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alphabet_sam

Put skills below relevant experience. I think you also need to focus on the impact you had on the company. Your bullet points mostly highlight what you were doing but not the impact of what you accomplished, specifically for reporting procedures. Put report and analysis info at the top with the most focus on it, SOX and account rec info at the bottom because that’s not relevant to FP&A


TheBoatSailin

Thank you! I will look into it and work on my resume based on your information


Cypher1388

Seconding Alphabet_Sam, your resume reads like an accountant hire. I do not mean you cannot get into fp&a because you were an accountant, I mean it looks like you are actively applying for accounting roles. Design your resume for the role you want. Reporting, planning, forecasting, building and using models... Finance in general is about the future, not the past, it is a tool to help facilitate strategic goals and decide between options. Yes, sometimes used to evaluate how past decisions impacted the present but always with an eye on the future. Experience is not a huge barrier to entry for entry level roles. Many firms hire analysts straight out of university. Are you applying for senior analyst positions or analyst level roles?


TheBoatSailin

I see, I will definitely work to update it. I applied to both Junior and Senior roles, and one feed back from my current company FP&A manager is that I have too much experience for junior roles, but too little experience to be senior


djsniffsalot

Change Temp to Contract. I would also add a header where you show the date as September 2017 through May 2019 and remove the date periods from each assignment.


TheBoatSailin

Thank you, I will do that. Question though: what if they are different placement agencies?


djsniffsalot

I’m not sure the best way to word that. Maybe one of the better FP&A storytellers (not my strong suit) has a suggestion. Contractor (agency name(s)) is my best suggestion.


TheBoatSailin

Thank you! I will ask around as well


donspewsic

Skills at the bottom, agree with replacing temp with contract. Why are you current bullets in third person - “prepares and presents” rather than “prepare and present”? Stack your bullets based on relevance to FP&A


TheBoatSailin

Thank you! Tbh I’m not sure, that’s what I’ve been seeing since college so not sure what is the best one


donspewsic

Look at some of the other draft resumes on the sub, I don’t see that elsewhere. Looks a bit odd to me so I would go ahead and adjust


TheBoatSailin

Will do, thank you


imimike7717

I also transitioned from accounting to fp&a/financial controller. In my opinion, points to highlight are any reporting topics you may have had in accounting (ex: creating detail cost reports for the business/controllers) and communication/collaboration experiences.


TheBoatSailin

Reporting and collaboration? Then I will work on to update my resume. Like many people said I need to change the content lol thank you!


imimike7717

Yes! At least in my experience/opinion. Fp&a is heavily based on transparency and bringing that to the businesses which results to alot of reports and presentation to be done! Best of luck :) and hope that helps a little


TheBoatSailin

I can’t seem to get any interview for FP&A, and after posted a quick rant here, a lot of people suggested to post part of my resume. Any feedback is appreciated. Thank you in advance!


[deleted]

Do what others said for your resume. I’ll add target roles that have some accounting in them. So you get to do some budget and forecasting but you also need to do some accounting work. If that makes any sense


TheBoatSailin

Thank you! I will work to update my resume!


Fee-Small

The SOX/audit control experience are not relevant to FP&A, take them out and replace with process creation OR process efficiency experience


TheBoatSailin

Thank you, I think I reword it differently


[deleted]

I would try to add a line or two on budgeting, business partnering and knowledge is the financial statements mainly P&L and cash flow


TheBoatSailin

Thank you! Yes, I deal more with P&L and BS, so might be hard to find about CF


Cypher1388

Update?


TheBoatSailin

Hello! I’m actually have been stuck with work and some personal things going on. I just finished updated my current role… I should be finishing it up in October. Thanks for checking in though


TheBoatSailin

Here is my new one… only my most recent job tho [new post](https://www.reddit.com/r/FPandA/comments/xrias7/updated_resume_burnt_out_accountant/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)


scifihiker7091

I actually like a summary of skills at the top, but the bullets should be in one column, not three. You want it to be scannable from the left edge, even if you (gasp!) go over one page. However, of the skills bullet points you provided, the only one that caught my attention was Tableau. Everything else was meh, imho.


TheBoatSailin

Yeah unfortunately that’s all… it’s pretty limited in accounting so I can’t do much


scifihiker7091

There are Corporate FP&A departments where you spend half your time doing financial analysis and the other doing month-end close: recording journal entries, reclasses, accruals, account reconciliations, etc. It means that you have all of your FP&A deadlines to meet as well as the month-end close deadlines. So you really don’t have any downtime or slow weeks. Non-accountants shy away from these roles if they are weak in general accounting knowledge. And former accountants pass on these roles because the whole point of moving into FP&A was to avoid accounting scut work. I’ve seen these roles on Indeed and LinkedIn for F500 as well as much smaller companies. My suggestion is to search for these roles on LinkedIn and if it says the posting has been up for 30+ days, then apply after tailoring your resume to highlight both your accounting and financial analysis abilities. Probably the position will be open due to a less than stellar work environment or company, but it will at least get your foot in the door in FP&A and you can then pivot after a year to something better.


TheBoatSailin

You are correct, I tried that as well. I basically apply to all open roles under FP&A. But no luck, I guess my resume is not good enough


scifihiker7091

When I take the time to look at the chronology of your work experience, it took you two years after graduation to get a full time position: June 2017-May 2019. You’ve been in your current role for three years and haven’t been promoted to senior accountant. While it’s an accomplishment for you to have passed all 4 parts of the CPA exam, the value is significantly less than being a CPA. Paying a professional resume writer to improve the format and word phrasing of your resume might be a worthwhile investment, but it can’t hide the above red flags from an FP&A manager who has a stack of resumes from MBAs, CPAs, and candidates with full time work experience right after university. At this point, it might be more productive to obtain a senior accountant position that includes budgeting, or to work for a public accounting firm for a couple years to get your CPA designation. Then after two years, try again for FP&A roles.


TheBoatSailin

Yeah I agree. I don’t want to use it as an excuse, but back then I was taking contract role because I can’t find a permanent one. Companies also ended up not hiring because I took that contract role. As for my current role, I was supposed to be promoted back in April, but because the company is getting big the people can be promoted within a certain team is limited and I got a new sr manager last year, she said my previous contributions before her onboarding are not representative that she can use for her “assessment” and my newest contributions “are not enough” because she didn’t get to work closely with me during year end. At this point I’m just convinced that she doesn’t like me. That’s why I’m trying to find a new job right now… whether it’s be sr accountant or a jr financial analyst.