Sharing my resume
Since January, I applied to 5 jobs in my mid-sized city (4 external and 1 internal), got ghosted by 1, was out of desired pay range so rejected for 1, got contacted by 2. Out of the two external jobs, I forgot to respond to one (so I guess I ghosted them on accident) and I did 1 round of interviews for a Senior Tax Accountant position. The internal job was a lateral move with no pay increase, so I rejected that one after I received the external offer.
The 1 round was unexpected because I was told there would be at least 2. However, since my mid-sized city is small for corporate tax accountants, there's a bit of a musical chairs thing going on here. My old manager is friends with my new director and used to work at my new company, so there was an inadvertent, indirect networking factor to me getting this job.
Nonetheless, I think my resume is a pretty good example of how resumes should be formatted, at least in my niche of tax and energy, so if it is useful for anyone to look at, that's great!
Here are some things I do and don't do:
No summary. For this job, I made the case in the interview that I was looking to join this specific company because I wanted to expand my horizon in my skill area and industry niche. I don't think a summary is necessary if your resume and career path is already able to communicate that idea implicitly with both where you are applying and what you have already done. Summaries I think would be useful for new grads who have space to fill but not for more experienced people.
No metrics. Yeah I could say I saved the company X amount of dollars of I completed X audits X% faster or X amount more payments, but these metrics can be made up and cannot be proven to your interviewers. If it's unfalsifiable, leave it off I say.
Add in bullet points that are atypical for your role. I did serve on the annual training committee at work and received an award for it at my state job. I did test and implement new software modules and trained the new hire we had on it and other stuff. I think it shows I go above and beyond and humanizes me beyond my ability to do tax related work. Eventually when I have to shorten my resume, those things will be the last on my resume to go because the job title should already imply some typical responsibilities so highlighting the atypical ones is more important.
Pick a lane for your career. I did not apply to anywhere outside of an energy and energy adjacent tax positions which is why I did not apply to a ton of jobs in my city even though there were lots of potential tax positions open. I was not in a particular hurry to leave my old job, but when my new company came with a 33% raise (more than I asked), I couldn't not take it.