[Pete]

Hello,

I haven’t posted here in a while. I passed the CPA and the CFE exam a few years ago, but haven’t been able to find the experience to fulfill the work-hour requirements for either license.

I’m currently 30 and work at a small not-for-profit organization as an accountant. I started at the organization about 2 years ago. Part of the reason I initially took the job was that I believed my boss had his license already, which he did; however, it was inactive. He was also the CFO of numerous organizations (and had a lot of public accounting experience); that certainly provided me with a lot of great experience. At the time of this offer, I was also applying to CPA firms, like crazy, yet got very little interest, so I ended up taking the job at the NFP. Fast forward, my boss ended up leaving for many reasons (mainly, a lot of the people there will back-stab you and throw you under the bus – overall, just a really negative environment).

I have about 6 months experience in public accounting firms (1 internship/1 tax season job). I was planning to apply to accounting manager gigs at other companies, but they all seem to require public accounting/cpa experience. Part of my issue is that my organization pays so little, relative to what I do; I make under 50k/year (haven’t received a raise yet).

In the past, most of the firms, which offered audit roles, barely gave me the time of day, despite all my experience and networking. They only seemed interested in hiring campus recruits or experienced people (almost like you either get into public accounting in college or you don’t work in public accounting ever). I have gotten some interest in very small firms (under 5 people), but I’ve had a bad experience in the past, where the firm used me for tax season (since the work is almost entirely tax driven – then after tax season, the work dried up). The firm I was at had 100+ hour weeks, which make the medium firm I interned at seem very tame. Any advice on fulfilling my license and/or progressing in my career?

B=84 This exam was such a b**** that I thought I failed-don't know how these things work
A=76 Slacker I am, I'll happily take it
R=81 I LOVE taxes
F=80 I don't wanna get banned for an expletive I'm thinking with "yea" proceeding it