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Top Soft Skills to List on Your Accounting Resume

Describing your accounting skills on your resume is pretty straightforward, but these technical qualifications (also known as hard skills) shouldn’t be the only focus. Your hard skills are the prerequisite for consideration, while your soft (i.e. behavioral and/or interpersonal) skills are what sets you apart.  

Learn more about the top soft skills to list on your accounting resume:

Communication

Written and verbal communication skills are crucial skills for accountants. Hiring managers want to feel confident in your ability to effectively convey information to others who may not have a financial background.

Critical Thinking

As an accountant, you are trusted by your employer to do more than just review and report on numbers. Hiring managers are looking for accounting candidates who demonstrate critical thinking skills and interpret the more significant meaning behind financial figures to make recommendations on steps to take.

Leadership

Even if accountants aren’t in an official supervisory level role, they can contribute significantly to an organization through the knowledge they share and recommendations they make. Highlight any leadership skills you have, such as times you managed a project or initiated a strategic plan to higher ups that ended up having a positive impact.

Collaboration

Accountants play a valuable role within the bigger picture of a company’s success. It is important that accountants have interpersonal skills, particularly regarding collaboration and working successfully within a team.

Organizational

Time management and attention to detail are so crucial for accountants, especially since there are periods that tend to be significantly busier with heavy workloads – and any oversights or missed deadlines can have catastrophic outcomes. Having organizational skills can help hiring managers feel they could trust you to follow through and not let anything slip through the cracks.

Ways to Convey Your Soft Skills:

Use Data

Highlight your soft skills on your resume by providing metrics (such as percentages, statistics, or other applicable numbers) with your bullet points. Data makes a more compelling case to the hiring manager that you objectively possess these skills. For example, as a way to use data to showcase your critical thinking skills, you could include a bullet point on a recommendation you made that reduced expenses by X%.

Tell a Story

When you’re in a job interview, an effective way to develop rapport with your interviewer as well as demonstrate your soft skills is to tell stories. As part of your interview preparation, brainstorm some specific past examples of times you have effectively used specific soft skills. Practice describing these narratives in a few sentences until you have them top of mind so they will flow naturally even when you’re nervous.

Invest in Your Career

IFG is an accounting and finance employment agency composed of Business Partners with industry expertise, so you can feel confident in their ability to match you to the right role that fits your skills, experience, and long-term professional goals. Whether you are looking for project or full-time work, IFG is ready to help you succeed. Contact us today to meet with an IFG Business Partner.