General Accountant Resume Example & Writing Guide
Use this General Accountant resume example and guide to improve your career and write a powerful resume that will separate you from the competition.
General accountants provide financial information for an organization or company. They’re responsible for everything from managing the books to helping managers understand the financial implications of their decisions.
General accountants often have a wide range of responsibilities and duties—from monitoring cash flow to preparing tax returns to conducting audits—so the role can be challenging but also extremely rewarding. And because general accountants are so integral to the health of an organization, they tend to have high-profile positions with lots of opportunities for growth.
If you’re ready to land your dream job as a general accountant, you’ll need an impressive resume to help you get there. Here are some tips plus an example to follow when writing yours.
How to Write a General Accountant Resume
Here’s how to write a general accountant resume of your own.
Write Compelling Bullet Points
Bullet points are the most important part of your resume because they’re the first thing recruiters and hiring managers will see. And they’re the best way to showcase your experience and qualifications.
But many job seekers make the mistake of using generic bullet points that don’t really tell a story or provide any context about their experience.
Instead, you should use your bullet points to tell a story about your work. And that story should be as specific as possible. For example, rather than saying you “prepared financial reports,” you could say you “prepared quarterly financial reports for 100+-person engineering firm, including profit and loss statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement, in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.”
Related: What Is a General Accountant? How to Become One
Identify and Include Relevant Keywords
When you apply for a general accountant role, your resume is likely to go through an applicant tracking system (ATS). This program will scan your resume for certain keywords related to the job, like “financial reporting” or “account reconciliation” in order to determine whether your skills are a match for the position. If you don’t have enough relevant keywords on your resume, the ATS might filter out your application.
That’s why it’s important to add general accountant keywords to all sections of your resume. Here are some of the most common ones:
- Accounting
- Financial Reporting
- Financial Analysis
- Financial Accounting
- Accounts Payable
- Account Reconciliation
- General Ledger
- QuickBooks
- Internal Controls
- Auditing
- Journal Entries
- Financial Statements
- Accounts Receivable (AR)
- SAP Products
- Bookkeeping
- Financial Statements Analysis
- Bank Reconciliation
- Budgeting
- Invoicing
- Teamwork
- Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP)
- Microsoft Access
- Management
- Research
- Internal Audit
- Consolidation
- Corporate Finance
- Sarbanes-Oxley Act
- Business Strategy
- Statutory Accounting
Showcase Your Technical Skills
The technical skills section of your resume is important because it showcases your proficiency in the use of specific programs and systems that are essential to the job. Accountants rely on specific software programs, such as QuickBooks, to manage their finances and track their transactions. They also need to be proficient in Excel in order to create financial reports and track budget data. So if you have experience with these programs, be sure to list them in your technical skills section.
Related: How Much Does a General Accountant Make?
Remember The Basics
As you write your resume, it’s important to keep a few basic rules in mind.
Make It Easy to Scan
There are a few things you can do to your resume to make it easier to read, such as left aligning your text, using a standard font type and size, and using bullets instead of paragraphs to list your experiences. You should also use all-caps and bold sparingly, and keep your bullets under two lines. Additionally, you can include some white space on the page to make the document easier to scan.
Be Concise
ideally, a resume should only be one page long. However, if you have a lot of experience to include, a two-page resume is okay. Just make sure to focus on the most relevant information. When in doubt, less is more.
Check Your Work
Proofreading your resume is a vital step in ensuring that it looks its best. There are several things to watch for when proofreading, including spelling mistakes, punctuation mistakes, and grammatical mistakes. It is also important to be aware of easily confused words, such as their/there/they’re and to/too/two. Spell checking your resume is a good start, but you should also have someone else proofread it for you to catch any mistakes that you may have missed.
Consider a Summary
When it comes to your resume, using a summary statement can be extremely beneficial. It allows you to briefly explain who you are, what your skills are, and what you’re looking for. This information can help to provide context for your experience and make you stand out to potential employers. When writing your summary, be sure to focus on your most relevant skills and experiences, and be clear about what you’re hoping to do next.
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