Advancing a career in accounting can be extremely rewarding – both professionally and personally. If you are financially motivated, have a knack for numbers and details, and enjoy working with people, then a career in accounting may be the perfect fit for you.

Yet, as with any career path, particular challenges come with entering or progressing in the accounting realm. It can involve everything from nailing down the right job position to ensuring you maintain accurate financial records.

One of the first dilemmas you’ll encounter is how to craft the perfect resume to set you apart from the rest.

If you’re here to learn the art of the perfect accounting industry resume, you’ve come to the right place. Keep reading for resume tips, tricks, and a before-and-after example that will help you get your dream job in accounting. The good news is The Perfect Resume team are accounting industry resume writing experts, catering for graduates and students through to senior managers with years of experience.

MEET OUR STUCK-TENURED ACCOUNTANT

Not many accounting newbies know that even those on top and equipped with years of accounting industry exposure can experience hurdles along their careers. It can include everything from managing demanding clients to unexpected changes in legislation. The worst? Career stagnation! 

For our resume example, we’ll be taking a closer look at ‘Stuck Corporate Accountant,’ Jayne, who has been in the industry for nearly 2 decades but hasn’t progressed as much as she’d like. Jayne has been considering a move for a while, but she wasn’t sure if her resume would be good enough to help her land the role she wanted, a more senior role. The main problem is that she has not updated her resume for over 10 years.

A resume should never be a document that you write and forget about. As your career progresses and you gain more experience, your resume should evolve too. So, clearly, Jayne’s resume is in need of a refresh to ensure it accurately reflects her skills, knowledge, and achievements. She needs a tailored document that would communicate to potential employers that she is indeed an expert in the accounting niche and that she can handle more responsibility, not as a mere accountant but as a finance business partner.

THE PROBLEMS WITH THE ORIGINAL ACCOUNTING RESUME

Creating an accounting industry resume can be tricky. Even with years of experience in the field, many accountants still struggle with putting together a resume or CV that accurately demonstrates what they have done and what they are able to do. It can simply be because they simply don’t know what potential employers are looking for or how to structure their resumes to make them stand out, just like Jayne.

Jayne came to The Perfect Resume team and shared her burdens about her career and her resume or CV. To help her, we took a detailed investigation into her existing resume and quickly identified the areas that needed improvement. Here are some of the problems our professional resume writers and career coaches found:

• Outdated information

A resume or CV updated in the Summer of 2012 will surely not get you far in 2022. In fact, a lot can change in just 2 years, let alone 10! This means that any information included in Jayne’s resume is likely to be deemed by hiring decision-makers as outdated and irrelevant today. Apart from that, an outdated resume displays Jayne as someone stuck in the past and not keeping up with the latest industry trends and developments.

• Filled with position description kind of information

When it comes to resumes, less is more. Jayne’s resume is full of position descriptions that don’t really say much about her as a professional. It reads more like a job ad than an effective marketing tool designed to convince the reader that she is the best candidate for the role.

• Exposure to age bias

Our expert here has been in the accounting industry for a long time, and her resume reflects that. As a matter of fact, she kickstarted her career in the 90s, and she has been in her most recent role, which commenced in 2010. This kind of work experience, while impressive, may also be a turn-off for some employers who are looking for someone with more recent and relevant experience. In other words, Jayne’s resume may be exposing her to age discrimination, which narrows her job search options.

• A resume design and layout that hurt the eye

When Jayne originally sent The Perfect Resume team her resume or CV and cover letter, it was clear that the document hadn’t been updated in a while and that it was created using an old version of Microsoft Word. The resume was text-heavy, and the layout made it difficult to skim through and identify Jayne’s key strengths at a glance.

• Missing metrics and accomplishments

Numbers are crucial in accounting, and the same goes for resumes. Jayne’s resume lacked any tangible evidence of her accomplishments and impact on current and previous employers. Without hard data to back up her claims, Jayne was just another accountant with no way of proving that she was better than any other candidate vying for the role.

FROM STUCK TO STARSTRUCK: TRANSFORMING AN ACCOUNTANT’S CV INTO A JOB-WINNING DOCUMENT

Jayne’s existing resume wasn’t doing her any favours in her job search. It was outdated, full of position descriptions, and lacked any metrics or accomplishments to demonstrate her value as a professional. To help her get unstuck, our team of professional resume writers and career coaches went to work and crafted a brand-new document that would help her stand out from the competition and land her dream job.

Here’s what The Perfect Resume team did:

• The Perfect Resume team took Jayne’s existing resume and gave it a complete makeover. We started off by letting her know that she only had 6 seconds to make an excellent first impression and win her potential employer. Impossible? Well, it isn’t! It is something Jayne, and YOU can achieve by having an attention-snatching yet ATS-friend resume template and design. So, we showed her our expert-formulated resume layouts prescribed for accounting professionals. Jayne chose a modern, sleek template to help her resume stand out from the rest. 
• To eliminate the exposure to age bias, our team of professional resume writers and career coaches strategised together to work on her resume’s content. We stripped off any information that may give her readers a hint of her age. We only included the experiences, roles, and responsibilities relevant to the accounting positions she is targeting.
• We replaced Jayne’s dull position descriptions with punchy statements about her roles’ key responsibilities and accomplishments. We also made sure to back up these claims with metrics and data. Alas, humdrum job description information, begone!

THE ART OF THE PERFECT ACCOUNTING RESUME: A BEFORE AND AFTER TRANSFORMATION

To see is to believe! Below is a before-and-after comparison of Jayne’s accounting resume. Witness how The Perfect Resume team was able to take a tenured yet stuck accountant’s resume and turn it into a job-winning document:

Accounting Resume Example (Before)

Accounting Resume Example (After)

As you can see, The Perfect Resume team was able to take Jayne’s existing resume and give it a complete makeover. Today, Jayne’s new resume is now a powerful marketing tool that boosted her confidence and chances of bagging more rewarding accounting positions. As a matter of fact, with her professional and ATS-friendly design, as well as content highlighting her key strengths and achievement, our stuck accountant landed her dream job as a Finance Business Partner and Senior Accountant.

YOUR DREAM ACCOUNTING CAREER IS JUST A CLICK AWAY WITH THE PERFECT RESUME

If you’re a tenured accounting professional who is feeling stuck in your career or a fresh accounting graduate who doesn’t know where to start, don’t worry! The Perfect Resume is here to help you craft a job-winning accounting resume that will get you closer to your dream accounting career.

Our team of professional resume writers and career coaches have extensive experience in both the accounting and human resources industries. We know what accounting recruiters and hiring managers are looking for in a resume, so we can help you highlight your key strengths and accomplishments in the most effective way possible.

With the help of experts, you can be sure that your accounting resume will pass the 6-second test and make it through the applicant tracking system. More importantly, your accounting resume will help you stand out from the competition and land your dream accounting job.

So, what are you waiting for? Make sure to click here and select your current accounting industry-focused role or the function you are going for. From there, book our resume/CV writing service to get you one step closer to your dream accounting career! Don’t be contented reading other people’s success stories – start writing your own today with The Perfect Resume!