[bwknight]

This may be way off topic but here goes anyway.

I’m about to graduate with a MACC. Studying for CPA but broke as a joke right now. I’m feeling really down about the future.

I have worked for a company I was uneasy about the hidden charges and questionable billing.

I worked for a company that treated employees like disposable objects. I know that we are all essentially replaceable but no need to remind us that we can be outsourced. If someone did lose his job, there was absolutely nothing I could do. The line is always “the policy of the company is….”. We were hourly workers but we had metrics that were almost impossible to do consistently.

Every once in a while some person we never heard of would send an email telling us that our numbers are this. But no advice on how to improve. Only to improve or find the door.

Will accounting jobs be like this as well? Will I be expected to reach unattainable goals?

Do you think technology is going to make cpa’s obsolete in the near future?

How do I succeed in the mean time? I feel like i don’t know anything about accounting and I worked my but off studying and working full time.

I feel like we are all expected to achieve at some extremely high Michael Jordan-like level.

[Anonymous]

Also typo above, *i am now done with all 4 sections of the cpa

[Becca]

@bwknight

I LOVE my job, and I don’t fear it being automated. I’m a Staff Accountant at an insurance company. The company underwrites insurance, and we’re publicly traded. I complete monthly financials, help file premium taxes, complete bank reconciliations, and submit quarterly and annual filings with the states that we underwrite in. There is a lot more that we accomplish in our office (submitting taxes, 10-K, and 10-Q, reports/data for board meetings, the list could go on) but my boss has refrained from adding more duties to my plate as I pursue my Masters of Accountancy and CPA. Obviously, my employer and supervisors are amazing; I know I’m lucky, and I don’t plan on leaving my employer unless they fire me. There are good jobs out there. Technological advances allow us to pull reports more easily, and help us to be more efficient, but we will always need people behind the operations; someone who understands what the reports are pulling, how to compute the information, where the information came from – there’s just too much that could go wrong if we solely relied on automation and any errors were to arise.

I never wanted to be a public accountant. I decided to pursue my MAcc and CPA because my employer has tuition reimbursement and my 20 month old has liked to sleep since she was born.

What type of position are you hoping for in the Accounting profession?

[Nate]

I found the easiest way to find recruiters was to simply do a google search for local recruiters. They often will pop up. They also post a lot of jobs on LinkedIn and Indeed, a good agency that I believe is all across the country is Robert Half. I think Parker Lynch might be another one. But I personally have found the local small recruiting agencies to be the best, but there's nothing wrong with the two I mentioned. Go on their website, find a phone number, call, and just say you're looking. Connect with them on LinkedIn, don't be afraid to follow up, they're used to it, they can be a great resource.

Luckily I wasn't homeless long. I was homeless while I was at a tax intern at a regional firm. They made the internship promising, made it seem like they'd turn it into more, then none of us tax interns were hired, they basically just wanted cheap labor during tax season and encouraged their employees to talk to us as if we'd get jobs to motivate us to work harder to try and “prove” we'd be a good hire, even though they knew they were going to hire none of us. This is one of those regional firms that advertise they care a bunch, but clearly they don't. I've learned that the companies that spend the most time advertising about how caring and good they are, usually are the least caring ones. But while I was homeless, I just kept working hard. Luckily right when I moved to that city I met this beautiful lady who I fell in love with instantly, and despite my career struggles she saw something in me, and eventually we got married. But at the time we were dating and she was in an apt with roommates, so I just slept in my car and they agreed to let me use their shower if I reimburse them for the water cost. So it wasn't too bad, thought it was a sketch ghetto area and that particular apt complex had some murders, so it wasn't the most comforting thing to sleep in my car, but it was only for a week and it wasn't too bad. Plus most of my stuff was with my parents in my hometown.

But I just fought through it all, and I'm so glad I did. I had those same thoughts, to just say screw it and give up, and heck, I even had family members tell me to screw it and give up, but I didn't, and now I'm at a firm I love in my small hometown with partners that love me, I get paid well, just bought my first house with my wife, and passed three sections of the CPA exam. Adversity sucks, and it's unfair that some of us have to go through the crappy jerk employers, and some people get lucky and don't have to pay anything for college, can sit pretty at home, and use their parents for referrals to get a job at a big firm, but I'm glad I went through the path I have, because it has created a lot of character and empathy others don't have. I hope someday to start an accounting recruiting agency for people that graduated but can't seem to find a firm that will hire them, just like me, because there is a lot of great talent out there who share these struggles, but the darn firms, especially the big ones, REFUSE to consider them.

[bwknight]

@Nate
How did you get it done when you were homeless? How did you survive?
Lol I guess you answered that.

I learned a lot of empathy at this job. Not just for customers but for people in general. I have seen people done so dirty. It's amazing. Government officials are let it happen. I know the suits don't give a flying flip about anything except the bottom line. The “fiduciary responsibility” is a reason to destroy the workforce. The CEO of my company is worth 200 billion but over 30% of his employees are on food stamps. But he sure wants to get to space. I don't know who will buy plastic garbage in space but “what a great guy”.

If I ever get over my thought process and get some experience and pass the CPA. I may look you up in the new agency. Or start my own or some sort of non profit. I'm sorry “not-for-profit”.

[bwknight]

@Becca
I don't even know what I want anymore. My current job has made me so sick, I don't even want to work. People are treated like garbage. One guy was crying to me (like I'm his boss) because he doesn't know why he was canned. I could only suggest he email. And I know they will not answer his question. He will be sent a pre-written automated email saying nothing. Some people are classified as “independent contractors” when they are expected to act as employees.

I'm probably going to be fired because my numbers are there. There was nothing better I could have done. There are crazy, entitled customers everywhere. But this one customer, gave me a bad rating because he didn't know how to check his credit card points balance. He was saying he will no longer order from the company. Yea right man. He was refunded and given a $50 promo by me. And I was given a bad rating which could get me fired.

[bwknight]

@dbul2
Thanks.
Are you working now?

I'm not working in accounting right now. I had to take a job and it is with the big online retail monster. The CEO and the managers are out for blood. They want everyone's business. They are also not shy in telling their employees that the automation and outsourcing are coming for our jobs.

[noclady]

Life is too short to be miserable and worrying about whether accounting is where you should be or not. If you know it's where you should be, then definitely keep pursuing it. I NEVER wanted to be an accountant and actually changed my career path twice after college. My original path was to be a doctor. Then it turned to wanting to be in hospital administration, then somehow I got pulled into I.T for a couple of years. I ‘accidentally' got into accounting and found I was pretty good at it, and long story short, I'm still here! LOL.

I've worked for companies like the ones you described. Constantly reminding people that the door was not too far away. Only for them to end up offshoring all of its accountants in the US to another country, where they could get 5 of them for 1 here. But they're not all like that. But I will say that I have worked for enough companies to say that the grass is not always greener on ANY side. Every place has its quirks.

I've only ever worked in industry and have worked for both large, public companies in industry, as well as small, private companies. But I've never worked in public accounting, nor do I have any desire to do so. In my opinion, technology isn't going to take our jobs anytime soon. I agree with Becca. While technology helps us pull reports and mine data more efficiently, the human component of how decisions are made is still necessary. My current company has hundreds of accountants, and if they tried to automate our consolidations process, I would imagine it would cost more time and money than they would be willing to invest. Not to mention possibly losing a lot of people in the process because I've been through an iteration of it, and it's not fun.

Accounting is such a diverse field, and that's one of the things I really like about it. You can work for any kind of industry, public accounting, do taxes, work for the FBI, work for the IRS or government, non-profit, own your own firm once you're licensed, do bookeeping on the side, do forensic accounting, consulting, etc. We don't just prepare or audit financials.

Finding an accounting job is definitely easier said than done. But once you're able to get in somewhere that you can feel comfortable in for a little while, and have experience under your belt, I think the job hunting process does get less painful when you have to do it again. That's been my experience anyway.

[Becca]

I agree with everything noclady said. Life really is too short. We spend most of our days at work – it’s a sad thought to spend those days so miserable and beaten down.

There are so many options available in the accounting profession. Try not to let one REALLY crappy employer ruin your idea of the entire field. Ultimately, your happiness, health, and sanity are most important. Take care of yourself first.

[bwknight]

@noclady and @Becca
Thanks for the feedback.

I haven't had an accounting job outside of working for a cpa firm 2 years ago and I was mostly doing admin stuff and running. I'm trying not to let it get me down. Maybe I'm just having a hard time adjusting to the “new economy”. Unions are disappearing quickly. Companies are classifying workers as contractors. The new “gig” economy is a struggle to adapt to.

Outsourcing and being temp is a lot cheaper than hiring full time people. I don't know if anyone feels good about the future of the country when people seem to be essentially eliminated in the work place.

[Anonymous]

Yes I just got a job with Booz Allen as a pricing analyst. Not even accounting related and the team is full of friendly laid back people. 40 hour work weeks and overall much better than my previous jobs in public accounting. If more people stood up for what they believe in the public accounting firms would be forced to treat employees better.

[Author]

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