What should an accountant's covering letter actually say?

Where the letter actually gets read

It depends entirely on who is hiring and how big they are.

At a sole practitioner or small practice, the partner who will manage you day to day often reads every word, because they're hiring one person and want to know who that person is before the interview. At a mid-tier firm, the letter usually gets a faster read from whoever screens applications before passing a shortlist to the manager who'll actually interview you. At a Big Four firm or a large corporate finance function, graduate and PQ (part-qualified) roles usually go through an applicant tracking system and a structured application form first — your letter, if there's space for one at all, is often a secondary field rather than the main event, and a human may not read it until after the numerical reasoning test and the online assessment.

The practical result: for practice roles below manager level, assume it gets skimmed. For qualified or senior roles — client manager, financial controller, head of finance, tax manager — assume someone reads it properly, because at that level firms are hiring judgement and client-handling ability, not just technical competence, and the letter is one of the few places you can demonstrate either before you're in the room.

The one or two things a hiring manager actually wants answered

Strip away the padding and there are really only two questions worth answering, and they're not the same question.

Can you do the technical work this role needs, right now, with minimal ramp-up? Not "I am a hard-working and detail-oriented individual" — that sentence has never told a hiring manager anything. What tells them something is naming the actual work: you've run month-end close for a portfolio of clients, prepared statutory accounts under FRS 102, managed VAT returns and MTD compliance, or led an audit file from planning through to sign-off. If the advert specifies a sector — property, not-for-profit, owner-managed businesses, financial services — say whether you've worked in it. Accountancy hiring managers read a lot of CVs that list duties without saying at what scale or for what kind of client, and the letter is where you can be specific in a way the CV's bullet points often aren't.

Why this firm or this role, specifically, and not just "a job in accountancy"? This matters more in practice than in industry, because practice firms are choosing someone who will represent them to clients, and they can tell within two sentences whether you've actually looked at the firm or sent the same letter to twenty vacancies. If you're applying to a firm with a strong audit arm, say why audit interests you specifically, not accountancy in general. If you're moving from practice to industry — a common move around three to five years post-qualification — say why you want to be on the other side of the relationship, preparing the accounts rather than reviewing them, because that's a real change in the work and hiring managers know it.

Everything else in the letter is in service of these two questions. If a sentence doesn't answer one of them, it's probably filler.

What to put in, and in what order

Front-load it. Put your qualification status in the first two or three lines — ACA, ACCA, CIMA, AAT, part-qualified with exams remaining and expected completion date, or qualified by experience. This is the first thing a hiring manager scans for, because it determines what level of role you can even be considered for, and burying it on page two of the letter (or leaving it out because it's "on the CV anyway") wastes the one advantage a letter has over a CV: you get to choose what comes first.

After that, one or two concrete examples of relevant work, matched to what the advert actually asked for. If the advert mentions a specific software package — Xero, Sage, QuickBooks, CCH, IRIS, CaseWare, SAP, Oracle — and you've used it, say so by name; don't write "proficient in accounting software" when the advert named the software. If the advert asks for audit experience under ISA (UK) standards, or exposure to IFRS as well as UK GAAP, or experience of a specific client sector, answer that directly rather than listing your general skillset and hoping it overlaps.

End with something specific about the firm or organisation — its client base, its size, a service line it's known for, or, for an in-house role, something about the business itself. "I'm drawn to your firm's focus on owner-managed businesses because that's the client relationship I've found most rewarding in my current role" does more work than "I am excited about the opportunity to join your team."

Keep it short. Half a page, three or four paragraphs. Nobody in this profession wants to read two pages restating the CV in prose.

Where the letter carries little weight

Be honest with yourself about this, because it changes how much time you should spend on it.

For graduate schemes and school-leaver programmes at large firms, the letter usually carries less weight than the numerical reasoning test, the situational judgement test, and the structured competency questions in the online application form. Some of these schemes don't ask for a free-text letter at all — they ask you to answer set questions in a character-limited box, which is a covering letter in function but not in form, and the advice about tone and structure still applies even though it doesn't look like a letter.

For roles where the specification is almost entirely about the qualification and years of post-qualified experience — many financial controller and senior practice roles are advertised this way — the letter's job is mostly to confirm you meet the stated bar and aren't hiding a reason you don't. The CV and the qualification do most of the persuading. A strong letter won't overcome a mismatch on the core requirement (wrong qualification body, wrong sector experience, PQ when the role needs qualified), and a weak or missing letter is unlikely to sink an application where the CV clearly meets the brief and the market for that specific skill set is tight.

Where the letter earns its keep is the space in between: roles where several candidates will meet the technical bar and the decision comes down to fit, communication, and whether the hiring manager can picture you in front of a client or presenting management accounts to a board. That's most manager-level and senior roles in practice, and most finance business partner and controller roles in industry. If you're applying at that level, write the letter properly. If you're applying to a graduate scheme with a rigid online form, spend your time on the psychometric tests instead and treat the free-text box as a formality done well rather than a masterpiece.

What to do next

Open the advert again and find the two or three things it actually asks for — the qualification level, the software, the sector, the specific responsibility (audit sign-off, statutory accounts, VAT compliance, FP&A). Write one sentence answering each of them with something true and specific from your own experience. That's most of the letter. Add your qualification status at the start and one sentence about why this firm or business at the end. Read it once for anything that could apply to any accountancy job at any firm, and cut that sentence.

If you're sending the same letter to a dozen adverts with the firm name swapped, a hiring manager can usually tell, and in a field this small — many practice hiring decisions are still made by people who know each other across firms — that reputation follows you. jobmarket.pro reads each advert in full and drafts a letter from your actual work history, matched to what that specific vacancy asked for, rather than a template with the details changed.