Accountant CV Examples, Guide & Tips for 2024

It sometimes seems that most people who get into finance and especially accounting are ‘straight-shooters’: people who prefer short, direct communication without a lot of flowery prose and padding.

Do you write unnecessarily long emails with far too much description and too many digressions? It’s unlikely that you do. That’s why accountants especially tend to get so stuck when sitting down to write or overhaul their accounting CV.

Writing a good accountancy CV doesn’t involve any waffling or padding. Read on to see an accounting CV that’s better than most out there and learn how to make yours at least as good.

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Looking for other CV examples? See our guides for:

• Account Manager CV
• Accounts Assistant CV
• Administrator CV
• Business Analyst CV
• Career Change CV
• Consulting CV
• Data Analyst CV
• Data Entry CV
• Executive Assistant CV
• Finance CV
• Finance Assistant CV
• Investment Banking CV
• Legal CV
• Management Accountant CV
• Quantity Surveyor CV
• Trainee Accountant CV

Haven't found what you're looking for? See all our CV examples.

Accountant CV example 

Now you know what a model CV looks like. Here’s how to write an accountant CV example:

1. Start your accountant CV with an accounting personal statement

Writing a CV personal statement (also called a CV profile) for an accounting job application can be a daunting task—if nothing else, it’s the longest chunk of text in your accounting CV and the most ‘free-form’. Plus, this is where you’ll make your first impression with your CV. You have one short paragraph to do three things:

• Introduce you as an accounting professional
• Show what you have to offer in a very concrete way
• Make it clear that your goals line up eerily perfectly with the company’s.

You’ll also have to write a new personal statement for each and every new job application. Luckily, there’s an extremely effective shortcut to generating accounting personal statement after accounting personal statement. Simply answer each of these questions in a total of 3–4 sentences, 50–150 words:

• What are you like as an accountant, and what’s your experience?
• In what industries and specialisations have you been working?
• What’s your most impressive/relevant achievement?
• What’s your most unique achievement? (Optional)
• What are you hoping to be able to achieve in this job? (For your employer, not yourself).

Your application is very likely to be parsed by an Applicant Tracking System before a human being even lays eyes on it, and there are a couple of things you can do to boost your chances of getting through:

• Mention the full name of the company to which you’re applying as well as the post as it’s described in the advert
• Try to mirror the keywords used in the advert, but a light touch is important here—don’t overdo it.

Your accounting personal statement clearly goes first in your CV, but it’s best to write it last. It’ll be much easier for you to do a good job once you have your job descriptions written and some practice in writing achievements under your belt (it's basically a CV summary).

And, one more thing to be noted. If you're writing a part qualified accountant CV with limited experience, you might want to incorporate CV objective to convey your aspirations and goals.

Accounting personal statement example

A strong CV summary will convince the recruiter you’re the perfect candidate. Save time and choose a ready-made personal statement written by career experts and adjust it to your needs in the LiveCareer CV builder.

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2. Use your accountant CV to showcase your achievements

What makes a good CV? For an accounting CV, the work experience section is often the most crucial part. It’s also your best opportunity to put your accounting skills to use in writing your CV. First things first, use a chronological format for your CV, starting from your most recent experience and working your way back from there.

This is what hiring managers are expecting to see in an accounting CV and it’s also more easily parsed by an ATS. You’ll then need to create a subheading for each job description. Use this template to help you:

[Job Title]

[Company Name, Location]

[Dates of Employment]

Now you’ll need to fill each job description with up to six bullet points. These bullet points will not be your duties or responsibilities. Instead, they’ll be your measurable and quantified accounting achievements. You can use accomplishment statements to help you write these achievements out consistently.

The main thing to remember is that an achievement is basically a description of an action you took and the benefits that your action brought to the company. So start each achievement with a strong verb (like created, improved, reduced, etc.) and quantify everything you can, even if you have to estimate.

If you’re writing something like a trainee accountant CV or accounting assistant CV with no experience, then follow the above guidelines but focus on any internships, placement work, and volunteer work you’ve done. If you're crafting a part qualified accountant CV or have no experience at all, then consider a student CV instead. See how to write your first CV.

Accountant CV job description

3. Include a brief and to-the-point education section in your accountant CV

Whether you choose to get into private practice or public finance, university is certainly not the only road into accountancy. Nevertheless, your education, training and qualification level obviously matter, so make your education section as clear and easy to follow as possible.

Stick with a reverse-chronological order so that your highest education reached will be first. If you have a university degree, then there’s no need to mention high school. There’s no need to mention grades no matter what—they’ll only add clutter without adding any value.

Use the following template for university degrees as well as other tertiary qualifications:

[Degree Type] [Degree Name](Degree Class), [Years Attended]

[Institution Name], [Institution Location]

If you’re still studying, then include an expected graduation date. If you don’t have a university degree, CFAB or AAT, then use the following templates to describe your high school education:

A-levels: [Subject Name 1], [Subject Name 2], [Subject Name 3]

[School Name], [School Location], [Years Attended]

[n] GCSEs (including Mathematics and English)

[School Name], [School Location], [Years Attended]

where n is the number of GCSEs you completed.

If you’re writing a graduate accountant CV or junior accountant CV and don’t have much experience yet, then put this section above your work experience section.

Accountant CV education section example

4. Put your accounting skills on display in your accountant CV

Just as there are many fields in accounting so are there many different skill-sets in accounting. Make it clear to your recruiters exactly what skills you bring to the table. Start by making a master list of accounting skills and backing each skill up with some supporting evidence.

To do this, open a separate document and brainstorm as many of your accounting skills as you can (hard and communication skills). Once you’re done, go back and add a sentence to each skill you’ve listed that demonstrates that you’ve actually put this skill into action in your accounting work. If you can’t do this for a skill, then it’s out.

This file is your master list for future applications. Go back to your CV and the job advert to which you’re responding. Copy 5–10 accounting skills from your master list into your CV, being sure to at least cover what’s asked for in the advert. Substitute synonyms to mirror keywords from the advert.

Accounting skills example for a CV

5. Add extra sections to your accounting CV

It’s easy to get pigeonholed as an accountant. Stretch the mould to fit your professional self by adding extra sections to your accounting CV. You could add sections that list your additional qualifications (e.g. ACCA, CIMA, ACA, CIFPA, ICAS, ICAEW, as well as CFAB and AAT) or software proficiencies, for example.

Your additional CV sections needn’t be so directly relevant to your role, though. You could, for example, include any foreign languages you speak (a boon in virtually any industry) or even your hobbies. These sections have to be relevant to your application but that doesn’t mean always sticking to the obvious.

Accountant CV additional sections sample

6. Include a cover letter with your accounting CV

You’re no stranger to forms, applications and reports coming in two or more parts. Your accounting CV is no different—it’s just one part of your job application, and your accountant cover letter is the other part. Always include a cover letter unless you’ve been explicitly asked not to do so. Such a document can prove especially advantageous when crafting an entry level accountant CV or a part-qualified accountant CV. It will help to communicate your motivation, enthusiasm and eagerness to develop your skills in the accounting field.

A good accounting cover letter will follow the standard UK business letter format. It, like your accounting CV, will be based around quantified achievements. The structure should end up looking something like this:

• A header, laid out according to UK convention
• The right kind of salutation for you
• A cover letter opening that grabs the reader’s attention
• An impressive showcase of your accounting achievements
• A neat wrap-up and compelling call to action
• A way of signing off that matches your salutation.

In terms of cover letter length, your body paragraphs should look something like this:

• Opening paragraph—between 60 and 80 words
• Main body paragraph(s)—between 120 and 200 words
• Closing paragraph(s)—between 40 and 60 words.

This should leave your whole accounting cover letter between 250 and 400 words long, which is between half an A4 page and a single A4 page. Daunting at first but much simpler than it seems. You’re easily halfway there once you have the work experience section of your CV written.

7. What else should you keep in mind when sending out your accountant CV?

Here are a few CV layout rules to remember about when writing your accounting CV.

Make sure everything adds up

A typo or spelling or grammatical error in your accounting CV or cover letter is like a miscalculation in a statement of financial position—something to be avoided at all costs. Get someone else to look over your work and use any of the apps, web apps, or programmes out there that can help you.

Aim for maximum readability

What should a good CV look like? You don’t need a lecture on the importance of legible, reader-friendly layout. So just remember to leave your contact details near the top of your CV and don’t skimp on white space throughout. Keep everything as easy to scan through as possible. View free CV templates & our top template picks to find the ideal one. Use a CV font like Noto, Garamond, Arial, or whatever your default is. Make your sections headings slightly larger. You can also use bold or underline to guide the recruiter’s eyes.

Default to PDF

Send your documents through as PDF files unless explicitly asked for something else. PDFs will preserve your formatting much better than most other formats.

Follow up after a week

Haven’t heard back after a week? Follow up with a quick email or phone call. It can’t hurt and may even do a lot of good. At the very least, you’ll know where your application stands.

You don’t have to be a CV writing expert. In the LiveCareer CV builder you’ll find ready-made content for every industry and position, which you can then add with a single click.

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Has this article helped you massage your accountant CV into shape? I hope so—please leave a comment below if there’s anything I touched upon that you’d like me to elaborate on. Leave any other comments, questions, feedback or experiences you’d like to share below as well—we’d love to read them.

How we review the content at LiveCareer

Our editorial team has reviewed this article for compliance with Livecareer’s editorial guidelines. It’s to ensure that our expert advice and recommendations are consistent across all our career guides and align with current CV and cover letter writing standards and trends. We’re trusted by over 10 million job seekers, supporting them on their way to finding their dream job. Each article is preceded by research and scrutiny to ensure our content responds to current market trends and demand.