[BigDonDickDangler]

PT8498,

Cobra is dropping sincere insight and knowledge on you concerning the profession.

I don't know what state/country you are in but the state I am in in the US requires ~150 credit hours with a base in accounting to sit for the CPA, so essentially you must get your Master's.

The Big 4 recruit from most of the top 20% of the Masters programs.

The reason Cobra is saying to go for the CPA and the Big 4 is because those two credentials are the gold standard in Corp. Accounting and do not hurt for many Corp. Finance/Business Admin positions.

With the Big four you will be exposed to a large network of professionals with tremendous support and infrastructure and the opportunity to prove yourself in a big pond.

If you are thinking of using Accounting to boot strap yourself into another venture the Big 4 route is the best way to go.

Get yourself into the pool in your region. Beta Alpha Psi, Master's degrees, campus recruiting events are all within your reach but you have to do the leg work yourself to find it.

The only reason I logged in today to post this was because I read your comment about not needing/wanting to do this forever. That was so similar to my own thought process in my early 20s I had to chime in.

I have made some money off my side ventures and had a lot of failure to launch but am still searching for my own thing. What has kept me afloat is advancement within a Corporate career. I passed on a big 4 tax position to do internal audit with 50% international travel.I don't know what was the right move but can say I have been recruited by the big 4 on various occasions since that time 9 years ago. I might be further along if I had taken the plunge. But they do provide optimal experience and a badge of honor on your resume. No matter where you go in the Corp. World you'll run into Big 4 alumni...I still deal with them daily.


One last piece of advice- don't burn bridges, the profession is a relatively small world.


Apologies for any typos- on a phone in the office.

[JayD]

Hi Cobra, thanks for this datasheet gives me perspective on what I will be doing in the future.
I need advice, I am currently studying accounting and finance degree and plan to start audit or finance role once I graduate. Is there anything that I can do now to increase employability?(volunteer, internships, networking, good gpa, cold calling?)

There are two paths that I am currently deciding when I graduate is going into investment banking or audit in Big4. I prefer the finance route because of the pay scale compared to audit of working up to 10 years to become a director. Would it be better to graduate get a graduate position and work on CPA then move up from there if I were to go the audit path? Or work as a graduate in an investment bank and work up from there to asset management or risk analysis. Which has better job security in the long term? Would finance serve a niche to go on my own way in the future in consulting?(financial controller). I'm still a newbie in regards to the professional world, this datasheet has helped immensely, looking forward to more posts. Thanks.

[Cobra]

(07-18-2014 12:07 AM)JayD Wrote:  

Is there anything that I can do now to increase employability?(volunteer, internships, networking, good gpa, cold calling?)

Definitely, read the recruiting section of my data sheet above. Internships ARE THE WAY to get into the Big 4 period. And business fraternities are usually the way to get an internship because of the sheer amount of built-in networking they inherently provide.

Are you a freshman? Even if you are, you can still go to those "Beta Alpha Psi" or other business frat meetings. Shit, if you get social with those cats early, and help them out, you may even be able to make a better case at running for the president later now that I think about it.

(07-18-2014 12:07 AM)JayD Wrote:  

Would it be better to graduate get a graduate position and work on CPA then move up from there if I were to go the audit path? Or work as a graduate in an investment bank and work up from there to asset management or risk analysis. Which has better job security in the long term? Would finance serve a niche to go on my own way in the future in consulting?(financial controller).

I didn't post much about Investment Banking here but it is a very possible career path. You need to go to a top school and have a great GPA to get into some of the biggest IB outfits, for example in NYC. However, another forum member (who chooses to remain anonymous) was kind enough to drop this gem of knowledge:

Even if you don't get a super high GPA and/or go to a top school, as long as you can get into the Big 4, you can make a lateral move into one of the bigger IB outfits.

So either way, I would say you're on the right track.

[pt8498]

I've heard Accounting temporary workers are growing in demand. I am not very knowledgeable in that area. Can you please shed some light on being a temp worker in accounting please?

[d-d-m]

Thanks for the tips and level-headed advice. I've been looking into accounting as a career. This clears up a lot of questions.

[giorgio moroder]

How well respected is Ole Miss in accounting? I'm attending there and the undergrad is ranked 4 by PAR, however I don't see them at any other ranking.
Also would be a dual degree in MIS better than masters for employability and 150hours?

[TejasRojo]

My advice: Do not get an accounting degree. I have one plus a finance degree. 4 year bachelor (3.25 GPA). I do more engineer work now and make a lot more money. If I had to go back (and I might), I'd get a mechanical engineering degree. I had a bunch of inventory experience (pretty much ran it) plus a tremendous amount of operational experience and the best I could do was 38 to 40 k in the OIL FIELD. That was just to "apply" for a cost accounting job. Oh heck no!

[Cobra]

^^^ Yes, that was the result of your lower GPA and below top tier education. Also the result of being uninvolved on campus despite obtaining 2 degrees. If a cost accountant position was all you could find, that also speaks more about the job market area you were in and possibly also your lackluster resume and lack of job hunting and interview skills.

If you had at least a combination of a few of these things, you would have had a lot of success in the field and made a lot of money but you chose not to.

You know when people read a bunch of stuff about places they want to visit and then post comments about how bad it is WITHOUT actually going there? Yes, that's how uninformed your comment sounds.

Good luck to you in your endeavors of making money in another field. It doesn't seem like you were cut out for the finance and accounting world anyways. If you still want to succeed in it, feel free to make a comment AFTER you read the data sheet.

Edit: I've been out of town with family so been short on time a bit. I'll get back to the other questions soon.

[TejasRojo]

Apparently if I disagree with some of what you said that means I didn't read it. Since I've been in the field, and I recommended against it, that's the same as asking about a place and making comments not having been there. OK, I won't comment in this thread again after I clear up some of my previous post.

I was wrong, my GPA overall was 3.41, 3.25 was my last 60 something hours which is what made me cum laude. My finance degree was what I was after anyway. When I got out, my accounting degree helped get a few temp jobs to pay bills.

My point about the "only thing I could find", should have been rephrased. I wanted to go into cost accounting because I believe that's where a lot of my background is. Sometimes it can be a six figure job, it was just this company wanted to pay peanuts (I don't know how you're supposed to pay back student loans on that salary). It just sticks in my head because I could do inventory control clerk and make more money!! I believe I was actually stuck in between levels. I had too much experience to hire for a lower position and not enough to hire for an upper level. A lot of hiring managers looked at my resume and said, "Why are you even applying, as soon as you find a job more suited for you, you'll be gone". All my supervisors and coworkers liked me and a lot of them jumped at the chance to be a reference.

The downturn in 2007/2008 really screwed me up. The division I worked at had a lot of changes and a bunch of drunks came in and tried to run it into the ground. I was offered a production supervisor job plus various. The controller who was/is a good dude tried to get me into the corporate audit team. He laughed at some of the "qualifications" they were looking for on their junior auditor. He said, "What they say they want is someone who's already a controller, but what they really want/need is TejasRojo." He really wanted me to have the job because auditor is a good way to go for experience. I think they closed the team up because the job posting went away and nothing else was said about it. The economy got better but the business may not have been strong enough to justify the team at that point. Of course someone above me could have been badmouthing me because he knew I was doing his friend's job. Protecting friends at the detriment of the company seems to be the new norm.

I am in a role that's very analysis based in Manufacturing Engineering (and make $$ close to a controller) and I get to do design work! So the accounting and finance degrees helped in this regard, but because of who I am (no boasting) I know more than a good majority of the cost accountants out there and I out engineer a lot of the degree'ed engineers we've hired (mostly imaginary engineers).

I still stand by my original advice, but with a caveat, unless you plan to get a ton of education and have a specific path in mind, you won't achieve great success. But that pretty much goes for everything. You have to give a shit, eventually people will notice if you just go through the motions. Specialisation may be for ants, but also it's for you if you want to make $$$.

As for me, I don't know if I'm not cut out for finance/accounting, the people I worked for didn't seem to think I wasn't. I think Paul Krugman is an idiot, I like to read Peter Schiff (Europacific Capital). I do follow a lot of macroeconomic events, especially commodity market movements. I may or may not get my CFA, gotta see if that lets me travel with it (expat work). As for MBA and getting into PwC or other, that ship may sailed for me. It's too late for a lot of things. . . .

Didn't mean this post to be this long, but you could have made a better point by asking for more explanation of what I said instead just hitting me with a Cantor to Jon Stewart exchange, "it's in the book!". I actually help reinforce some of what you said, even though I don't think it's always a good career path. If you ever find yourself in Houston, I'll buy you lunch and a beer. Maybe even around our Saint Thomas University. . .if we can find parking. If you're in Minneapolis around the other Saint Thomas, I may be headed that way too. Especially if I can find a bus from Winnipeg to Bemidji.

[Cobra]

(07-27-2014 11:12 AM)TejasRojo Wrote:  

Apparently if I disagree with some of what you said that means I didn't read it. Since I've been in the field, and I recommended against it, that's the same as asking about a place and making comments not having been there.

But you haven't really been in the Accounting field. Cost Accounting is but a small piece of the entire pie. I'll be honest; I came off a bit too harsh but this was my point.

You went into Cost Accounting because you thought you were interested in it at a time when you likely had no other information, aside from some experience that you had in it, unless I'm completely wrong about this and you had access to some top level public accounting and Corporate professionals at that time. You used that limited experience to guide your opinion regarding what others should be doing within the ENTIRE profession. You're basically using a limited opinion and superficially expanding it to a higher scale to offer an opinion without the experience to back it up. That's why I'm calling this out. Nothing against you personally.

(07-21-2014 04:40 PM)pt8498 Wrote:  

I've heard Accounting temporary workers are growing in demand. I am not very knowledgeable in that area. Can you please shed some light on being a temp worker in accounting please?

When you say "temp" workers, I'm not exactly sure if you intend to include Consultants as well. There's always temp positions available for lower level positions such as processing payables and/or receivables, or making other types of mass entries. Sometimes these can be temp to hire positions.

However, when you expand that to consultants, you're talking about a pool of Accountants that got sick of the Corporate world (like me) but want to have more control over their employer and type of work they do. You can choose to either work for a recruiting firm in this capacity or work for a Consulting firm that specializes in outsourcing of certain mid-level positions in the Accounting and Finance field. Recruiting firms (e.g. Robert Half) like this will assign you fairly randomly at any assignment that comes up or at least pressure you into going on something you may not like. Consulting firms, while they will assign you, will also provide you with higher quality clients to work for and also better training. Siegfried group for example will pay people up to $300 just to interview with them and they may "outsource" you into one of the positions I listed above for a few months or even keep you going for years without the "client" company actually hiring you. Upside is that compensation levels can be quite high especially if you're willing to travel. I once interviewed with these guys just to gather information and then said no to their job offer even though the digits were looking good

(07-25-2014 08:02 AM)giorgio moroder Wrote:  

How well respected is Ole Miss in accounting? I'm attending there and the undergrad is ranked 4 by PAR, however I don't see them at any other ranking.
Also would be a dual degree in MIS better than masters for employability and 150hours?

I went ahead and trolled the UMiss Beta Alpha Psi website for you:http://www.olemiss.edu/orgs/bap/index.html.

Although it's been a little while since they updated, I can see that it's a school that's fairly actively recruited by at least one of the big 4 firms (Deloitte) and possibly more. I also see that BDO Seidman (probably 5th largest Accounting firm in US) also recruits from there. So I would say it's pretty solid as long as you do some of the things I noted in the data sheet.

A dual degree in MIS could be better depending on what job you're looking for. For example, if you really want to go into Accounting Information Systems, which is the IT side of Accounting, it can help you a great deal. The Big 4 accounting firms all have an IT practice which audits the IT "infrastructure" of the accounting (and even Finance) software large companies use. Since IT can be manipulated to cook the books, it has grow to be a fairly relevant area in the profession recently in the past 10 years. Additionally, you can even go into "Fraud Investigation" type roles inside an Accounting firm and learn a great deal about who has already cooked the books or at least tried.

My point on the above is that since IT is a very important piece of Accounting nowadays, your additional MIS knowledge can provide you with expanded options into the IT side of things. In order to understand what these options are, get your grades up and join that Beta Alpha Psi Chapter at Ole Miss and you'll get tons of additional specific information.

[UnW]

Cobra, keen to hear your take on my situation.

So I've been at a big 4 for 2.5 years at the moment and will be leaving in November to move to Asia to teach English for a year and travel, maybe longer.
Do you think this time away will affect my opportunities to stepping back into an Accounting related role if I decide to move back to Australia and continue in potentially in an industry role rather than professional services?

[Richiavelli]

^^Did you make senior?

[UnW]

Yeah I did. Just made senior this year.

[Cobra]

@UnW - no I don't think being away for 1+ years will affect you, especially if you're trying to get AWAY from professional services and into the Corporate side of things.

Corporate, it's like another world anyways since you won't be doing the same things as you did in the Big 4. The reason people hire Big 4 people is their dedication and efficiency as well as their ability to be normal socially and catch on to complex concepts quickly, not their Accounting knowledge for the most part. They're looking for soft skills (in the kind of higher caliber jobs you'll apply for) that you would have developed in the Big 4 which don't go away even if you have been away for 5 years.

If you're teaching, it's even better. You can say you "really enjoyed the variety at the Big 4 but also loved coaching others as a senior and it opened your mind into the broader world of teaching others which is why you went into teaching English..blah blah." I've used similar lines at interviews and they drop their panties.

[UnW]

Haha excellent. The market here in Australia is pretty saturated at the moment and attrition rates my firm are at unexpected lows so everyone's trying really hard to get an edge before stepping into corporate/industry.

[Cobra]

Gents,

I'm learning so much at my new recruiting/business development job that I want to share.

I had started a write up on hiring and firing in the Corporate Accounting & Finance space before I stated this job. It's a good thing I didn't publish it because what I'm learning about the hiring markets currently is off the hook.

So I need to complete my write up and infuse it with this information without revealing trade secrets (because that's not cool).

I also need to figure out where I publish that write up. The forum is cool but I almost want it to reach a wider audience.

It may not be a fit for ROK but maybe another blog where I can guest post with a linked thread here that can lead to a quality RVF discussion would be nice. Suggestions welcome.

[Peregrine]

I'll read it wherever you decide to post.

[Macklin]

(08-13-2014 06:06 PM)Cobra Wrote:  

Gents,

I'm learning so much at my new recruiting/business development job that I want to share.

I had started a write up on hiring and firing in the Corporate Accounting & Finance space before I stated this job. It's a good thing I didn't publish it because what I'm learning about the hiring markets currently is off the hook.

So I need to complete my write up and infuse it with this information without revealing trade secrets (because that's not cool).

I also need to figure out where I publish that write up. The forum is cool but I almost want it to reach a wider audience.

It may not be a fit for ROK but maybe another blog where I can guest post with a linked thread here that can lead to a quality RVF discussion would be nice. Suggestions welcome.

Would love to read this if you do a write up. Very interested in hearing about the recruiting side of things.

[TheThinker]

Cobra, thanks for the great thread. I look forward to the write up. Let us know when it's available. +1

[polar]

Cobra: check out HRNasty, it's a guy who provides actionable advice and insight though his recruiting blog...perhaps you'd be interested in a similar format.

[Beyond Borders]

Sorry if I missed this. Is it feasible to get educated online for this - at least in part? If so, any schools you recommend?

[Cobra]

@BB, sorry for the late reply. I have been busy given my new routine.

To your question, an online degree can be absolutely fine as long as you don't plan on getting into a mid-size to large organization. It's actually even a good idea if you're a small business owner. In the latter you can gain some valuable insight that may help your small business become a bigger business.

Reason is, quite simply, infrastructure or lack thereof. In order to land a top Corporate job you need networking which an online degree will not effectively provide. You also therefore will not have access to information on the job market that is current and thereby crucial to your success in the Corporate world. For example you won't be able to join a business fraternity, the benefits of which I covered above.

PM me or post your purpose and/or goals and maybe I can help you a bit more as I can give you advice more exclusive to your situation.

[kaka]

Thank you, Cobra.

You have been repped for this amazing wealth of knowledge. I have sent you a PM, thanks.

[Cobra]

Anyone with a blog as well as a captive and receptive audience that's willing to let me guest post a multi part Accounting and Finance hiring and firing series of articles, please PM me.

I can do it here too but want to maximize the reach while also giving it the unique red pill treatment it deserves.

Not sure I have the time to set up my own blog anymore.

[pt8498]

When going to career fair, there are so many different companies. There is no way I can approach all of them. So how do I know which companies to research and approach in hopes of landing an interview? I don't want to approach the wrong companies and fail to get a job when I could've approached less competitive ones and landed a job.