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The job market for industry accounting in NYC is absolutely horrid right now. All the company's are lowballing, doing 8 rounds of interviews, doing take home exams / projects / presentations and then ghosting you right after. I hate this city some days.
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Feb 26, 2021 19:49
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KirbyKhan posted:You go to work the sun is down, when you get off work the sun is down, when you step outside for lunch it is overcast. this is normal for public accounting (other than the overcast, regionally)
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Feb 27, 2021 05:46
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Sounds a lot like Iowa to me
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Feb 27, 2021 19:10
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Hey folks. I've been heading an accounting-ish direction and have a bit left to go but wanted to see if I could address worries I've been having. I started out actually majoring in Accounting proper, but did a mild shift of majors when my work where I am part of the currency operations team set up a free college program. I'm now looking at winding up with a degree in Business Administration with an Accounting focus in about two years (one year's worth of credits spread out left). The first is pretty basic - I'm not certain how the change of majors might affect my prospects whether it be continuing to work at my local megacorporation, trying to get a certification (CPA, CIA... something), or whatever else may be out there. I don't know if I hosed up by taking the major change, even if it meant college was free. I'm also worried about the quality of my education and just how difficult any required certifications may wind up being because of that. That I am forgetful is rough enough and I have been taking courses half-paced to try to get around that and other brain ferrets that gently caress with me. Worse, both the college where I started (Fullerton Community) and the college where I transferred (Brandman) seem to use a lot of 'you get multiple chances' online homework, discussion boards, and poo poo like that. Hell, I finished up the final for my first session of Intermediate Accounting this morning - the professor posted the test and told us about it which made it really just a matter of finding the answers and then plugging them in. I've gotten As at both schools, but I'm seriously worried there'll be a serious lack of retention. For all that I usually feel like college is two-thirds knowing how to find answers and one-third knowing things, this doesn't feel that way and I don't think that this teaching method is really going to do wonders for my future. Work does have a couple programs where they grab accountants, give them some experience, and then place them in the company and that is sort of what I am hoping to aim for. That said, I want to make sure I'm able to be able to qualify and be knowledgeable enough to function in those positions so I don't get kicked back to currency operations. Just how hosed am I? And what can I do to get unfucked?
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Mar 4, 2021 20:11
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My view is you did not gently caress up, and therefore there's no reason to get unfucked. (what follows is assuming you're in the US) Having an "accounting degree" is good, and if you want to become an accountant that's probably better than "Business degree with accounting minor." However, I don't think it's better enough to justify the cost of two years of university. If you're getting the latter for free, you're probably coming out ahead. For the CPA, you need a certain number of accounting credit hours. Which probably means going back to school after your degree to get those hours. Most people with accounting degrees need to do that anyways, because the CPA licensing boards in each state set the requirement to be juuuuuust above what you'd get in an accounting bachelors degree. If you need to get a Macc or an MTax to become a CPA anyways, might as well do that after a free business admin degree than after a costly accounting degree. If you want to go into tax, you can get an EA right away and it doesn't matter what your degree was. You could use that to get your foot in the door while you finish up your masters degree or fifth year studies, then sit for the CPA exam and take that with actual work experience. Studying for the CPA exam will certainly be easier if you remember everything from university. Probably more is sinking in than you realize. When you go through Becker or whatever program, you'll most likely have a lot of "oh yeah I remember that" moments. Regarding the quality of your education, eh. I went to a traditional "brick and mortar" university. If I learned something there and DO use it in my work, then I remember it. If I don't use it in my work, it's very much gone at this point. University education is more of a gatekeeping thing than an actual knowledge transmission thing. You're going through the gate. Any knowledge you gain is secondary. It sucks but, uh, it's the way it is. Literally nobody is knowledgeable enough to function at their first accounting job when they start. Don't expect to be. You will learn on the job. I honestly do not know enough about big 4 recruiting for the audit side to say whether you'll have any luck with your current set up. My guess is that if you really wanted to go that route, you'd probably need to be in an in-person university and an accounting program proper. But that's not the only way to get started in accounting, and you're certainly not locked out of working in CPA firms, getting a CPA license, etc. Hellblazer187 fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Mar 4, 2021 |
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Mar 4, 2021 20:45
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I agree that you didn’t gently caress up at all. Just double check what the education requirements are to be a licensed CPA in your state and have a plan to get those units if you won’t meet them. If you think you might want the CPA license then it’s easier to take care of all of that sooner rather than later. I’ve had friends who started taking the exams only to later realize that they weren’t even eligible to be a CPA. Don’t do that. My degree did not prepare me for the exams and even if it did there’s no way to retain that amount of information over the course of a degree. I used Becker and Ninja review materials and promptly forgot everything once I passed. Also, as someone who immediately jumped into a technical consulting based group at a big 4 firm, my advice is not to underestimate the practical things you can learn working in general accounting at your local megacorp. I work with a ton of people who have niche technical knowledge but I wouldn’t trust to run any sort of general accounting program for a business in the real world. Meanwhile, people who started and stayed in corporate accounting are now controllers making more and working less than me.
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Mar 4, 2021 21:24
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Auditor here, I work in the UK (and not big 4), but I don't think any shortcomings in your college would screw you over in the workplace. We have different exams so I don't know about those. Most of our new graduates definitely don't have specific accounting degrees though - they still learn just fine! The work you would be doing as a new trainee would be quite mechanical and focus on following the firm's procedures. By the time you're making bigger judgements and deciding what work is required, you would really be relying on your work experience rather than your technical training.
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Mar 4, 2021 21:52
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What exactly does entry level accountants do? I went through that same feel of inadequate education with SNHU causing me to transfer to a brick and mortar for this fall. I felt like I wasn't really learning anything despite getting As
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Mar 4, 2021 22:20
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Empress Brosephine posted:What exactly does entry level accountants do? I went through that same feel of inadequate education with SNHU causing me to transfer to a brick and mortar for this fall. I felt like I wasn't really learning anything despite getting As That is entirely dependent on what career path/service line you go in to. But rest assured that accounting is an apprenticeship-type job and if you know excel, some basics of the field you're entering, and are willing to try to learn (and eat hours), you'll almost surely do fine.
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Mar 4, 2021 22:33
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We train Indians and Argentinians to do taxes for complex private equity structures. As long as you pick up debits and credits in college, and have an idea of how to read a financial statement, you can pretty much pick the rest up as you go. Accounting is a trade, and just like laying bricks, you pick up most of the useful knowledge actually laying bricks, not reading about laying bricks.
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Mar 4, 2021 23:16
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Hurt Whitey Maybe posted:We train Indians and Argentinians to do taxes for complex private equity structures. lol same
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Mar 5, 2021 00:26
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Also I think once you've been working for like 2 years and have a CPA license, nobody is going to care what university you went to or what your major is.
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Mar 5, 2021 00:29
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The good foreign Big4 accounting workmills are the Philippines locations. The work product from all the Indian teams I've worked with was absolute poo poo. (There are plenty of good accountants in India. Just talking about the 'support' teams that crank out staff level tasks)
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Mar 5, 2021 00:44
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Work product from offshore support teams is generally poor, but that comes down to engagement management and the nature of the business model. Frankly, I think it was a bad idea in the first place for all the firms to jump into India, but I'm expected to use the teams in India, so I do. The only way to make it work is to manage the prep team as though they were your associates in the same office - calls to kick off, calls to review, frequent check ins, and above all, retaining the same team from year to year.
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Mar 5, 2021 01:33
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The best part about working from teams in India is them pinging you “hello!” when you sign on so they can get an answer before they leave for the day, then working so late you get a second “hello!” ping when they get back in the office the next (Indian) morning.
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Mar 5, 2021 01:36
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It varies by state but the CPA usually cares more about credit hours in accounting rather than an accounting major. I was able to get qualified to sit for the exam with a combination of an AS from the local community college, an online school for a BA, and construction apprenticeship credits to round it out to 150 hours. As long as the institutions are at least regionally accredited its fine, and you have to be a turbo fuckup like ITT Tech or U of Phoenix to have any threat of your school having that pulled. Might not result in a Big 4 path but you can still have a good career going down a financial/budget analyst path.
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Mar 5, 2021 02:12
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It's a bit sad to say, but how good your college is at teaching accounting isn't as important as whether or not your school has an active recruiting pipeline into the public accounting world, assuming you're trying to advance to the higher accounting positions.
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Mar 5, 2021 03:34
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Good Citizen posted:It's a bit sad to say, but how good your college is at teaching accounting isn't as important as whether or not your school has an active recruiting pipeline into the public accounting world, assuming you're trying to advance to the higher accounting positions. If your mandatory ethics class does not put you in direct contact with an employer your school is failing you. Exaggeration maybe. If your ethics professor does not detail to you how to get the local professional board blotter where you can read about everyone's DUI, then they are failing you as a fellow tradesman. EXAGGERATION ABSOLUTELY NOT But if you want a broad survey into the profession accounting and MUST take something academic, then knocking out the ethics course early is a good call. Sice that is the recurring requirement the administration put more PD, recruiting, and networking slots into that course than other courses.
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Mar 5, 2021 04:21
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Thanks for the replies folks. That does make me feel better about my prospects despite how the college is running things. As for my school putting me in contact with an employer or whatnot - didn't happen but that doesn't bother me too much. My work offers both a sort of 'management intern' thing within my department as well as has a program for accountants where they'll send you around the company for four six-month stints and then place you. The only downside to that is I could basically spend two years shuffling between different places in Florida, California, and possibly Texas, Paris (unlikely), or China (very unlikely).
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Mar 5, 2021 10:47
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Erev posted:The only downside to that is I could basically spend two years shuffling between different places in Florida, California, and possibly Texas, Paris (unlikely), or China (very unlikely). Do you have kids or something? If you're unattached, the chance to spend some time in different parts of the country (or world) isn't really a downside IMO. It depends, in part, on what part of FL and what part of Texas but presumably this multinational corporation isn't sending you to like Bartow, FL in the middle of Polk County. That was the shittiest place in FL I could think of off the top of my head, I'm sure there's worse!
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Mar 5, 2021 14:38
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Erev posted:Thanks for the replies folks. That does make me feel better about my prospects despite how the college is running things. ime rotational programs take participants wants into account, if there’s a particular place you want to be you can probably complete most of them in whichever office you prefer, it’ll limit the breadth of your experience to whatever opportunities are available tho
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Mar 5, 2021 16:05
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Hurt Whitey Maybe posted:Accounting is a trade, and just like laying bricks, you pick up most of the useful knowledge actually laying bricks, not reading about laying bricks.  Hellblazer187 posted:Also I think once you've been working for like 2 years and have a CPA license, nobody is going to care what university you went to or what your major is. Good Citizen posted:It's a bit sad to say, but how good your college is at teaching accounting isn't as important as whether or not your school has an active recruiting pipeline into the public accounting world, assuming you're trying to advance to the higher accounting positions. Erev posted:As for my school putting me in contact with an employer or whatnot - didn't happen but that doesn't bother me too much. My work offers both a sort of 'management intern' thing within my department as well as has a program for accountants where they'll send you around the company for four six-month stints and then place you. The only downside to that is I could basically spend two years shuffling between different places in Florida, California, and possibly Texas, Paris (unlikely), or China (very unlikely). FWIW, I was an accounting major who went into public accounting for a few years right out of college, but I had a buddy who was a finance major who went into one of these kinds of finance rotational training programs with a big company. He moved around a lot for the first few years, but he seemed to enjoy it (much more than those of us in public accounting enjoyed our jobs), wound up learning roughly as much about financial reporting and corporate accounting operations as I did, and kept moving up through accounting/finance/managerial positions at his company. If you're relatively happy with your company and they have a good internal program for training up accounting/finance/management types, you're starting off in pretty good shape - you're arguably in better shape than fresh or soon-to-be accounting grads who have nominally met CPA exam eligibility requirements but are still job hunting.
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Mar 5, 2021 16:47
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My CPA was built on the back of a philosophy degree. I had a lot of post grad units to do.
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Mar 5, 2021 16:56
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I mean, it's Disney. One of the good things about it is that the company does have a track record of preferring to promote internally and they do go out of their way to not screw you over on it - something which I can personally attest to.
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Mar 5, 2021 17:52
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Erev posted:I mean, it's Disney. One of the good things about it is that the company does have a track record of preferring to promote internally and they do go out of their way to not screw you over on it - something which I can personally attest to. My advice would be to keep doing what you're doing - keep taking advantage of that free college opportunity, and take advantage of your employer's rotational training program because you're going to learn far more about accounting doing that than you would sitting in any classroom. Meanwhile, keep an eye on the CPA exam requirements for whatever state(s) you think you might wind up in once you stop moving around, and start picking up extra credits here and there to hit their credit-hour requirements (or, plan on getting a MAcc or MSA or other such degree, if you're far enough away from the specific hour requirements that it's easier to just do a one-year masters program and you don't mind paying a bit extra for that ease).
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Mar 5, 2021 18:28
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sale on Banksy art posted:My CPA was built on the back of a philosophy degree. Same, but communication studies. The only additional on-paper education I had was a two-year accounting diploma from the local college. I think what put me over the top was being part of the college CGA (before three separate designations merged into one) case competition and volunteering for a program that files taxes for low-income persons. Also wouldn't surprise me if part of the reason I got the job was because I studied film and video production in university, and my boss used to own a movie theatre years and years ago.
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Mar 5, 2021 20:04
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mojo1701a posted:Same, but communication studies. The only additional on-paper education I had was a two-year accounting diploma from the local college. I think what put me over the top was being part of the college CGA (before three separate designations merged into one) case competition and volunteering for a program that files taxes for low-income persons. Oh yeah, VITA service is gold and stuff to talk about outside of job is platinum.
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Mar 5, 2021 20:12
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sale on Banksy art posted:My CPA was built on the back of a philosophy degree. mine was on top of an English degree! 
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Mar 5, 2021 21:08
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I started with a business degree. I did eventually get a second bachelors in accounting, after getting a law degree too. For more info look at the very first post in this thread. Also on that first page is me saying "hm, not sure I even remember algebra" and someone saying "wow you'll never make it." Well look at me now, guy who said I'll never make it! I'm a CPA making mid five figures and shitposting with five weeks to go until April 15 and I cry every day!
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Mar 5, 2021 22:56
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lmao I haven't even reached out to last years 1120S, 1065, and 3520A clients to see if they need extensions. Self destruction in real time, wheeee!!!!
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Mar 5, 2021 22:59
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Sorry I'll try to keep my mental breakdowns out of the accounting thread.
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Mar 5, 2021 23:24
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The key to getting any accounting job is to specify front and center that you are bilingual. If they ask about it during your interview, you need to say “I speak the language of business” while slowly sliding a piece of paper, face down, across the table with your requested salary. For extra security you can also write Debit knowledge Cr cash. At this point you can give the table a couple quick taps as you get up and leave the room. The number one candidate mistake is not following these steps.
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Mar 5, 2021 23:37
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Mush Mushi posted:The key to getting any accounting job is to specify front and center that you are bilingual. If they ask about it during your interview, you need to say “I speak the language of business” while slowly sliding a piece of paper, face down, across the table with your requested salary. For extra security you can also write Debit knowledge Cr cash. At this point you can give the table a couple quick taps as you get up and leave the room. The number one candidate mistake is not following these steps. This is EXACTLY how my recent successful job interview went.
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Mar 5, 2021 23:59
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Unrelated to my last post: IRS hiring over 1000 revenue agents nationwide. These are small business division jobs that start at up to GS-12 depending on education and experience. Large business and international jobs starting at GS-13 should be coming soon. Working hour flexibility as if you were self-employed, combined with job security, a 40 hour week, and a pension. https://go.usa.gov/xsPkp
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Mar 5, 2021 23:59
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I gotta say, had an awful day at work today (the client wants their tax returns early next week for mid tier entities with no outside investors, even though we just extended all of them, and they just gave us the information today), but knowing that I’m gonna quit at the end of this? Feels real good.
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Mar 6, 2021 00:00
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Hellblazer187 posted:Sorry I'll try to keep my mental breakdowns out of the accounting thread. Mental breakdowns are 100% on topic
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Mar 6, 2021 00:06
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Good Citizen posted:Mental breakdowns are 100% on topic we need a discord so we can stream our daily cries to one another i had two today!!! it was a p good day all in all
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Mar 6, 2021 00:19
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Erev posted:That I am forgetful is rough enough and I have been taking courses half-paced to try to get around that and other brain ferrets that gently caress with me. This will gently caress you up but luckily it's very workable. If you aren't already, use a system of some kind to track your poo poo encompassing immediate/short/medium/and long-term. I've used Asana professionally and Trello personally. Start doing it now about your homework/home improvement projects/taxes/whatever the gently caress else needs more than just a calendar reminder or alarm to execute on. Devote time (usually not much, like 5 min) to managing it at the beginning and end of each day. I have a very good memory but still don't rely on it to juggle all the poo poo I need to do because that destroyed me with anxiety. Don't get me wrong I still have an anxiety disorder but now its different. Offload that work and you'll both feel better AND perform better. I'm a terrible fake accountant with no schooling at all just industry experience so no one should listen to me but on this, you can.
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Mar 6, 2021 04:09
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Quetzadilla posted:
BROTHER! Also thanks up thread about the IRS heads up.
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Mar 6, 2021 06:01
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Quetzadilla posted:This will gently caress you up but luckily it's very workable. If you aren't already, use a system of some kind to track your poo poo encompassing immediate/short/medium/and long-term. I've used Asana professionally and Trello personally. Start doing it now about your homework/home improvement projects/taxes/whatever the gently caress else needs more than just a calendar reminder or alarm to execute on. Devote time (usually not much, like 5 min) to managing it at the beginning and end of each day. I have a very good memory but still don't rely on it to juggle all the poo poo I need to do because that destroyed me with anxiety. Don't get me wrong I still have an anxiety disorder but now its different. Offload that work and you'll both feel better AND perform better. I've got a bit of a system between google calendars and a bevy of postit notes, but it could be interesting to see what I could do with something like Trello. That said, the learning stuff is less time management and more other mental health-related issues that I'm working to find the right treatments for.
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Mar 6, 2021 12:08
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