Use this advice to hone your accounting resume and secure your chosen job

The world of accounting is complex and demanding, and getting a job is just as demanding as employment itself. As such, you need a high performance resume that works in selling your abilities clearly to the employer.

Accounting skills

Within the accounting and bookkeeping profession there are a number of roles, skills and responsibilities that you will need to demonstrate in your resume. When formulating your resume, it is best to know exactly what area of accounting you are looking to get into. If you have no distinct preferences, then instead you can take the skills listed from the job descriptions of your choosing and adapt the resume to reflect these skills.

The content of your resume not only needs to draw upon your accounting skills, but your experience and education. Both your education and experience need to be geared towards the accounting profession, so that when it is briefed over by the employer, they can easily generate an image of you and how you would fit in.

Formulating the resume

Once you have gathered and organized the details of your personal employment, qualifications and accounting skills, you can start writing the resume. Choosing between the different types of resume will depend on how much work experience you have. Use accounting resume examples of a similar format to improve the style of the resume once you have written it.

Your objective statement should explain in one or two sentences your short term goals within accounting (a specific job title is best), and the most impressive skills and abilities that you will be able to provide. When listing your qualifications and experience within accounting, list them in reverse chronological order (most recent at the top). If you are a graduate, then the most important listings will be your skills and experience gained in education, and don’t forget to list any internships or work experience. Extracurricular information can also help to bulk out a sparse graduate resume, including your involvement in college clubs and organizations.

Increasing your exposure

Accounting is a fast-paced and dynamic profession, with new roles coming and going quickly. This makes it a good idea to list your resume on job sites, but you need to use accounting keywords to make your resume easily findable. The more keywords that you have relating to your role the better. Keywords are also great for covering the terms that employers look for in a resume. Accounting resume examples and accounting job portals both give examples of hot accounting keywords.