Tag: Lists

Do CPAs Really Love Their Jobs?

A friend of GC pointed us to the image below from Focus.com (link to entire thing below) that shows the latest “Best Jobs in America”. This particular version ranks CPAs as having the 6th best job in all the land.


The methodology broke down like this:

• Top 260 – Jobs that have been projected to grow 10% in the decade and require a Bachelor’s degree; Median pay below $65k for experienced workers was excluded as were jobs that had less than 10,000 positions nationwide.

• Top 100 – Eliminated jobs that did poorly (based on growth in online wanted ads) during the recession and grouped jobs with similar responsibilities.

• Top 50 – 35,000-ish workers were surveyed to “rat their jobs on quality of life factors such as flexibility, stress, and personal satisfaction.” They were then ranked by “current employment, long-term growth, pay, and security; projected openings; and quality of life factors.”

• Top 10 – “Interviewed industry experts and people in each profession.” Rankings were made based on those interviews.

Our source has some questions for the group, “Why are CPAs always ranked so high? Job security? Pay if you stay in long enough?”

Important questions. It simply could be that the people that put these “Best Jobs Lists” interview the Exuberant Accountant every time. You can’t get that many consistent liars in these surveys can you? Or, maybe, just maybe, lots of CPAs really, honest-to-God — gasp — love their jobs. It’s not that we don’t believe that it’s possible but it’s difficult when you hear constant belly-aching.

So if you’re loving your life as a super hero CPA and you’ve got reasons you feel like sharing with the group, please do so. Or if you’re confused like us and have some wild-ass guesses that will be fine too.

Best Jobs in America [Focus]
Earlier:
Three Signs That It Might Be Time to Get Out of Public Accounting

The Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For: Plante & Moran #66

Contrary to what you’re probably thinking, Plante & Moran is no dark horse. They’ve been on the list for five twelve straight years and rank ahead of the rest of three of the Big 4 in this year’s list (cue for “who the hell is Plante & Moran?”). They’ve fallen from their peak of 12th back in 2006 but we’re sure the firm can explain.

Plante & Moran – Previously ranked #42. Fortune took the unorthodox approach of using P&M’s layoffs to describe their greatness: “Audit firm laid off employees, but staff members commend the “team pain” approach: enhanced severance pay, outplacement services, pay cuts for partners, and deferred pay hikes for staff.”


Other interesting stats per the snapshot:
• New Jobs (1 year): 10
• % Job Growth (1 year): 1%
• % Voluntary Turnover: 7%
• No. of Job Openings at 1/13/2010: 17
• Most common salaried job: Audit staff with average salary of $65,500

The firm offers onsite child care during busy season but does not have a nondiscrimination policy that includes sexual orientation nor does it offer domestic partner benefits for same-sex couples.

We’re not saying the latter two reasons are why they fell from #12 but it might help them jump back into the top 50.

Earlier:
Ernst & Young #44