These are my personal opinions on everything I've seen, heard, read after 3 years of uni:
1. There is a shortage of QUALITY qualified accountants, not "accountants", who are willing to work AS AN accountant. Since accountants have broader business and finance training they have flooded into areas such as general management, consulting, funds management, equities research, investment banking etc. and the so called skills shortage is talking about a shortage of qualified accountants willing to work in any lower paid accounting positions.
i.e. as Omnidragon quoted from the article:
"There is absolutely no shortage of accountants. What there is a shortage of are accountants prepared to work for peanuts."
I doubt places like Big Four have trouble getting candidates, but again it is QUALITY people that is an issue
2. The accounting graduate pool has too few QUALITY candidates. And by quality I mean bright (not necessarily smart, but switched on, or at least hard working) motivated ambitious people who aren't doing accounting because they can't get into anyhting else. The few who do exist usually get enticed into Investment Banking, law firms and to a lesser extent the Big Four. Those left over usually trickle to mega large corporates so mid tiers and smaller firms and companies have very little choice left over. Hence the incentive to poach at the high school level by the big 4. Once school students are sucked in, often pure inertia ensures they keep going in accounting.
3. Nobody can really argue Partner, CFO, FD, Controller salaries are crap given they are about 6 figure minimum no matter how small the organisation is. At the other end however, remuneration is shocking particularly at the smaller places. Often small firms with 10, 20 staff can only afford to pay low 30's to accounting graduates, which frankly no ambitious accounting graduate would touch with a 30 foot poll, if only to keep their pride intact. Though this is disgraceful, it is certainly not unique to accounting. I've heard of junior solicitors, engineers etc. getting similar at small, low earning places. That is just life
4. Hours are shit, but can be worse. I believe people who complain about long hours fit into 2 categories:
- Those who joined expecting a 9-5 job. These are sadly delusional
- Those who don't mind long hours if their pay was increased appropriately. These people have a valid grievance, but need to realise that it is not just accounting that suffers here, but also investment banking, law and as one poster said, a junior doctor who gets less per hour than the hospital cleaner.
No offence if I've bagged you anywhere. I respect all, but I believe this is the reality.
In summary:
Everyone needs a reality check. As respondents said "Money talks and bullshit walks"
And I guess it is important to stress that it is not majoring in accounting that is an issue, it is working in accountant roles. Some of those posters it seems are unacceptably qualifed to get positions in other areas of business.
newbie said:
i get the impression that these people commenting are all old disgruntled accounting clerks. like the person who was told she was too old at 39.
yeah I agree, I think the day that the ICAA and CPA Australia lobby for a legal requirement on the use of "accountant" is the day that we will see the stature of accounting sky rocket. I know I'm being elitist and I don't mean to bag anyone...but yeah...
Shit man, you get people at Income return compaies who've done a 10 week course calling themselves "Tax Accountants". Get real.
