US CMA as a gold standard certification is one of the toughest roads to pass. After spilling your waking hours into preparing for your US CMA exams, you might feel your job is done! Actually, the major part of your CMA career journey begins here. Once you have completed your CMA exam, you need some advertisement about your professional worthiness in the accounting and business world to land in a prospective role, probably at the Big 4s. Selling your CMA resume can be a bit tricky. But here are 5 smart steps that would give you a lead in telling the industry about your professional credentials and capabilities even before you get US CMA certification in hand.
Winning CMA Resume Format
High competition prevails in the job market, hence ensuring that you choose the best resume format that is unique and speaks to the prospective employer without landing him in confusion and doubts about your credentials and experience. Keeping the introduction brief, listing your professional experience in reverse order, avoiding repetitive statements, simple font, and limiting bullets or bars/scales are some critical areas to make your resume more appealing! The resume of a US CMA candidate is deceptively simple.
A CMA’s Cover Letter
One of the triggering factors that you need in your arsenal is an eye-catching cover letter. As a certified management accountant, you need an impressive cover letter to convince the hiring manager of why you would be the best fit for the role and how apt are your skills and experience to match the goals of the organization. While creating a cover letter, you need to build a succinct, personalized, and brief message that does not put off the interest of the manager. The cover letter also reflects your position and confidence to excel in the given role.
Leverage Social Media
LinkedIn is one of the powerful and most recommended professional networking platforms to advertise your professional interest and career hunt. One of the potential platforms that recruiters check on the candidate is their LinkedIn profile. If that is the case, then CMA aspirants should make sure that their profiles are updated and organized to meet the expectations of the employer.
Use the Right Keywords
Since digital transformation has spread on a wide scale, most companies, whether small or large, have leveraged digital databases to hunt for the best talent. The human resource managers run their queries based on a set of keywords to find suitable candidates for key roles. In this case, you need to be extra careful of locating keywords in your resume in appropriate sections so that they may be quickly identified by the talent acquisition teams. If you are enrolled at a CMA Review Institute, then possibly take the help of a mentor/tutor to know the professional keywords that are trending in the job market to optimize them into your CV.
Suitable titles
If you want the recruiter to decide on your resume within 5 minutes, then ensure that the title stays strong on your resume. What if you do not have adequate keywords in your resume in connection with the role and expertise you hold? You lose even before the game starts! Want to be noticed by leading recruiters and industries? Inculcate keywords and titles that match the clue of the employer’s search, and enhance the effectiveness of your resume.
Stretch on your achievements
Holding a US CMA certification, you need to list out your professional achievements more than your responsibilities on your resume to help recruiters understand the effectiveness of your candidature for a particular role. Listing out responsibilities can put your recruiter off. The key selling point is based on how well you design your resume, placing tangible results that would grow the performance and business of the prospective company.
