By the end of this article you will know how to write a professional resume, how to optimize every section and how to make your resume a job winning staff accountant resume! Let's go!
Professional Staff Accountant Resume Guidelines
Do you want to ensure your staff accountant resume is a professional staff accountant resume? Well than you need to follow some guidelines to write a professional staff accountant resume!
- Use past tense, third person
- Proofread and remove errors
- Use simple format- Word or PDF
- Label document simply with your name
- Use as many numbers and action verbs as possible
Research
Before we go to see a movie, we go on Google and look up the reviews, trailer and more to figure out if we will like the movie or waste our money. Before we purchase a phone, we look up all the details and features of model to figure out which model you should buy. That's the kind of research you need to do to write your staff accountant resume.
Your staff accountant resume should have the right information that sets you apart and helps you get jobs. To figure out how to do that you need to do some research on staff accountant resume. You need to research your role, your industry, potential employers, your job duties and everything relevant.
After the research, you need to decide your staff accountant resume format whether you want to go with functional, reverse chronological or combination because that will decide the layout for your staff accountant resume.
Contact Information
At the top, in the header of your resume, you will need to add your contact information. If you are using a two column format, usually the contact information goes at the top of the left column and the experience details etc. in the right column.
The contact information should be accurate and written in formal as well as professional manner. The details should include:
- Your full name
- Your contact number with area code
- Your professional email ID
- Your LinkedIn profile link (if your profile is updated and carefully curated in addition to you being regularly active on the platform)
- Your home address (not mandatory)
- Your headshot (not mandatory)
Resume Summary
Resume summary should be written in bullet points no more than 5 and no less than 3. You should also mention your role at the top. While writing the summary you need to cover certain points such as-
- How many years of total experience you have? What was you overall background or background of your majority of experience?
- Which are your top and relevant skills or key skills for the role? Do you have any exceptional performances and achievements that are noteworthy in the summary, in addition to the experience section?
- What will you bring to the table when you are hired at a new job? What are your goals as a professional, moving forward?
- Ensure that you use maximum numbers and action verbs to make the information more impactful
Work history/ Experience
Your experience section should be written in reverse chronological order with details of your job title, employer's name and employment period. The details of your experience should be written in bullet points so that the recruiter can read through the information easily.
In the detailed description, you need to mention your duties, any tasks you handled that were not part of your job description, any voluntary team work and contribution as well as relevant skills. You should also mention any achievements and recognitions you acquired. Most importantly keep in mind that you shouldn't undersell yourself and be thorough with the details.
Education section
As a staff accountant, you need finance and accounting background to prove your knowledge and foundation for your field. In the education section you need to mention your bachelor's degree, any online/offline courses and programs you may have completed.
When you mention you degree, state the full name of the degree, the name of the education institute from where you acquired the degree along with some of the most relevant subjects and topics you learned and skills you developed. You can also note any exceptional educational performances such as your GPA or grades or any awards.
Skills section
'Again? A whole section for skills? I already mentioned skills in resume summary, experience and education sections.' These might be your thoughts. The skills you mentioned in the summary were few, skills you mentioned in the education section were with context of experience details and the skills in education section were with the context of learning.
The separate section is for highlighting the carefully picked skills in a list format which is easy to comprehend from a quick look. These skills are most important for your role and also your top strengths. Listing them with 2 to 3 words also makes it easy for the recruiter to note them when they are looking at your resume.
- Financial statements
- Staff accountant skills
- Accounting software
- Accounting systems
- Tax returns
- Critical thinking
- Customer accounts
- Accounts receivable
- Accounts payable
- Soft skills
- Balance sheet accounts
- Balance sheets
- Fixed assets
- Accounting skills
- General ledger
- Working with chief financial officer
- Financial statements
- Financial transactions
- Cash flow
- Data analysis
- Internal and external auditors
- Accounting functions
- Managing financial data
- Financial analysis
- Financial records
- Financial reporting
- Financial reports
- Working with senior accountant
- Monthly financial statements
- Staff accountant skills
- Communication skills
- Interpersonal skills
- Skills from accounting job description
Extra
Any extra information you have equals to something extra that you have to offer. The experience and skills you have is very likely to be present on your fellow job applicant's resume as well. To offer something extra and stand out, you need to mention more relevant information such as your language proficiency, personal interests, any online courses you have acquired or programs you have attended, any relevant seminars, workshops or training you have had exposure of. All this information can really change your job prospects.
References
Have you ever wondered why do many professionals put references on their professional resume? Well because references vouch for you to your hiring managers. Recruiters always doubt the credibility of the information on your resume because they do not know you, you are a stranger for them and because of this a recruiter will always seek some reassurance and validation of the information on your resume. Recruiter may also want to know about your work ethic, personality and nature which they will not find on your professional resume.
References are the solution for all of these concerns of recruiters. You should should the references very carefully because they can change the recruiter's mind in any direction. References should be your past colleagues or superiors that you have worked with and have a positive opinion about you. So that when a recruiter contacts them they get positive review of you as a professional.
When mentioning references on your staff accountant resume, inform them and take their permission. Afterwards, mention their names and positions along with companies/employers. Mention their contact number along with their email ID.
Relevant keywords
Have you heard about how recruiters now use various artificial intelligence driven software to scan resumes? With the remote work and globalization, more and more people are accessing more and more jobs with ease. And this means the recruiters receive a huge number of resumes- hundreds and thousands of resumes that need to scanned and filtered to have a shortlisted pile of resumes to arrange interviews.
All this scanning and filtering would need a lot of time if it was done through manual method, using applicant tracking systems or the ATS helps make the process much easier and also quicker for the recruiter. All the recruiters across the globe use the ATS for this purpose. The ATS operates on the basis of relevant keywords and their presence on your staff accountant resume.
The keywords are all the important and relevant words that are related to your role, job description, job duties, industry and even potential employers. Ensuring that your resume has the keywords is very important for you because without these keywords, your resume will get rejected by the ATS.
When you are including keywords on your staff accountant resume, you should keep in mind that the keywords should not be stuffed anywhere or in more than necessary repetition. You should include the keyword in the usual flow of information in way so that the information seems sensible and meaningful for the reader. You should make sure that the readability of the content is maintained and the information is also easy to comprehend.
- Financial statements
- Staff accountant
- Staff accountant skills
- Accounting software
- Prepared monthly financial statements
- Financial records
- Accounting job
- Balance sheet accounts
- Quarterly financial statements
- Monthly financial statements
- Financial reporting
- Bank accounts
- Balance sheet account reconciliations
- Annual financial statements
- Accounting assistant
- Staff accountants
- Accounting manager
- Accountant job description
- Accounts receivable
- Accounts receivables
- Prepare financial statements
- Accounting records
- Accounting process
- Senior accountant
- Produce financial statements
- Accounts payable
- Financial data
- Financial analysis
- Accounting functions
- Financial reports
- Bank statements
- Monthly account reconciliation
- Internal and external auditors
- Data analysis
- Income statements
- Cash flow
- Senior management
- General ledger
- Chief financial officer
- Financial transactions
- Fixed assets
- Balance sheets
- Accounting skills
- Financial planning
- Accounting professionals
- Customer accounts
- Revenue recognition
- Accounting services
- Accounting procedures
- Critical thinking
- Accounting firms
- Expense reports
- Specific accounting software
- General ledger account
- Tax returns
- Accounting processes
- Management reports
- Soft skills
- Credit card statements
- Accounting systems
- Cash receipts
Cover letter
Thinking about writing a cover letter to enclose with your staff accountant resume? You might also be wondering if it's really necessary! May be you can just write a really good staff accountant resume and you won't need a cover letter. Well, that's not true in any case. No matter how well written and impressive your staff accountant resume is, you should go for a cover letter to ensure your chances of getting the job are good.
Before writing a cover letter, you may want to look up the hiring managers' name so that you can address them directly. When you mention their name, you make the letter more effective which means the hiring managers will be impressed and consider your application with much more sincerity than one may imagine.
In your cover letter you need to mention your experience, skills and knowledge in a bit less formal tone and a bit of personalization as well. You can also talk about your inspiration for getting into the accounting field and your journey of getting where you are.
These details will reflect your passion and dedication for your role of staff accountant and the capability to do the job well or even exceptionally. Showcasing your passion can really make a difference because a good hiring manager always looks for employees who are passionate about heir job so that they are able to work and perform well with their own interest. In an opposite scenario, employees may not perform well due to lack of interest and company will not be happy with such an employee.
Staff accountant resume skills
When you think of staff accountant resume skills, what comes to your mind? Skills that staff accountant should have? Skills that must be mentioned on your staff accountant resume? How important are staff accountant skills? Which staff accountant skills are important? How to write about your skills in various sections or which sections?
We will answer all of your questions here. We have chosen some of the important staff accountant resume skills that you can mention on your staff accountant resume in various sections, we will also discuss in which sections you can mention these skills and how.
Communication skills
Communication skills are never an option no matter which field or profession you are in, whenever you have to work with people you will need the communication skills. Especially when you are dealing with your clients about their money, your communication skills will either get you in good graces of the client or make the client be really disappointed in you.
Communication skills also help you work well with your teammates and help you get the results you are looking for by working with everyone on the team as well as various departments that you need to deal with and interact with for numerous reasons.
Financial statements
Creating and preparing and analyzing financial statements is the obvious part of staff accounting job or accounting assistant job. No matter how many job description you go through, you will notice that financial statements are always required as part of your job as a professional in accounting. Financial statements help the client stay updated on their finances which is truly important.
You should mention this skill in experience section without a miss, you may also mention this skill in your education and skills section. You can also include quantifying details such as how many financial statements you have prepared, how well you have done it and what kind of feedback you received.
Accounting software
Are you a tech savvy? Whether you said yes or no, you don't need to worry if you do not know how to develop a website. You will, however, need to know how to use accounting software. Your client or your firm or employer will be using a software for accounting and as part of accounting team you will need to operate the same software as well.
What this means is that your technical skills should be more than being able to use G suite and Microsoft Office suite and other commonly used computer software and programs. You need to be able to use all kinds of software used for accounting. You should mention this skill on your resume in most sections including resume summary, experience and skills section. In case you have used the software for accounting or taken online course on the same or had any training for the skill, you can mention that as well.
Interesting Fact:
(Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/317587/number-of-accountants-and-auditors-employed-us/)
With the digital era everything is digital and online and the technology makes a lot of tasks easier for us. Accounting industry is no exception either. You should know how to use the software and utilize it with all its potential and capability. You can mention this skill in any and every section however most importantly, you should mention it in your skills section.
Financial records
Most people manage a logbook (online or offline) of their expenses and income details, sometimes it is to keep track of money, sometimes it is to store all the important information so that the tax filing is easier and sometimes it is maintained to develop a habit of savings by observing expense and income.
Keeping records is very important when it comes to money, managing financial records is no joke, it takes a lot of hard work, attention to detail for accuracy and significant time investment. The way of record keeping or the logging of information as well as the accuracy is something that can be considered to measure this skill. You can mention this skill in any section you like however most likely you may want to mention it in your job description hence in your experience section where the details of particular job are described.
Financial reporting
Financial reporting means letting the clients know all about their finances that might include preparing financial statements, expense reports, documents, financial analysis report and more. When you report something, the aim should be to present the situation and the solutions to make the situation better with ideas and suggestions on how and where the improvements can be made.
As a staff accountant, you must know how to do the financial reporting along with all the tasks of data analysis, report preparation, documents and providing suggestions everywhere necessary. Your skill of financial reporting is defined by how thorough you are in your reporting, how strategic you are with your suggestions and how good you are at managing everything that you face when you are preparing a financial report. You can mention this skill in every section whether it is resume summary, experience, education or skills section. In education you can showcase how you learned financial reporting.
Financial analysis
An accountant job description is going to have the skills financial analysis mentioned as a must. What this means is that you need to have the skills to analyze your client's finances and more. Your job position will need you to do the financial analysis everyday for your clients' accounts. You will have to update the client on accounts receivable, accounts payable, expenses, incomes, managing investments and any other action necessary to make sure there are no losses for your client.
The skill to analyze the finances means you will need a really good hold on mathematics and finances and more. You can mention these skills in your experience section. You can also mention how much data analysis you have done as part of analyzing the finances and how you helped bring improvements and desired results for your clients.
Cash flow
A client who has a business or multiple businesses, a client who has many investments and your superiors who need to ensure these client's have money on hand, will ask you to manage the client's cash flow, right?
Cash flow is something that has to be managed constantly especially when the majority of the client's capital is invested in various ways along with assets. You need to help the client have the cash flow that allows the client to keep their business and more afloat. You will need strategic thinking for this. You can talk about this skill in your experience section.
General ledger
All the clients, all the accountant job descriptions require you to be knowledgeable of general ledger, how to maintain it, how to keep it updated and more. You might have to multiple general ledger for various clients and more.
You need to mention how well you work with general ledger, what is your knowledge level regarding general ledger, which are your skills related to general ledger. You can also mention how many general ledgers you have worked with in your career and past jobs and how well you maintained them. You can mention your skills related to general ledgers in the experience section.
Fixed assets
Fixed assets are something that the client won't touch easily for any reason, fixed assets are usually land, buildings and/ or equipment and so on. As an accounting professional, you need to know how to handle the fixed assets whether it is their maintenance or management or even the matter of discarding them when the time is right.
Having the in-depth knowledge of fixed assets as well as being able to manage them in the best manner possible for your client, taking the important decisions in a timely manner is important and a truly valuable skill for a staff accountant resume. You can mention it in your experience section or skills section.
Critical thinking
If you think about it, every role and job requires you to think critically when making various decisions. Talking about accounting, you will face a lot of decisions and situations that are related to finances! Clients' finances and money are precious, you cannot make mistakes because money is the most valuable asset for us all humans.
Whether you are preparing financial statements or financial reporting, sorting accounts receivable or accounts payable, doing financial data analysis or even working as an accounting assistant, you will need critical thinking skills. You can mention these skills in any section you want as well as multiple sections if you want.
Tax returns
Many people hire accountants, why? To manage their finances and accounts but most importantly, accountants or accounting firms are hired because most people do not know how to file taxes. How to get tax returns. Which is why as a staff accountant, you will also face a lot of tax returns and that means you need to know all about tax laws and how to file taxes.
To get your client maximum tax returns, you need to know what can be claimed, what can be waived and which tax laws are applicable for your client and so on. Your skills of tax returns is a must because without that, many clients will look for some other accountants so that their taxes can be filed and they can claim maximum tax return.
You can mention these skills in every section on your staff accountant resume whether it is a resume summary or work history/ experience or education or skills or extra sections. You can also provide some numbers such as -I have filed x taxes and helped my y number of clients get maximum tax returns OR I helped my client get x amount of tax return instead of y amount of tax return that they expected they will be able to claim.
Conclusion
We talked about all the sections and how to write them, we also talked about the guidelines and how to make your staff accountant resume a professional resume and we also discussed the staff accountant resume skills in depth along with providing you with some great tips for a job winning staff accountant resume.
Now before we go, let's recap quickly:
- Professional guidelines help you reflect professionalism on your staff accountant resume with the language and overall presentation with accuracy and written language as well as professional resume etiquettes.
- Contact information should be written in a formal manner with accuracy so that the hiring managers can reach out to you and you don't miss out on any good opportunities.
- Resume summary should be short, crisp, concise and written in bullet points, using numbers and action verbs will make it more effective and intriguing for the hiring managers or readers/recruiters.
- Experience should be described with all the details and bullet points and in reverse chronological order. The details in this section should include skills, achievements, numbers and action verbs.
- Education may or may not be relevant but the details should be highlighted in a manner that allows you to showcase your knowledge of the field of accounting along with the capability to perform well and do the accounting job.
- Skills section is for your top strengths so choose those skills wisely with regard to job description and role, make sure the most important skills are included in this section in a list format.
- Extra sections help you stand apart, include as many relevant details as you can in these sections.
- References can really make a big difference, choose the references carefully and provide the contact information with the reference person's consent.
- Cover letters can increase your chances of getting the job so make sure you write one with all the necessary customizations and edits. Look up the hiring managers to address them with names to ensure a truly effective cover letter that makes an impact.
When you are done reading this article and get down to write your professional staff accountant resume, you should use this article as your checklist. We have a huge carefully curated collection of resume examples, resume templates, resume writing guides and more for all the professions including your accounting profession, we have covered all the roles and variations for you which is why you must check it out.
Before you save your staff accountant resume, do not forget to proofread it twice! Good luck with the job hunt!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How long should my staff accountant resume be?
A staff accountant resume can vary for every staff accountant professional due to their level such as senior accountant or junior accountant or staff accountant and so on. Depending on the profile details such as skills, experience years, knowledge, important and relevant details to be mentioned on the staff accountant resume, your resume might need more or less space for presentation on a professional staff accountant resume.
Most freshers and recent graduates are able to fit their profile on one page of the staff accountant resume. In case you have significant experience and details, you will most likely need 2 pages for your staff accountant resume. But what if you have years of experience that cannot be written in 2 pages? You need to figure out a way to do so by leaving out unimportant information and choosing the right resume format and template. In case you are not able to do that, you can extend the resume beyond 2 pages. However the standard professional resume length is 1 to 2 pages and you should try your best to stick to that standard of resume length.
Which are the top skills for a staff accountant resume?
There are many soft skills as well as staff accountant skills that you can mention on your staff accountant resume. There are various sections where you can include your skills such as resume summary section, experience section, education section, skills section, extra sections however you need to decide which skills need to be mentioned where and with which context or backing details.
There are some of the soft skills such as communication skills and interpersonal skills and there are some hard skills such as skill to operate and work on accounting software. You need to use a balanced mixture of all relevant and key skills for your staff accountant resume.
Some of the top skills that you mustn't miss out on are:
- Financial statements
- Financial reporting
- Accounting software
- Communication skills
- Financial planning
- Balance sheet accounts
- Accounts receivable
- Accounts payable
- Financial data analysis
- Accounting process
- General ledger management
- Critical thinking
- Tax returns
What is the importance of references?
References are a way to get some reassurance about your skills, experience and overall employee potential, for the hiring manager and their company or an organization. A hiring manager reads many skills, experiences and qualities of yours on your staff accountant resume, but how can they believe it without any proof? In addition to contacting your previous employers, they may also want to get in touch with and talk to the people who have worked with you before and thus know you well as a person and not just your skills, experience and knowledge.
Whether you will be able to perform well, be a value addition to the team and contribute to the company’s success, is very important to know for the hiring manager and only way to find that out is to talk to your past colleagues because before hiring you, they have no other way to figure these things out for themselves.
