Throughline

Business and finance

Accountant or Auditor in the United States

137 postings read · sampled 2026-10-01 · source ats · 75 employers · largest 7% of it

What employers actually ask for

Credentials named in the 137 postings we read, ranked by how many mentioned each one.

What it costs

Exam and application fees plus typical self-study hours. Almost nobody needs every credential on this list — start with the top line.

Most-asked-for, on its own
$1,500CPA · ~400 hrs
asked for in 64 of 137 postings — 47%
If you earned all 1 of them
$1,500
fees checked 2026-08
400 hrs
400 hours — about 40 weeks at 10 hrs/wk

Not in the total: Bachelor's Degree — cost varies by institution; Master's Degree — cost varies by institution.

Lower signal for this role

Credentials that barely appeared in this sample. That is not a claim they are worthless — plenty are valuable for a different job, a different city, or a promotion later. It is a claim that employers here mostly did not ask.

  • CFA Level ICFA Institute
    1%
    1 of 137 postings$1,290 exam · fee checked 2026-08~300 hrs prepCFA Institute →
  • CISAISACA
    1%
    1 of 137 postings$760 exam · fee checked 2026-08~200 hrs prepISACA →
  • CISMISACA
    1%
    1 of 137 postings$760 exam · fee checked 2026-08~200 hrs prepISACA →
  • CISSPISC2
    1%
    1 of 137 postings$749 exam · fee checked 2026-08~300 hrs prepISC2 →

What the official taxonomy says

O*NET surveys people already doing this job. That describes who got hired over a long window, not what employers are asking for now — where it disagrees with the counts above, the counts are the more current answer.

Education reported by people doing this job
69%reported bachelor’s degree
  • Bachelor’s degree69%
  • Associate’s degree or other 2-year degree7%
  • Post-baccalaureate certificate7%

Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed. Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.

O*NET 13-2011.00 · pulled 2026-10-01 · percentages are of surveyed workers, each rounded separately, so they need not total 100

What it pays

BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. A different survey from the postings above, so the two do not share a sample.

$56,020
10th percentile
$83,680
median
$144,090
90th percentile

Every credential above costs $1,500 — about 5 days' pay at the median.

Who was hiring

Employers with at least one matching posting in this sample.

Current · Anduril Industries · SpaceX · 360 IT Professionals · Infojini Inc · Integrated Resources Inc · Latitude Inc · PSI CRO · Boyd Gaming · Comprehensive Mobile Care · HelloFresh · Lucid Motors · NielsenIQ · Rocket Lab · Specialty1 Partners · Carta · City of New York · Collabera · Databricks · IonQ · McWane Inc · Oscar Health · Stripe · Tomra · Trucordia · vTech Solution · Agility Robotics · Artech Information System · Astranis · Atlas Energy Solutions · Betterment · Blue Bottle Coffee · Bosch · Braze · Choreo · Circle Logistics · Cloudflare · Cogent Talent Solutions · Coinbase · Decagon · Divergent Technologies · DN Tanks (DN LLC) · Ethos Life · Figma · Fivetran · Focus Financial Partners · Formic · Foundation Risk Partners · Gusto · Hinge Health · Ingram Barge Company · Insomnia Cookies · Intuitive Surgical · J&J Snack Foods · MAT Holdings · Multiverse · Notion · Oura · Peloton · Pioneer Data · Premier Truck Group · PS Logistics · Range · Saronic · SBT Global · Scale AI · Sierra · Skild AI · SoFi · SpawGlass · Spring Health · The Mural Group · USM · W3R Consulting · Wynn Resorts

Next

  • Roast and Resolve — Now aim your résumé at this target. Free roast, paid rewrite.
  • Synap — Two-minute daily lessons to drill the skills underneath the credential.