aja152 said:
nah.. i didnt read it cuz my internet is kinda really slow atm and dont want to wait for loading -_-. you can give me a breif summ, dont worry if u cant be bothered...
i would just say to do what you really want to do and have interest in.
ie accounting/
Some comments:
Having started full-time work in an CA accounting firm and completing my commerce degree part-time I've just realised how pathetic the profession is. The work is dull, repetitive and completely mind numbing. There's little variation at work and the hours are long with high expectations. The standard is billing clients every 6 minutes and there's immense pressure to complete tax returns etc. as quickly as possible. If you go overtime your performance is evaluated, and screwing up too much means you get the boot. 45 hr weeks at work is not uncommon (includes 1 hr break - but who cares it is still time spend at work!). Honestly I made the worst decision of my life - i'm in 3rd year uni and the only thing I want is to have my time back. Everyone in my firm smokes because they're all under pressure. It's a bullsh*t profession. The pay is bloody crap; 70-80k after you get your CA/CPA in 3 years is ridiculous. All it means is more responsibility, more pressure, less time spent with family/friends. Go for something better! ACCOUNTING = BAD
I graduated with a Business Degree majoring in Accounting last year and am a distinguished graduate. After my first year of study I was approached by a firm and offered an assistant accountant's position for $22,ooo a year. In this role, my first manager never missed an opportunity to belittle me. After 12 mths I left the firm to take up another offer with a firm that promised me a role as a trainee accountant. After a year it became evident to me that I had been railroaded into a debtor's clerk role. My next offer came when I was approached to work as an auditor in a training role. This manager was wonderful, but left the firm after I was in the position for only 5 months and I was in turn made redundant. The competing audit company absorbed me with the audit fees they picked up, and again, my manager was totally abusive towards me. Today, I work as a finance officer performing menial tasks for a university. There is no opportunity to grow in this role. To date I feel I have been denied the training from those managers tasked to deliver. I guess that managers are under enormous amounts of stress and take it out on their junior staff. I haven't given up on the prospect of becoming an experience accountant, however, my options in Alice Springs are very slim.
In absolute agreement with the comments above, especially those of SimonK of Perth and Steven of Lidcombe. I found that when I was not prepared to put in the extra hours for the peanuts that I was making, and pointed out to my Partner how wrong the salary/ hours expectation relationship was, I was told indirectly to 'hit the road.' which I thankfully did. Public practice is plagued by blatant exploitation, - with the only winners being the Partners of these firms.
My advice to those who can't get a job in an accounting firm, please be informed that there is no money there. Accounting career is much more than charted firms. Even if you have multiple degrees you'd be paid a pitiful $45k pa, the most after ten years. I was paid this slave money for ten years until I started my own practice, not to mention the the constant abuse and ridicule from older partners and managers. Chartered firms are only suitable for chartered accountants who wish only to parade their CA status which they falsely think is so professionally and soccially superior.If you want a decent income from $80 up, you should not have any problems getting it in commerce, industry or government. I know many friends earning more than $100k after a few years and they are not even CAs or CPAs.
I have been working in public practice for 2 years as an undergraduate accountant whilst studying for my commerce degree part-time. I only need to look at the way my seniors are treated by partners and the like to relize accounting is a muggs game. Long hours and poor remuneration, Unrealistic expectations and deadlines and hardly any flexibility. I could earn more at this point working in administration and given the way we are treated i could be moving on very soon
I've had that many stressful temporary jobs I've lost count. If you're not an FC or CFO you can expect low pay and long hours. It helps if you come from the "right background" with the right postcode and been to the right University. There's far too much politics in this profession. If you're a finance worker you can expect things like ordering catering supplies, making coffee, filing and all manner of PA type duties. Not to mention all the pooper-scooping you have to do to fix up all the silly mistakes the non-finance staff make when they are given FINANCE work to do (because some idiot thinks they'll save some money)....
Interesting. I was a graduate Bcom (marketing and IB) and Masters in Accounting. I couldn't get s single firm interested in me, despite being prepared to take substantial pay cuts to get into the industry at the bottom level. Was told too qualified...under skilled. Essentially the resons these firms have trouble recruiting, is a lack on investment by them in developing employees, and slave starting wages. Really how an anyone earning 30K live is a place such as Sydney. My brother is now in the industry and only now is he starting to earn a decent wage...several years after graduating and having to put up with poor managers/partners. In the increasingly skills shortage world it's about time the profession woke up.
I used to work with a big 4 firm as a chartered accountant (CA) - And all I can say is that my decision to take on an Accounting career would have had to have been the single worst decision I have made in my entire life! The work is boring - the pay is nothing short of rubbish, the hours will drive you crazy and the respect and treatment from Partners and Clients boarders on abuse. To anyone contemplating a career in Accounting - Forget it! The pain and suffering is just not worth it! There maybe reward down the track, but the pathetic journey it takes to get there is just not worth it compared to other corporate careers! The reward down the track can be achieved via other avenues.
I agree with the broad sentiment that in many University trained professions junior graduates are canon fodder who are expected to work 2-3 hours a day overtime for zero pay, because you are on a salary contract. If you don't work the extra time then you start getting looked over for promotion, and its the thought of promotion and finally getting to the top of the tree to make some decent money that is the only light at the end of the tunnel. There is also the insinuation that as a graduate you know nothing and are actually costing the company money in having to be trained up in how things work "in the real world". I have friends who are carpenters, plumbers etc and they get paid for every hour they work, they are their own boss, didn't start their working lives with a $40-60,000 HECs debt, didn't have zero income for the 4-6 years of their University course. So why bother with all that stress when you can earn $70-120k per annum driving a dump truck in a mine, or fixing leaky pipes?! All ties into your other story about people not bothering with mathematics anymore either, its too much hard work for too little reward versus other alternatives, especially with HECS debts lurking in the background and record low housing affordability putting people under a lot of pressure to make more money earlier in their careers.
Being a former Chartered Accountant - at one of the big firms - I realised how pathetic, boring, useless and ungratifying the "career" is. The money's crap. The work's exceptionally dull. The people are worse. And the clients couldn't care less about your work. No wonder why in a tight labour market no one wants to do it...
