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I found another CA blog out there - the first French Canadian one I've come across . If you have trouble reading Julien's French, run it through Google Translate. The translation's not perfect, but it'll do. The newest posting caught my eye ; in the spirit of hyper-critical UFE prep, here's some analysis. His writing's pretty good - the post about travel is a good read , and it's amusing to note that he looks forward to the chance to perfect his English in his travels, whereas I could say the same about improving my French when I'm sent on the road to the francophone parts of the world. Going back to his newest post about the UFE process, however, Julien talks about two factors that he claims make his program unique compared to those experienced at other firms - any message like that delivered on an official blog deserves closer scrutiny since new recruits are going to put some weight into what they're being told. Special Educators The first claim is...
I try to help people, they turn me down. That's about par for the course, I should say - auditors are used to not getting much respect. With the exception that other auditors usually listen to what we have to say. If I offer help to someone, they're usually happy to get it. My UFE mentees are a prime example. They listen carefully to my suggestions, and pass their exams. It's a strong symbiotic relationship - I'm happy to share knowledge. With that in mind, imagine my surprise when, while stationed a day's drive north of the city, I checked my mail in the morning to find an unusual e-mail from another writer. What I received was a polite e-mail from PriceWaterhouseCoopers explaining why my commentary isn't welcome at Nisha's PwC blog , part of the new "PwC Connect" recruiting site that's gradually rolling out. That they don't want to permit my voice to be heard at their site doesn't concern me too greatly as I have - oh, my own little soapbox...
I just wrote about getting the CPA designation - a relatively easy task for someone who already has either a Canadian or Australian CA at this time. You might ask - "so does this mean that's the next step for Krupo?". Well, probably not.I feel like I have enough designations at the moment. The CA is great, more than enough really. But thinking that Neil was going to write in June - trickery! - I wanted to be just like all the other cool kids - peer pressure is alive and well - so I went ahead and registered. Bonus points to the first person who leave a comment which correctly identifies what's in the above photo. Fast forward to a few days ago - dateline last Tuesday - I received confirmation this week that I passed the June CISA exam. With no false modesty, There was never any serious doubt I wouldn't. I mean, I walked out of the exam hall in under three hours. It's a four hour exam. Some argue that the exam is subjective : You will not know how you did when...
A reader wrote to ask: is it fairly easy to get hired at CA training office in Toronto? How difficult it is, what do they look for while hiring new interns? Good question. The short answer is no, it's not that easy, unless you have top marks in your accounting and audit courses and some strong supporting interests on your resume, like participation in student groups, part-time job experience or something else that helps you stand out from the crowd. If all you do is put together a resume and blindly shoot of resumes to every firm in sight, your chances of getting hired - either full-time or as an intern - are going to be 'average' at best. But you want to fly around the world doing audits - how do you stand out? It's not too hard. It starts with planning. And to plan, you need to set some goals. Your goals are as follows: Know what you're doing. This includes knowing when you should apply for the job. Show potential employers you know what you're doing. This includes...
If you're not familiar with CA firms, you may be a little surprised to know that there's such a thing as "recruiting season." Employers will come around university and college campuses during set times of the year - both in Canada and the US - to interview potential employees en masse . The phenomenon of ‘campus visits’ is especially pronounced in the US where there’s a plethora of colleges to visit - smaller campuses often miss out on visits from the Big Four and students who want to get noticed with an in-person interview end up having to travel to a campus visit taking place at another larger school. A reader asks what to do if you had the misfortune to miss out on recruiting season - or were simply unsuccessful in the hunt for a position . Above: Non-big-four recruiting poster in Buffalo's airport. Photo credit: Krupo (as usual) I'm grouping both scenarios together because the methods of dealing with either scenario are ultimately the same. Figure out what...
One reader asked a clever question to one of my recent posts about the market's job situation: Just out of curiosity, how much lay offs are there in the accounting firms? What is causing all these lay offs? I thought the CA firms had a shortage of workers and they were hiring like crazy? I’m not really in the accounting field, so I guess I’m behind on the new… Layoffs are caused by an excess supply of employees, and an insufficient demand for their work - same as in any company. How many layoffs are there and what's causing them? The short answer to both is, "it depends." If you live in a region where there's lots of work, layoffs aren't happening. If you're in a region where some or all audit firms lost business, you'll be looking at 2 to 20 people in a given city's office. Yes, I can't give you a hard number, just some ballpark estimates, and that's because it's all spread around. So much so that when someone hazards a firm number, hecklers...
Funny, without an audience giving you feedback, you write about what strikes your fancy and will hopefully appeal to people. With people telling you what's on their mind, though, you can apply a laser-like focus on what interests them instead. This assumes you have something intelligent or useful to share about their interests. And so thanks JC , for revealing that at least one person out there finds the things Neil and I write about somewhat useful . JC's question, posted on Neil's blog, was regarding the 'slow season'. Someone new to the profession will think, quite logically, if you have a 'busy season', then perhaps you may have little or nothing to do during the slow season. At the risk of making some broad, sweeping generalizations, I'll tackle this question by drawing upon many years of busy seasons, both from my personal experience and those of others who have shared their stories with me over time. Before jumping into a few myths or scenarios, I'll...
Neil has a fun little conversation going on the topic of the 2007 UFE . The discussion branched off into the question of why Ontario did worse than the national average and what could be done to improve matters. Could forcing candidates into a 2-year program improve matters? Paul says no, " Low provincial/regional pass rates are always hard to swallow and can undoubtedly be improved by increasing the amount of screening and the length of the education period prior to allowing a UFE candidate to write for the first time. However, I question whether a higher UFE pass rate would make the program more attractive to potential entrants. After all, what’s the benefit of making it easier to get THROUGH the UFE if it makes it harder to get TO the UFE in the first place?" Assuming pass rates of 80, 80 and 75% on the three exams, the average first year writer has a 48% chance of passing, and Paul says that this is still better than the 0% chance you have of "passing" in your first...