what’s the best piece of advice you could offer to a young cpa just starting out in the profession?
• never take training for granted. get the most out of it. get your cpa early and go after your masters in tax or business. treat your clients as you would want to be treated. learn from your mistakes.
• pay attention to the details, understand the big picture, and have a strategy.
• if you became a cpa because you love working with numbers, you’re off to the right start. now, for the hard part, find the field of accounting that fits your personality and peruse it. don’t chase the dollar; it’ll find you. just find a niche you enjoy as much as any hobby you have, and working hard to succeed will come easier for you.
• until you obtain experience, listen to those that have.
• don’t get caught up in negativity.
• always work as if you were working for yourself
• love your clients and your work. forget the money.
• work hard, read both professional literature and just good literature to expand your mind.
• get with a successful firm that has great integrity, learn from them their success secrets, add value to their firm, then, he/she will be prepared to start or purchase their own firm.
• be prepared to start you internship, you will need to devote time for reading and continuing education to stay on top of the game. school has given you the foundation to this profession, now you need to develop the skills to finish your home with pride.
• learn how businesses really make money.
• you have got to be a good people person.
• invest in yourself at every opportunity. learn good or bad from everyone who enters your life and apply what you learned daily.
• keep up with education; keep up with ethics.
• try as many different things as possible to find out what your niche is.
• build your clientele by effective networking and patiently building yourself as a confident and knowledgeable sales consultant of this profession.
• keep a positive attitude. that will be noticed by both supervisors and peers. always look for opportunities to learn.
• listen to what the client wants and take time to do research to determine if there is an ethical, honest and legal way to get the job done. then communicate your findings to the client in a manner they can understand, which often means being able to say the same thing several ways.
• be confident when speaking to clients, yet be completely accurate in the information provided. if you don’t know the answer to a question, don’t just give a guess; tell the client you need to research the issue further. research everything you don’t understand; you can even jot down concepts you wish to learn more about when you are less busy. establishing a reputation for integrity and accuracy will help create a solid client base for you.
• get into health profession or real estate. make contacts.
• you must be dedicated to serving the clients.
• join a big 4, find the most lucrative clients in the office and get assigned to them, then leave after 5 years for the highest paying job in the biggest company you ca find.
• be sure you work for someone/some company that is willing to educate you with your questions
• learn something new every day, ask questions and take advantage career development opportunities.
• get an opportunity to try different areas of expertise in the cpa field so you can find what motivates you.
• join and be active in professional organizations. the friends and contacts that will be made are so valuable.
• work for a local cpa firm with ten or more professionals
• the work you perform in the accounting profession is very different from what you learn in college. thus, it is best that your first job in accounting provides a lot of hands-on training.
• groom yourself to become a business person not, just an accountant.
• if you want to make a decent salary, get into selling insurance and financial services. the traditional audit/tax services is not where the gravy is these days.
• get as much varied experience as you can. learn about “business” not just accounting.
be you own advocate. find a mentor.
• the real world is nothing at all like school. keep your mind and your eyes open, and don’t be afraid to say ‘i don’t know, but i’ll find out’ – and do it!
• be prepared to work some long hours. put off having a family until you are a manager for at least 3 years.
• take a cpa review course as soon as you can after school, and do your best to pass the cpa exam quickly.
• get involved in as many different types of clients as possible.
• make sure that you make time for yourself, even during the busiest times of the year. do not take on more than you can handle or those services that you are not sure of. it is not how much you do but what you do well that counts. enjoy your career do not make it “work”.
• start in public accounting. it doesn’t matter if it’s a big or small firm.
• just hang in there and learn everything you can and ask questions
• focus your energies. find an area of public accounting that you like such as an industry or specialization and stick to it. become an expert and market your niche. this will create momentum for success. avoid being a “jack of all trades and master of none”.
• learn how to communicate, relate, and sell.
• find something else quick
• be a sponge but don’t hesitate to ask questions.
• stay positive and roll with the punches
• learn, learn, learn by doing. be willing to make mistakes (once) and go forward. it takes 2 years for the light to go on.
• work with a big four firm for at least two years.
• work with the smartest people you can, and learn as much from them as you can – if you do that, the money will take care of itself.
• get a mentor
• work/life balance is important to establish early on.
• stick with it (public accounting), it starts to get better. there is so much to learn – it just takes a long time.
• work hard, look to make the right contacts, give clients good relevant advice
• learn from others, both the good (what should be emulated) and the bad (what should not be emulated; connect with people on a personal level; and continue to hone existing skills and learn new ones.
• keep striving to improve yourself, it will be noticed
• persistence