How to Get Your First Accounting Job in 2026 (5 Simple Steps)

0:00 I get a lot of questions from students and career switchers asking, "How do I actually get my first accounting job?" There's a ton of confusion around what degree do you really need? Do you need an internship? Should you go big for versus corporate accounting? And do you need a CPA before you apply? And all that confusion causes a lot of people to delay applying when they are already qualified. So, in this video, I'm going to walk you through how to get your first accounting job in five simple steps based on what I actually look for when I am hiring entry-level accountants. Quick favor before we start, hit the like button. It lets me know that you are interested in this type of accounting career content. All right, let's get into it. My name is Kelly and I have been working in

0:45 corporate accounting for over 10 years. I have worked for both Fortune 200 and Fortune 500 companies and I am currently a financial reporting manager. So everything I'm sharing today is from the perspective of someone who reviews resumes, interviews candidates, and hires entry-level accountants. Before we jump into the steps, let's quickly talk about why accounting is such a great career. First, it pays really well. If you want to make six figures, you can definitely do that in accounting. Second, there's a ton of job security. Every company needs accountants and there is huge demand. Three, there's a lot of opportunities for growth in accounting and if you ever decide that you don't want to work in accounting anymore, you can also make lateral

1:30 movements to other teams like treasury, investor relations, or FPNA, for example. Should you go big four or work in corporate accounting? A lot of professors like to talk about going big four. and going big four is definitely a great career path. However, they often don't talk about all the opportunities available working in corporate accounting. So, my advice to you would be definitely consider big four, but don't disregard corporate accounting positions because those are also great accounting careers as well. I actually think you should apply to both corporate accounting and big four positions because this is going to broaden the amount of opportunities you have to land your first accounting job. So what is an entry-level accounting position? An

2:17 entry-level accounting position is going to be something like a staff accountant, an accountant one, a financial analyst, a cost accountant, or a project accountant to name a few examples. If you are interested in public accounting and want to work at a big four company working in tax or audit, you could apply for positions like an audit associate or a tax associate. Quick note, if you are choosing between tax or audit, I personally recommend audit unless you absolutely love tax. And the reason being is that audit is going to provide you a lot more transferable experience if you ever want to transition into corporate accounting. Tax is extremely specialized and best if you plan on working in tax for your entire career or

3:03 if you want to open up your own firm. In general, you want to apply for positions that do not have the word senior in the title. So, for example, senior accountant or senior financial analyst. Step one is getting a bachelor's degree in accounting. That is all you need to do to get your first accounting position. You do not need 150 credit hours yet. You do not need a master's or a CPA. Once you have your bachelor's degree in accounting, you should start applying for positions and gaining experience. Later, once you have your first accounting position and you decide that you actually like accounting and want to stay in it for your whole career, that is when I would recommend getting your remaining credit hours and becoming CPA eligible and sitting for the CPA. I personally would not recommend getting a master's degree

3:49 because they are extremely expensive. And if the only reason you are pursuing your master's degree is to become CPA eligible, there are much more cost effective ways to go about that, such as going to a community college, which is actually what I did to make up the additional credit hours to become CPA eligible. In addition, I would recommend looking into the company that you are working for to see if they have a tuition reimbursement program. A lot of companies offer those and that is another way to reduce your educational cost. Also, a lot of companies will pay for you to sit for the CPA exam as well as your study materials. So, that is another bonus for waiting until after you get your first accounting position to start becoming CPA eligible. Side note, for those of you who currently

4:35 have your associates degree, but want to start gaining accounting experience, I plan to release a different video specifically on this question and how I would recommend going about that. So, definitely subscribe if you are interested. If you do not have a bachelor's degree in accounting, but have a finance degree and want an accounting position, you can also apply to entry-level accounting positions, but just know that the preferred degree for an accounting position is always going to be an accounting degree. Step two, if you are still in school, I highly recommend that you pursue getting an internship. Having an internship is really going to help strengthen your resume when you are ready to apply for jobs by giving you some applicable experience. However, if you have already graduated, it is not the end of the

5:21 world if you did not get an internship while you were in college. When writing your resume, you will just have to emphasize transferable skills that would be desirable to an accounting position, such as attention to detail. Once you have your degree and possibly an internship, step three is going to be identifying roles and tailoring your resume. Let's walk through a real example. I found a position that I would consider entry level at PepsiCo titled accounting analyst. As we read through the job description, you will see things like journal entries, balance sheet analysis, and account reconciliations. If you had an internship, you may recognize some of these items. This is where you want to try to match your experience to the job description. If you've never done these things or heard

6:06 of these things, don't panic. These skills are very teachable and can be learned. Now, let's look at the qualifications. You want your resume to include that you have a bachelor's degree, the school you went to, and that you majored in accounting. You want to mention that you are proficient in Excel, and the other softwares that would be transferable to accounting that you know how to use. For example, if you know how to use macros, I would call that out here. In the job description, it mentions softwares such as SAP and HFM. These are two very popular softwares that a lot of companies use. SAP is a general ledger system and HFM is a consolidations and reporting tool. If you have used either of these systems

6:52 via an internship, you definitely want to call that out here. If not, no worries. Once again, these are also teachable and easy to learn. Now, if you don't have any accounting experience or internship experience, this is where you are going to need to be a little bit more creative and try to frame your other experience to sound like the qualifications the job description is looking for. For instance, you can see they are emphasizing strong leadership and communication skills, ability to multitask, strong problem solving and analytical skills, and must be detail oriented. So, for example, if I worked at a restaurant while I was going to school, I would list this under the skills section of my resume. And then I would use the same language that the

7:38 qualification section is using. As you can see in this fake example, I put the name of the restaurant that I worked at, the date range that I worked there, and then I wrote ability to multitask in a fast-paced environment, oftentimes being responsible for 10 or more tables at once. You try to make the experience you do have sound as transferable to the position as possible. One important note, please do not list your personal interests such as your hobbies or your favorite TV shows on your resume. I have seen a lot of recent college graduate résumés including this and I do not know who has been advising them to do this. However, you want to stay professional and only include relevant information on

8:25 your resume. To me, when I am reading a candidate's hobbies, like they love baseball, it just comes off as unnecessary fluff intended to fill white space on a resume. It does not help your ability to get the job and at times can be viewed as tmi. If you lack experience, include a brief professional summary like recent accounting graduate seeking entrylevel accounting position where I can apply my strong Excel skills, ability to learn software quickly and attention to detail to help the corporate accounting team successfully complete their tasks and team initiatives. And finally, consistency matters. Pay attention to the tenses you are using when you are writing your resume. For example, if you

9:10 start one of your skills bullet points with a word in the past tense, such as prepared, please do not put the next bullet point in present tense. You want to stay consistent when it comes to the tense you are using, as well as your punctuation and formatting. If you are ending one bullet point with a period, but the next bullet point does not have a period, this does not look good either. You want to stay consistent in the way your resume looks. Accountants and accounting managers specifically are extremely detailoriented and this is something that we will definitely notice. If you are saying you have attention to detail, but then one bullet point has a period and one bullet point doesn't. The first thing I'm thinking

9:56 is, do you really have attention to detail? If you need help with your resume or want specific advice about your career, check the link in my bio because I am now offering résé reviews and one-on-one career consultations where we can talk in more detail about your specific situation if that is something you are interested in. Once your resume is completed, step four is applying to the position. And I highly recommend using a recruiter when possible. In order to use a recruiter, you want to make a LinkedIn profile. Use a professional picture of yourself. Put your college and when you graduated and any internship experience you might have. And in your bio, you could put something like you are a recent college graduate seeking an entry-level accounting position. Sometimes

10:42 recruiters are going to reach out to you with entry-level accounting positions they are recruiting for to see if you are interested in applying. And sometimes you may have to reach out to recruiters. One caveat, there are going to be recruiters that specialize in recruiting for accounting positions. Those are the recruiters you want to use when looking for an accounting job. The benefit of working with a good recruiter is they oftentimes have relationships with the company that they are recruiting for. And most of the time they have talked to the hiring manager about what type of candidate the hiring manager is looking for and they have inside details about the position, the team dynamic, about the salary range for the position and if there are any

11:27 bonuses. If you are successfully offered the job, the recruiter will negotiate on your behalf and try to get you the higher end of the salary range. And oftentimes they will try to negotiate additional vacation days for you. In addition, the recruiter will let you know how you did in the interview and if the hiring manager would like to invite you back to another round of interviews. Using a recruiter is completely free to you. You should never have to pay for using a recruiter's help. They make a commission by successfully placing you in a position. However, if the position you want to apply for does not use recruiters, then just apply directly through the company's website. The final and fifth step is going to be to interview and get hired. Having a strong

12:13 resume is going to get your foot into the door to the interview. And successfully interviewing is going to be what gets you the job. So, as a hiring manager myself, especially for entry-level accounting positions, I am not expecting the candidate to have a ton of experience because I recognize this is an entry-level accounting position. What I am really focusing on during the interview is the soft skills of the candidate, the professionalism, and how well you are able to articulate your answers. When you provide examples, are you demonstrating that you have attention to detail? Do you seem like you are hardworking? Do you know the position you are applying for? Are you familiar with the company you are interviewing for? Why do you want to work in this particular position? My

13:00 advice to you is to be able to confidently talk through your resume and to be friendly. Know three strengths that you have and be able to articulate them through examples. Some strengths that I would recommend that you emphasize are going to be strong attention to detail, ability to multitask, and the ability to meet deadlines. And in case you get asked the dreaded question, what are your three weaknesses? You should be able to answer that as well. However, none of your weaknesses should actually be negative reflections of yourself. For example, you do not want to say one of your weaknesses is you are always late. Instead, you would want your weakness to actually be kind of a compliment to you.

13:46 For instance, one weakness of mine is I'm an extreme perfectionist. I always find myself triplech checkcking my work. And because of this, I have to force myself to say, Kelly, you have already triple checked this three times. There are no errors on it, and you have to move on to the next task. I plan on doing a deeper dive specifically on accounting résumés and interviews. So, if you are interested in that, definitely consider subscribing. And those are going to be the five steps to landing your first accounting job. Get your degree, get an internship if possible, write a strong resume, and apply to the position using a recruiter, preferably. Interview and get hired. If you like this video, definitely hit the

14:32 thumbs up, and I will see you in my next video.