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Accounting Specialist Must-Have Resume Skills and Keywords

Are you interested in improving your job outlook and increasing your salary? How can you demonstrate that you are the most qualified candidate for an Accounting Specialist position? Of course continuing to gain experience working as an Accounting Specialist may be your best qualification, but there are other ways you can also develop your skills, like continuing education or volunteer opportunities. More immediately, however, you can be ready for your next opportunity or promotion by educating yourself about the duties, responsibilities, and required skills of an Accounting Specialist and making sure your resume reflects your experience properly.

We designed the ZipRecruiter Career Keyword Mapper to help you solve this problem and hopefully improve your resume. Using machine learning tools paired with industry research, our Marketplace Research Team helped analyze millions of job postings and resumes to identify the most important keywords related to Accounting Specialist jobs. Our goal is to help you discover opportunities to improve your resume or to help you understand what skills and qualifications you need to be an Accounting Specialist or to advance your career into beyond this role.

Top Skills Mentioned in Job Descriptions

Top
10
Job Skills
Employers require a broad range of skills and qualifications in their descriptions of Accounting Specialist positions. The top three keywords make up 37.82% of the total set of top terms. Look to the Resume Checklist below to see how Reconciling, Invoicing, and Accounts Payable shares stack up against the share from resumes. Detail Oriented, Communication Skills and Account Receivables represent an additionally healthy share of the employer Accounting Specialist job postings with their combined total of 30.6%. At 31.6%, MS Office, Accuracy, Vendor Management, and Microsoft Excel appear far less frequently, but are still a significant portion of the 10 top Accounting Specialist skills and requirements according to employers.

Top Skills Mentioned in Resumes

Top
10
Job Skills
Job seeker resumes showcase a broad range of skills and qualifications in their descriptions of Accounting Specialist positions. The top three keywords represent 39.36% of the total set of top resume listed keywords. Look to the Resume Checklist below to investigate how Accounts Payable, Invoicing, and Reconciling match up to employer job descriptions. Account Receivables, Microsoft Excel, and Vendor Management represent a very decent share of skills found on resumes for Accounting Specialist with 29.12% of the total. At 31.53%, Customer Service, QuickBooks Software, MS Office, and General Ledger appear far less frequently, but are still a significant portion of the 10 top Accounting Specialist skills and qualifications found on resumes.

Most Important Skills Required to Be an Accounting Specialist as Listed by Employers and Employees

Here is a simple table of the top 10 skills and qualifications as listed by employers in Accounting Specialist job postings since January of 2018, followed by the top 10 skills and qualifications most commonly listed by people who held the title of Accounting Specialist on their resumes.
Top Accounting Specialist Skills
Skills Required by Employers Share
Reconciling 14.16%
Invoicing 11.99%
Accounts Payable 11.67%
Detail Oriented 11.61%
Communication Skills 9.64%
Account Receivables 9.35%
MS Office 8.74%
Accuracy 7.68%
Vendor Management 7.67%
Microsoft Excel 7.51%
Skills Listed by Employees Share
Accounts Payable 14.52%
Invoicing 13.11%
Reconciling 11.73%
Account Receivables 10.87%
Microsoft Excel 9.39%
Vendor Management 8.86%
Customer Service 8.68%
QuickBooks Software 8.07%
MS Office 7.43%
General Ledger 7.35%

Accounting Specialist Resume Checklist

Our Resume Keyword Checklist is based upon an analysis of the most commonly found terms within both job descriptions and resumes for Accounting Specialist positions. Our algorithm helps isolate phrases and patterns to identify the most frequently recurring and reused keywords from each data source, while correcting for uncommon and outlier results. Various heuristic methodologies are then applied to ultimately create two top 20 lists of the most important and significant skills, certificates and requirements found within Accounting Specialist job postings and resumes. We then merge the two lists together and use a combination of statistics and rules-based scenarios to create a list that is audited by the Marketplace Research team, and finally turned into the checklist you see below. Our hope is that knowing this information can help you make your best impression with your next potential employer.
Uncommon Keywords on Accounting Specialist Resumes
Job Descriptions
Resumes
25%
50%
75%
100%
Innovation
Account Experience
Employer job listings often list Innovation or Account Experience as requirements in Accounting Specialist job descriptions; however, candidates mention them far less frequently on their resumes. If you possess any or all of these experiences, including these keywords prominently on your resume when applying for an Accounting Specialist position may help you stand out more to hiring managers.
Common Keywords on Accounting Specialist Resumes
Job Descriptions
Resumes
25%
50%
75%
100%
Communication Skills
Detail Oriented
Collaboration
Accuracy
Compliance
Reconciling
Financial Reporting
MS Office
Analysis
Documentation
Journal Entries
Invoicing
General Ledger
Vendor Management
Account Receivables
Bookkeeping
Accounts Payable
Microsoft Excel
Both employer job listings and resumes from people who’ve held the position of Accounting Specialist tend to always include skills and requirements found in this list. Whether you’ve only got Communication Skills, Detail Oriented, Collaboration, Accuracy, Compliance, Reconciling, Financial Reporting, MS Office, Analysis, Documentation, Journal Entries, Invoicing, General Ledger, Vendor Management, Account Receivables, Bookkeeping, Accounts Payable or Microsoft Excel in your background and experience, make sure to highlight the term prominently on your resume. As a candidate you’ll be competing with many others who are bound to have as many as you (or more!) of these common resume keywords highlighted in their application for a job as an Accounting Specialist.
Uncommon Keywords on Accounting Specialist Job Descriptions
Job Descriptions
Resumes
25%
50%
75%
100%
Data Entry
Customer Service
Deposits
Accountable
QuickBooks Software
Bank Reconciliation
Employer job listings seldom list Data Entry, Customer Service, Deposits, Accountable, QuickBooks Software or Bank Reconciliation as important skills or qualifications in Accounting Specialist job descriptions. Nevertheless, candidates mention them much more commonly in their resumes. If you possess any or all of these experiences, including these keywords prominently on your resume when applying for an Accounting Specialist position may go unnoticed or even discounted by hiring managers.

FAQs about Accounting Specialist Skills and Resume Keywords

What are the most important Accounting Specialist job skills to have on my resume?

The most common important skills required by employers are Communication Skills, Detail Oriented, Collaboration, Accuracy, Compliance, Reconciling and Financial Reporting. These skills and requirements are just as likely to be mentioned by employers as well as on resumes of people that held a position as an Accounting Specialist, suggesting that having these keywords on a resume are important for success as an Accounting Specialist. Additionally, employer Accounting Specialist job descriptions list Innovation as a desirable experience, even though Innovation appears 3.77 times less on resumes, suggesting that it's worth considering including this term if you possess the experience.

What are the least important Accounting Specialist job skills to have on my resume?

Although you'd probably love to load up your resume with every possible keyword you can, employers tend to look for the things they specify in the job description. Our analysis suggests that highlighting too prominently terms like Data Entry, Customer Service, Deposits, Accountable, QuickBooks Software and Bank Reconciliation may be something to reconsider. These 6 terms appear 2.00, 2.24, 2.48, 2.53, 3.80 and 3.99 times less frequently, respectively, than in job descriptions for an Accounting Specialist role. This implies that highlighting any of these keywords on your resume may not be a great way to stand out to a potential employer.

How do I make sure my resume has all of the right keywords for an Accounting Specialist position?

Unless your resume has a good density of the following skills and experience listed, you may not be considered for the role of Accounting Specialist. Make sure to include a strong showing for the following keywords on your resume:
  • Communication Skills
  • Detail Oriented
  • Collaboration
  • Accuracy
  • Compliance
  • Reconciling
  • Financial Reporting
  • MS Office
  • Analysis
  • Documentation
  • Journal Entries
  • Invoicing
  • General Ledger
  • Vendor Management
  • Account Receivables
Additionally employers frequently list the following as desirable qualities in an Accounting Specialist candidate, but they are far less common on most resumes:
  • Innovation
  • Account Experience
Finally people who held the position of an Accounting Specialist and list it on their resume are adding these terms that are less likely to be noticed by employers. You may want to consider downplaying these terms on your Accounting Specialist application:
  • Data Entry
  • Customer Service
  • Deposits
  • Accountable
  • QuickBooks Software
  • Bank Reconciliation

Before applying for an Accounting Specialist job

At ZipRecruiter, we understand better than anyone the importance of using the right keywords to describe your experience — it’s crucial to attracting the right employers! We built our business on the ability to effectively match job seekers with employers using AI-technology that understands your resume and how likely you are to be noticed by a potential future employer. Having a ZipRecruiter profile that showcases your most relevant skills and abilities can help you get recruited into a new role as an Accounting Specialist. Get started on your journey with a new ZipRecruiter Profile today!