As a Senior Auditor, you are well-versed in analyzing financial statements, accounting records, and internal controls to ensure accuracy, regulatory compliance, and properly functioning financial systems. Those skills should translate well into writing your resume because the first step involves analyzing and reviewing what prospective companies want from new staff members.
Different companies will require Senior Auditors to perform different tasks, so having a compelling resume that communicates your career progression and achievements is critical to ensure you land a coveted interview spot. No matter if you’ve consistently updated your current resume or haven’t touched it in years, this article can help you fine-tune it.
Here, you’ll find a Senior Auditor resume example and a bunch of tips and tricks you can use to tweak and wordsmith your way into a new role.
How to write a resume
Again, the first step in writing your resume involves analyzing and reviewing job descriptions for relevant keywords that you’ll need to use in your resume. A lot of people skip this step and go right into writing down their career experiences. What you’ve done so far in your career is important, but if you don’t write your resume in a way that speaks directly to specific jobs, your resume will be rejected at the applicant tracking system (ATS) step.
Dissect the job description
Part of your career involves being strategic and aligning processes with outcomes – you have to extend that ability to strategize into writing your resume. When you look at a job description, invariably, there will be a paragraph or two at the top that talks about the company – who they are and what they stand for. Then, there will be bullet points that describe what they expect new people they hire to do – duties that will need to be performed.
The keywords in those bullet points are where the magic of your resume starts. Highlight the keywords and phrases used in the job description, like “financial statement analysis,” “compliance testing,” or “CPA certification.” Then, be sure to use those statements in the text of your resume. And, as boring as it sounds, use those exact phrases so that your resume can get past the company’s ATS.
Quantify achievements
Now that you know what new companies are looking for, put some numbers next to your list of keywords. If one of the keywords in the job description is “conduct audits,” make a note of how many audits you’ve performed or what size the client portfolio was that you audited. For example, you could write something like this, “Conducted financial audits for a portfolio of 20+ clients.” Anytime you can add a number, you should do so.
Never assume the hiring manager who is reviewing your resume will know that you audited several client accounts. They will not assume anything, you have to specifically tell them. Also, use numerals rather than spelling out numbers (e.g., 9 instead of nine). Numerals break up the text and are easier for hiring managers to spot when they’re skimming through your resume.
Format and styling
Now it’s time to write your resume. There are three widely accepted resume formats – the reverse-chronological, the functional, and the hybrid (sometimes called the combination). You’ll see the reverse-chronological format in the Senior Auditor resume example in the next section.
Many people find this format old, tired, and dull. However, we still recommend using it because it can get through the ATS and it’s what hiring managers expect to see. They’re used to the format and can quickly glance through it to find the information about your past they want to see.
Part of what makes it so easy for hiring managers is the structure. The text of the reverse-chronological resume is laid out in a very specific way:
Contact information: Your name, location, phone number, and email
Title: A one-line title that mirrors the job description
Summary paragraph: A three to five-sentence paragraph that is basically your elevator speech
Core competencies: Hard and soft skills that you possess that make you the best at what you do
Work experience: The jobs you’ve held for the last 10 years, in reverse-chronological order (newest first, working backward to oldest)
Education: Your degrees, licenses, certifications, and professional development
When you spend the time to carefully analyze the job description and use that language to talk about relevant information in your Senior Auditor resume, you create a tailored application that will help you stand out from the crowd of other job seekers looking to land the same position.
Senior Auditor resume example
It’s all well and good to have someone tell you how to craft a compelling resume, it’s another thing to see one. Because of that, we’d like to present you with the following Senior Auditor resume example.
Name
Title
City, State or Country if international
Phone | Email
LinkedIn URL
SENIOR AUDITOR PROFESSIONAL
Dedicated Senior Auditor highly regarded for success in organizing and leading internal audits in accordance with the audit plan and leading a team of auditors working on operational, financial and compliance issues. Ensures compliance with internal and external control procedures by examining records, reports, operating practices, regulations, and documentation. Exceptional interpersonal skills, with the ability to communicate risks and issues and work with various teams and senior level staff to implement improvements. Completes all projects on time with the highest level of scrutiny and attention to detail to ensure results exceed expectations. Works to establish accountability, transparency, and a culture of continuous improvement in operations and service delivery. Strong leadership skills with experience working in a team environment, able to collaborate with individuals from diverse backgrounds.
CORE COMPETENCIES
Audit Design
Training
Risk Management
Financial Analysis
Compliance and Regulation
Process Improvement
Efficiency/Effectiveness
Research and Analysis
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Senior Auditor
ZipJob, New York NY | Year to Year
Responsibilities
Conduct internal control and substantive testing, reviewing results to achieve 100% accuracy in findings.
Served as a liaison between client management and firm partners, overseeing the successful execution of audit and consulting engagements, from the engagement letter through report issuance, while managing engagement economics.
Developed and maintained productive working relationships with client management to ensure that needs and expectations were understood and exceeded.
Drove the prompt resolution of accounting and auditing issues, clearly communicating the resolution to both clients and engagement team members.
Ensured the effective and efficient execution of the firm's audit methodology to yield quality audits.
Led by example in fostering a culture of teamwork, responsibility and integrity.
Senior Auditor
ZipJob, New York NY | Year to Year
Responsibilities
Led/conducted comprehensive financial audits, federal/state compliance audits, and established procedures.
Performed analytical procedures/analyses to detect unusual financial statement relationships.
Identified and communicated accounting and auditing matters to seniors and managers.
Consulted with senior leadership and managers to help them adjusting journal entries. Discussed audit findings, risks, opportunities, and recommendations with business and technical staff.
Coordinated entrance/exit conferences for leadership surrounding the audit and answering any questions of leading training as needed.
EDUCATION
Complete School Name, City, St/Country: List Graduation Years If Within the Last Ten Years
Complete Degree Name (Candidate) – Major (GPA: List if over 3.3)
Relevant Coursework: List coursework taken (even include those you are planning on taking)
Awards/Honors: List any awards, honors or big achievements
Clubs/Activities: List clubs and activities in which you participated
Relevant Projects: List 2-3 projects you have worked on
Use this example as a template for your own resume. You can also use the language as inspiration in coming up with what to write.
Key hard & soft skills for Senior Auditor
One thing about writing your resume bears spending a bit of time on – hard and soft skills. Technically, that’s two things. You are probably really good at pouring over financial statements and finding problems that need to be fixed. There are surely some times during your career that you even fixed issues or found faster ways of doing things that saved time and money. Those are great things to mention on your resume.
However, that’s not all future hiring managers want to know about. They want to know that you can effectively collaborate with others and make presentations to senior leaders about solutions to problems. Because of the well-rounded nature of the employee these future employers want, you have to have a good balance of hard and soft skills in your resume.
Hard skills for your Senior Auditor resume
Hard skills are the technical abilities that you learned from getting your degree or practical experience over the last several years. These skills are measurable and can be easily honed through coursework. Examples of hard skills include:
Auditing software
CPA certification
Account standards
Compliance requirements
Industry-specific knowledge
Generally Accepted Auditing Standards (GAAS)
Data analysis and reporting
Risk-based audit approaches
Soft skills for your Senior Auditor resume
Soft skills are interpersonal abilities that help you apply hard skills to your tasks. For example, the hard skills you possess allow you to draft solid reports for senior leaders, but the soft skills allow you to present that report in an intelligible and persuasive way that garners change. Here are some other examples of soft skills for Senior Auditors:
Communication
Analytical thinking
Attention to detail
Time management
Team collaboration
Ethics
Adaptability
You may think that mentioning the fact that you have good communication skills, as an example, isn’t as important to spend time on as some of the hard skills. However, it’s important to note that hiring managers place a lot of value on soft skills. Aligning hard skills and soft skills with what they need in a new hire ensures that they not only get someone who can do the job but will also fit within the culture of the company.
Summary & last words
Your job as a job seeker is to present yourself as a valuable asset to future employers. The best way to do this is through your resume, especially considering that your resume is often the first impression you’ll make on hiring managers. When you present information about your career in a logical and compelling narrative that mirrors what the company talks about in the job description, you’ll stand above the crowd and win an interview spot.
Introduction to ZipJob: Professional resume writers
Considering how important your resume is, you may want to leave it to the professionals at ZipJob. Our team of professional resume writers has a ton of experience writing customized Senior Auditor resumes that get past the ATS and impress hiring managers. Your writer will work with you one-on-one to determine the most compelling accomplishments to use on your resume – the things that hiring managers want to see.
Why you should make use of our resume writing services to land your next job as Senior Auditor
Not only do ZipJob’s professional resume writers know how to craft a document that will help you sell your qualifications to a new company, but we also use the same technology those companies use to weed out candidates. That means you get a resume that is properly formatted and optimized with the right keywords and phrases aligned with the job descriptions of your job target.
Resume writing service for Senior Auditor: Let us write your resume
Your job as a Senior Auditor can be quite taxing and stressful, there’s no sense in adding more stress to your life. When you let us write your resume, you can go ahead and check an item off your job search to-do list.