Tag: Accounting jobs

So You Want to Work for the PCAOB…

You could have a worse career path… like this lady.

Currently, the PCAOB is seeking the following professionals:

* Accountants and Auditors, especially those with extensive auditing experience in:

* International Financial Reporting Standards
* Industry expertise (banking, insurance, oil and gas pharmaceuticals)
* Fair value measurements
* IT auditing
* Forensic Accountants
* Enforcement Attorneys and Accountants

Their own employees say great things about their employer, like Greg, an Associate Director out of Atlanta who gushes “the most exciting part of working here is that we are still a fairly new organization. My experiences with the PCAOB have enabled me to utilize and expand on the skills I acquired both in industry and public accounting and still make it home in time for dinner.”

Or Todd, an Inspections Specialist out of Denver who says “When I was recruited and interviewed, they talked about work-life balance. Everybody talks about having work-life balance, and I think as auditors, we all took that talk with a grain of salt. But then to come here and see it’s actually true, well, that was a nice surprise. At the same time, I continue growing here and developing my career. It really is a nice balance.”

Well then, sounds like a sweet gig.

The PCAOB offers all kinds of benefits such as tuition assistance, 401(k) and retirement, a PPO health plan and a metric shit ton of paid time off.

You’ll probably have to actually apply with them to get any real salary info, so if big-time bureaucracy and work-life balance are what you’re after, get on that.

Here’s The Only Guide to Your Accounting Career You’ll Ever Need

As many of you already know, when an accountant walks into a room of non-accountants and tells everyone what he does for a living, the first question is usually “can you do my taxes?” That stereotype was exactly what industry veteran Stan Ross hoped to blow to bits when he worked with the AICPA to create the new book The Inside Track to Careers in Accounting.

“The bell rang when the grandkids kept asking ‘what is an accountant and what do you do?'” he told us. Wanting to answer that question without simply printing out a picture of a guy hunched over a 10-key in a green eyeshade, Ross put together a guide to various career paths inorate, government and non-profit accounting. It includes interviews with industry rockstars like Ernst & Young’s Jim Turley and former AICPA chairman Ernie Almonte. Hundreds of industry experts and professionals were interviewed in the development process, with the best of those included in the book and accompanying CD-ROM.

Covering everything from education to licensure, compensation to careers, Ross cut no corners to put together an all-in-one resource for those considering accounting as a career or even accountants looking to switch career paths and take on a new specialty.

The Big 4, et al.

Those interested in a career dedicated to public accounting will find tips on getting hired, moving up the corporate ladder, interning and even dealing with awkward intergenerational exchanges. One excellent piece of advice: “From the moment you start with the firm, try to learn as much as you can in your current position, and learn from your supervisors, the people you work with and others in the firm. Ask questions not just about your current position or work assignments, but about the larger firm, its organization, its services and its people.”

Who needs public?

If corporate accounting is more your style, you can follow the corporate ladder from staff accountant to CFO, working in management accounting (sorry, that means cost accounting too), payroll, A/P, internal auditing, financial reporting, tax or IT. Corporate accountants can also work in forecasting, working closely with department managers, the CFO and/or top executives within the organization to weigh in on the company’s plans and budget forecasts. As of 2007, there are 31 million businesses in the United States and they made a combined $26 trillion in revenue – don’t you think those businesses need sharp talent to crunch their numbers?

Are you good enough for government work?

Let’s not forget about government accounting. Ross told us that he initially did not even plan on putting in a separate chapter for government but in his research for this book, he discovered that there are unlimited possibilities in government and it just made sense to put them in. “When we talked to government people and regulators, we found out how many different career paths were there; city, state, county, all the agencies, the Federal Reserve… it was unlimited!” he said. Those interested in a government accounting career could find themselves working for the State Department, NASA, the FAA, the DOD, the GAO, the FBI, the IRS and many other agencies. You can find more information on opportunities in government (a booming industry when everyone else is hurting, you know) via the AICPA’s website here.

Forget profits

Last but not least, Ross highlights opportunities in non-profit accounting. Non-profit includes public charities as well as universities, private foundations, HMOs, labor unions and business/professional organizations. According to the book, The Conference Board said in a 2007 report that “widespread executive-level and leadership skill shortages currently affecting many nonprofits are predicted to get much worse as the sector expands and experience executives retire.” That means the sector needs qualified accountants who, unfortunately, can expect to earn less than for-profit positions but get reimbursed through warm fuzzy feelings and real world experience with non-profit accounting.

Ross reminds all of us that the best bet is always to seek out a mentor (or several) and use their knowledge to your advantage. Want to switch career paths? Track someone down who already has and ask questions. Want to find out the quickest way to climb the public accounting ladder? Listen to someone who’s done it already and learn from their mistakes and experience. Ross himself mentors hundreds of USC students and you better believe mentored students have a better chance to be promoted as they’ve gotten a broader picture of their future industry outside of the traditional black and white of their accounting school textbooks.

So whether you’re miserable in your current position or just starting out in your accounting career and trying to figure out which path to take, The Inside Track to Careers in Accounting will give you plenty of food for thought and useful information on what lies ahead, regardless of which fork in the road you head down. Accounting is no longer just doing taxes (as if it ever was) and, as Ross says, it is the best foundation for any career path, be that CFO, COO, investment officer or just about any corporate world gig dealing even indirectly with budgeting, finance and economics.

Ya get it? We hope so.

Your Future Accounting Jobs Belong to Sri Lanka

Ahhh, outsourcing. Nothing like American jobs going overseas to whip up fury among the masses. The latest example, via yesterday’s Times, is accounting jobs going to Sri Lanka.

As this tiny island nation staggers back from a bloody, decades-long civil war, one of its brightest business prospects was born from a surprising side effect of that conflict. Many Sri Lankans, for various reasons, studied accounting in such numbers during the war that this nation of about 20 million people now has an estimated 10,000 certified accountants.

An additional 30,000 students are currently enrolled in accounting programs, according to the Sri Lankan Institute of Chartered Accountants. While that ratio is lower than in developed economies like the United States, it is much greater than in Sri Lanka’s neighboring outsourcing giant, India.

But if you think these jobs are just 10-key jockeys and plugging digits into tax returns, you would be wrong, wrong, wrong:

Offices in Sri Lanka are doing financial work for some of the world’s biggest companies, including the international bank HSBC and the insurer Aviva. And it is not simply payroll and bookkeeping. The outsourced work includes derivatives pricing and risk management for money managers and hedge funds, stock research for investment banks and underwriting for insurance companies.

Many developing countries have “one particular competency that they do better than anyone else,” said Duminda Ariyasinghe, an executive director at Sri Lanka’s Board of Investment. “Financial accounting is that door opener for us.”

So all that you put in to knowing derivative accounting inside and out? Yeah, someone in Sri Lanka has a similar level of understanding and naturally, the labor there comes cheap. Extremely cheap:

In the United States, the median annual wage for accountants and auditors in May 2008 was $59,430, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Sri Lankan workers in the accounting profession receive an average annual pay package of $5,900, according to a 2010 survey by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.

Wages in Sri Lanka for financial outsourcing are about one-third less than in neighboring India, and hiring educated employees is easier in Sri Lanka, according to executives who do business in both countries.

Yes, that’s a savings of 90%. No, there’s not much you can do about it. Except discuss below.

Sri Lankan Accountants Lure Global Outsourcers [NYT]

Accounting and Finance Professionals Like Their Job Prospects While the Rest of the Workforce Is Screwed

The following post is republished from AccountingWEB, a source of accounting news, information, tips, tools, resources and insight — everything you need to help you prosper and enjoy the accounting profession.

The Accounting and Finance Employee Confidence Index increased 0.6 points to 53.9 in the third quarter of 2010, according to a recent survey. The index is a measure of overall confidence among U.S. accounting and finance workers.

The survey indicates a decline in employee confidence in the economy and job market, while workers’ optimism in their own personal employment situations increased. The survey was conducted by Harris Interactive and commissioned by The Mergis Group, the professional placement division of SFN Group, Inc.

Additional results from the Accounting & Finance Employment Report:


• Twenty-three percent of accounting and finance workers believe the economy is getting stronger, representing a 10 percentage point drop from the second quarter of 2010.

• More than half of accounting and finance workers (60 percent) believe there are fewer jobs available, up 10 percentage points from the previous quarter.

• Nearly three-fourths (73 percent) of accounting and finance workers are confident in the future of their current employer, an increase of 11 percentage points from the second quarter of 2010.

• More accounting and finance workers are confident in their ability to find a new job, with 44 percent reporting confidence as compared to 36 percent the previous quarter.

“While our Accounting and Finance Confidence Index showed little movement in the third quarter, our latest report reveals significant fluctuations in workers’ viewpoints,” Brendan Courtney, president of The Mergis Group, said of the report’s findings.

“The report illustrates that workers’ confidence in the economy and job market have dimmed. Conversely, workers are now indicating greater confidence in the future of their current employers and in their ability to find a new job. Moreover, three in ten workers indicate that they are likely to make a job change in the next 12 months,” Courtney said.

“With 2011 right around the corner, employers are encouraged to make an extra effort by acknowledging employees who have weathered the economic turbulence with the company,” he said. “Employers who heed these statistics are less likely to be faced with an unhappy workforce that jumps ship at the first sign of a full economic recovery.”

Additional demographic and survey background information.