[thunderlips]

most probably work in public on this forum. anyone work at a university? any tips going from private to a school? trying to apply and not sure what i should focus on in terms of resume

[Recked]

My sister is the head of accounting at a community college.
The not-for-profit and governmental accounting stuff is not for me.
I prefer public/tax work myself.
–
But you get a nice pension if its a state school, and I'm sure you won't have to work crazy hours.

[Recked]

As far as resume, being knowledgeable and up to date on FASB and GASB pronouncements can't hurt.
Depends on the level of job you are going for, but she's always talking about new GASB this, or FASB that.

[Jacqui]

I actually just went back to industry from a university. I'm sure it depends on the position you are applying for, but find ways to tie your experience into the job description. For example, one of the function for the job description I was in related to building fringe rates for the university. I used my experience building rates for standard costing in my resume and application. Also, fund accounting was super overwhelming for me at first, and I had governmental accounting in college plus I had freshly taken the FAR section of the CPA exam. It will start to make sense as you get some experience and remember, at the end of the day, the basics are still the same as other forms of accounting (ex. natural account balances, debits and credits, etc)

[Recked]

So another tip – think this over long and hard. Somewhat confidential info but…
Colleges are currently being asked to prepare contingency plans for no decrease in budget, a 10% decrease, and a 25% decrease.
If colleges can't go back to normal classrooms, they are anticipating a huge decline in attendance, along with cuts from state/government funding.
You don't want to be the low man on the pole when they suddenly need to find 25 heads they need to lay off.

[Skynet]

I don't really recommend trying to get a job at universities or even junior colleges.

The reason is there is soooo much Red Tape and the beaucracy is rediculuous. Not only that, I didn't learn much compared to my current job.

For a while, I worked at a non profit that worked in conjunction with the a local junior college. We were basically an extension of the college. The nonprofit was staffed and paid by the college including myself. Leadership and management there was a joke. There was so much politicss there too. They had hired a second account that was practically useless and had no clue what she was doing. There was so much micromanagement there that staff meetings would literally be 2-3 hours longs. Worst part, the BOD, there were so much conflict of interest.

The pay and benefits are good, but when it comes to career advancement, you won't get very far. It often takes between 9-12 months to get hired, literally.

[Jacqui]

@Skynet I had a very similar experience at my job with a large university which is why I quickly went back to industry. I also found that the pay and benefits were not better than industry at all. I technically had more PTO at the university, but they were so strict on us tracking our time (literally, if you left an hour early, that had to be taken from PTO) that it actually ended up being less. Management wouldn't let us make up our time either which was just crazy to me as an experienced professional.

[bhunt815]

I don't work for a university but I do work for the Board of Regents. It wasn't my plan when I started this journey but through circumstances I landed in the government/non-profit sector and have done pretty well. If you don't have relevant experience I would stress other attributes that might help to sell you. Make sure they know that you are mission and value aligned; you can us your cover sheet for this. That's more important in the education sector than in industry or public. I can teach someone what they need to know to do their job; i can't teach then to be passionate about what we do.

FAR 04/11/2016 - 84
AUD 05/12/2016 - 79
BEC 07/06/2016 - 81
REG 08/29/2016

[Jassi]

Well, I'm not a worker at the university but a student and I'm in the first year. It's challenging for me to adjust in these situations, I had taken university assignment writing services many times to find some extra time to adjust to these conditions. I found it helpful as I was aviling extra time to study the structure as every university has its own teaching style.

[Author]

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