is a good idea to mention your degree anyway, along with any additional information about your education that will make you stand out as an applicant (did you graduate cum laude? Did you write a thesis related to the field of business of the company you are applying to?).

2. Quantify, quantify, quantify.

As an accountant, you’re no stranger to numbers and should have no shortage of them to draw upon for your resume. Your employer will know by your title that you–like any accountant–provide assurance services and supervise clients’ finances.

What they will want to know about you is how much money you’re used to managing and how well you managed it. Provide figures wherever you can.

– Manage multiple client accounts totaling over $75 million. Created budget surpluses for nearly one third of clients by eliminating operational redundancies

This applicant worked in an HR firm and was responsible for overseeing in-house finances as well as clients’ finances. By listing the figures separately, the applicant gives an idea both the size of the company for which he or she worked, as well as the size of the clients’ businesses.

– Tracked metrics and performance indicators.

– Managed stock portfolio worth over $35million, increasing returns by 5% annually

– Identified several applicable tax credits resulting in tax savings totaling over $14,000 annually

– Identified several operational inefficiencies, boosting performance and drawing in several new clients leading to a total bottom-line increase of 12% annually

The final bullet-point is almost just a restatement of the previous three, but it adds additional information in the form of the total bottom-line increase the previous points resulted in for the company.

You may also have noticed that every bullet-point begins with a verb: rather than being “responsible for accounts totaling over $X million,” or being “In charge of [other accountants],” the applicant “managed” those accounts and “coordinate[s]” those other accountants.

The bottom line is that your resume should focus on actions and results.

3. Enhance your points with adjectives

One of the best ways to emphasize the points in your resume is to enhance them with adjectives. We’ve compiled some of the best adjectives for accounting below:

Accurate	Dependable	Focused	Precise
Calculating	Detail-oriented	Methodical	Professional
Comprehensive	Economical	Meticulous	Qualified
Cost-effective	Exact	Perceptive	Thorough

 

For more details check out our in-depth guide and list of 135 resume adjectives.

If you have more questions about how to write an accounting resume, head on over to our guide on how to write a resume.

You could also give our free resume builder a try!