[Anonymous]

Hey all, I”m kinda stuck on what I should do in regards to staying with my current employer or venture out on a completely different career path.

I’ve been at my current job for just over a year and will have my CPA in the next month or so (sending application in this week) The issue is I cannot stand what I currently do. Tax in itself I don’t mind it’s the sitting in a cubicle for 8 hours a day staring at a monitor with maybe 10 minutes of actual human interaction a day. It drives me crazy. The best part of my day is when I have an IT issue and can go talk to someone or go get a drink of water. One a week I may get to join a conference call or something but otherwise I just do my work. I do believe if I stayed another year or two I might get promoted to a different position as I’ve already had a frank discussion with my manager about how I don’t want to be in a cube forever and I need to interact with people. Upper management has already joked around about moving me into an office in the future and I do believe this would be a possibility. I have an issue with the company in general as the culture doesn’t seem to be a good fit for me. It’s very old school and they are not much about innovation or progressing with the times.

I found a possible job as a medical rep for a well known orthopedic supply company. I”ve read up on it and it seems everyone loves there job, it’s full of high energy people, and the average pay for sales people is over 6 figures.

My question is, am I throwing accounting/CPA out the door too soon by pursuing this other interest? I would be sitting in operating rooms helping doctors with surgery but it may require a lot more work. Or do I stay at my current company and wait to move up?

Thanks for any insights!

[Anonymous]

Have you considered consulting? I don't think there's anything wrong with sales, but if it were me, I'd want to use the CPA in some way.

[sam8839]

@ ahhman & AICPAs Beach: I am also in the same position. Will have my CPA soon, but, I can't stare at a monitor for so long like 8-10 hours a day. I like to talk with people and interact (sort of like a sales position). I looked into recruiting because with recruiting – it's more like a sales position and I feel like my CPA won't go into complete waste because I would be recruiting accounting and finance students. But – the pay for recruiting is not that great. So, I have been having doubts.

My question to you guys is – is there any other position out there where I can utilize my CPA and it has more of a “sales” role to it (i.e. talking with people and more like a sales pitch)? What kind of positions are those that pay well? Any idea? Please help.

[scubacamper]

If it were me, I'd poke around the national job boards (like indeed.com) – specifically for the companies that are the highest rated companies as far as employee satisfaction goes.

REI in Seattle area is consistently rated among the top employers – they even have times during the day where you can leave the office for a hike or something like that.

I would try to get a financial-type job there – it doesn't have to be in their tax unit – it could be in internal audit or risk management, or allocations, or anything!

CPA-related careers are countless and I think if you just did some digging at all the jobs a CPA is qualified for, you'll be surprised at some of them.

B TBD
A TBD
R 57
F 62, 70, 65

[Anonymous]

Why don't you go into public accounting for SMB's? You already have tax experience. Once you get your CPA you can probably find at least a staff role and do tax returns, compilations, consulting, reviews, etc. for clients. It is very interaction heavy and involves a ton of sales/customer service.

[Author]

Replies