Busy season is rounding the corner and, if you look carefully, you might be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Squint. No I swear, it’s there.
My posts this week will shift from social media to the potential job market. As a public accountant, you should always be cognizant of the fact that you have the ability to continuously develop your strengths and mold your career path. Want to pursue of a career in hedge funds? Network within your firm to be staffed on the right engagements. Need to add tax experience to your resume? Seek out a rotation.
Here are three signs that you should get you thinking about exploring your options.
1. You’ve got your CPA – This might go without saying, but many people enter the public accounting industry with the “two years and done” mentality. Pass the CPA, earn some experience stripes, and get the *$@% out. There’s nothing wrong with this, but don’t expect to $100K jobs to be jumping into your lap. The average salary bump for younger staff from public to the private sector can range from 5-10%, usually topping out around 15%. If this isn’t enough of a bump to seriously consider a private job, don’t lose sight of the quality of life improvement a new job can bring. No, not the smoke and mirrors your firm is promising you. The real deal.
2. Someone you know is interviewing – Believe it or not, the job market is actually improving. The hiring freezes on many financial firms is now limited largely to supporting roles (i.e. HR folks like myself). Hedge and private equity funds are picking up their hiring as the markets begin to thaw. Recruiters are not wasting their time with interviewing individuals for the sole purpose of interviewing. So take note next time your senior staff member has three doctor appointments in a week; perhaps you should be “coming down with a nasty bug,” too.
3. Recruiters call – and you listen – Speaking about recruiters, be prepared for an onslaught of calls. Their timing is no coincidence. The private sector has been shuffling around over the last few months (remember when your client contact suddenly went MIA?), and as the cycle goes, the newly opened private jobs will inevitably be filled by auditors and tax accountants from public. Listen to the cold, scripted calls; be open to a pay increase and better work hours; reclaim your weekends. It can’t hurt to listen to the (substantiated) claims that you’re undervalued in today’s market.
Newsflash: you are grossly undervalued.
cant believe how fake is this post …..hope these people turn on their phone or computer and see what is really happenning in accounting firms. too many accountants will be the theme fof next century
fof next century? covfefe?
Ok so, what is really happening? Why don’t you share your opinion on the future of the profession.
Based on the people I know in PA, most firms are very short staffed and as a result, are unable to adequately serve clients.
Your thoughts?
I’m calling BS on this. Nobody turns away work. All the firm has to do is tell the staff to work more. They will do it and if they don’t, then the managers gets stuck doing it. Staff is on salary and bonuses are discretionary, so there is NO additional cost to the CPA firm to take on more work, even if it’s crap work. I still see big firms bidding on garbage clients and low balling the fee.
There is a point where it’s economically not cost effective
Every job has an opportunity cost, if you have garbage clients, you use up resources and time that cannot be devoted to good clients.
Lets say you have 100 staff, and 20 managers, and 10 partners, each staff can be worked 70 hours max per week, Managers say they can be worked 60 hours, and Partners willing to work 50, that means you have a max of 8,700 hours of work a week, lets assume you are 40% tax, 40% audit, and 20% consulting, that means you have a max of 3,480 hours for tax and audit each, and 1,740 for consulting in a week
You’ll want each of those hours to go to high value clients, clients that earn you the most profit
You will turn down clients who are lower value if you fill up with higher value clients
This is most of the problem for qualified professionals. Post covid, even prior, jobs requiring 37.5-40 hours a week were more available and there was no expectation of 50-70hr weeks.