8 Great Career Builders for an Accounting Career
Posted by Saundra Lee on Thu, Sep 01, 2011 @ 04:40 AM
It’s been over a decade that I have been recruiting for Corporate Accounting & Finance professionals and while it kills me that we spend so much time calling people who have jobs to convince them to interview for a better job, the best I can do for now is educate people in Accounting how to be that person.
Here are the Great 8 Accounting Career Builders
1. Big 4. 99% of the searches that we work on at Dubin & Lee want Big 4 experience. I used to ask why Big 4 all of the time and I have heard a variety of answers including “the way they were trained” to “because the hiring manager is Big 4.” I am certainly open to hear more reasoning.
2. CPA. Even if not from Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG or PWC, a CPA from a public accounting firm where he or she worked on companies larger than the “Mom & Pop” companies is still high on the wish list.
3. Publicly traded company experience. Public accounting experience alone does not rank an Accountant on the list of “Most Desired.” The ideal experience is public & private industry combination. In private industry, the experience you gain from working in a publicly traded company can make you extremely marketable, especially if you get exposure to SEC reporting.
4. IPO experience. When a company is about to do an Initial Public Offering (IPO) the accounting department sees a lot of action in that process. It has been quite some time since we have seen demand for IPO experience and I am happy to report, we are seeing it again.
5. International company experience. As our world becomes more global, so many companies have increased their international presence. Now with the convergence from US GAAP to IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) accountants with international experience are in more demand than ever.
6. Finance experience. You will get to certain level where just being able to crunch the numbers is no longer enough, you will need to analyze them as well. When you get into a company, try to get exposure to budgeting, forecasting, modeling and planning. Don’t bother dropping out of work to get a Finance degree as well. Companies want to hire the work experience
7. ERP systems experience. Whether a company is implementing a new system or they have a verbose system like SAP or Oracle, they lean heavily to hire the people that have experience with these systems.
8. Presentation skills. Every time I ask a manager what they mean by “strong communication skills” they say, “well, this person will have to make presentations” to senior management or to the Board of Directors. This can be the most necessary yet hardest to find of all the criteria because so many professionals are brainwashed that the only people who need “presentation skills” or need to improve their communication skills are those in sales. I have not seen many successful, in demand CFOs that have not learned the importance of powerful presentation skills.
There is no such thing as a secure job anymore. Chose your next job based on what it will do for you as a career builder. Once you get in, take all the initiative you can to get any of these “8 Greats” on your resume.
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Posted by:Saundra LeePresident, Dubin & Lee