careers

‘Unprecedented Demand’ for Accounting Grads

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CPA firm hiring tops 40,000 for first time ever.

By Rick Telberg

Bolstering reports of a suddenly surging profession with a high demand for top talent, a new survey of colleges and firms by the AICPA shows that CPA firms are hiring a record number of graduates.

At the same time, the pipeline of accounting students is bulging, suggesting to some that the continuing high demand for new recruits can be met by newly minted graduates for the next few years.

This will come as good news to firms facing growing new-business opportunities, tougher competition and a growing need for entry-level staff.

It does not, however, help alleviate the catastrophic stall in growth dating back to the 1990s with the spread of the so-called 150-hour rule that has left the profession with a gaping hole in its succession and business continuity strategies. The profession, already facing a succession crisis due to the aging-out of the Baby Boomers, now finds itself with a dearth of 40- and 50-something senior managers and junior partners to take over management and control – a fact that a record supply of new graduates won’t correct for 10 or 20 years, if ever.

 

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The good news for hiring: Pipeline fills with huge supply of talent.

The report shows: READ MORE →

Accounting Staffers Show New Signs of Job Restlessness

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Some 37 percent of finance and accounting workers say they are likely to look for a new job in the next 12 months, an increase from 33 percent last quarter.

Fifty-three percent say they are not likely to job search, falling five percentage points from the previous quarter.

Confidence among U.S. finance and accounting workers decreased 2.4 points to 53.4 in the first quarter of 2013 after rebounding in the last quarter of 2012. READ MORE →

Trends in Temporary Staffing

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Rationalizing a broken system and recapturing two-thirds of lost value.

Dan Gaffney
Dan Gaffney

With CPA firms and corporations rushing to staff up with a suddenly warming economy, finance and accounting employment agencies are booming. But it can’t last. Sooner, rather than later, the internet will change everything.

Dan Gaffney, a CPA, CIA, CISA and a 20-year audit veteran, in both public accounting and in corporate, is positioning himself to take advantage of the paradigm shift. He’s out to revolutionize the finance and accounting temp business.

His Chicago-based incubation-stage start-up, Vouchedin.com, is seeking to do to short-term staffing placements what Monster did to newspaper classifieds and what Apple did to the recording industry: leverage the internet to cut out the middleman, re-channeling profits to both the worker and the employer. It could change a big part of the accounting profession as well. – The Editors READ MORE →

Amid Industry Expansion, CPA Firms Remain Cautious in Hiring

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The good news: 10,700 accountants hired. The bad: profit pressure.

The U.S. tax, accounting, and bookkeeping industry added a seasonally adjusted 10,700 jobs in March, the ninth straight month of year-over-year expansion, according to CPA Trendlines sources. Women and non-exempt employees are making up the bulk of the workers returning to the industry, but not, it seems, to CPA firms, where caution seems to be continuing. At the same time, CPA Trendlines finds renewed pressure on fees and pricing while utilization rates and salaries continue to increase.

– Rick Telberg
CPA Trendlines Research

In this report:

  • Overall hiring trends
  • Women employment
  • CPA firm hiring
  • Overall trends in pricing and billing rates
  • CPA firm pricing trends
  • Tax prep pricing
  • Pricing for bookkeeping and compilation
  • Number of hours worked per week
  • Trends in wages and earnings

 

The 3% increase to 932,900 full-time equivalents from the year-ago month represents the biggest jump in a year. Still, the rise left the industry’s head count 14,100 jobs shy of the month’s record high of 946,700 in 2008.

ALL EMPLOYEES, THOUSANDS

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The Competition for Talent: It’s All about Motivation

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At Microsoft, they worry about motivation, says Bruce W. Marcus, author of Professional Services Marketing 3.0. When everybody who holds any kind of a responsible job is making more money than any of them ever dreamed they would, and when they’re in an industry that would pay anything to hire them away, how do you motivate people? How do you get them to stay, and to produce at the high levels demanded by Microsoft and other high tech companies? Two ways.

In this report:

  • Five mistakes firms make.
  • Four strategies that can’t miss.

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Comp Plans for the New Managing Partner

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Lessons from the best-managed firms.

By Marc Rosenberg
Author of “CPA Firm Management and Governance: The Managing Partner’s Guide to Running a CPA Firm Like a Business.”

Baby boomer partners are rapidly approaching retirement age, resulting in a dramatic increase in new managing partners at firms.

In fact, CPA Trendlines estimates that up to 25% of multi-owner firms are operating under managing partners who are relatively new to the job, with tenures under three years. And over the next five years, one-third of multi-owner firms will undergo a change in ownership and/or control. READ MORE →

Finance and Accounting Professionals Forecast Improving Job Prospects through 2013 [PRO Member Exclusive]

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Rebound in confidence after two quarters of decline.

Next Question: What’s your best career advice? Join the survey; get the answers.

A leading measure of overall confidence among U.S. finance and accounting workers, rose 5.4 points to 55.8 in 4Q 2012 — ending a two-quarter decline, according to new data reported by CPA Trendlines.

The new survey finds growing confidence in job availability and in workers’ personal employment situations, despite continued tepid sentiment in the strength of the economy.

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