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Some people are working over 50 hours a week. Others barely have a reason to come in to the office, because they're just going to chat with their friends and make four trips down to Tim Horton's. Is this curious phenomenon limited to just accounting firms? Maybe not, but who cares - if this next quote represents "you," then you're Doing it Wrong: "I also have a lot of nonchargeable time when i'm unscheduled..i sometimes ask 1 or 2 managers(since there are lots in the office and i don't know most of them) but usually have no result..i'm concerned that this will reflect poorly on my performance evals..what are people's experience on this?" This is courtesy the comments to a blog post on people underreporting their time. I'm pretty sure I've railed against stupidly obeying the budget instead of documenting reality, but that's not where we're ranting today. Instead, let's deconstruct that scenario. The comment writer doesn't...
Congratulations to Alexandre Bilodeau for bringing a glorious golden victory to Canada's western shores! In tribute to his spectacular mogul run, I offer some Big 4 snow sport action. The snow profile above, sadly, is a little too similar to that in Vancouver this month. Who would've expected mild weather in February - aside from anyone who's ever visited or moved to B.C. for that very reason? Alexandre's victory reminded me the fall recruiting season - yes I'm going there - where two of the Big Four firms trumpeted their involvement with the Winter Games. But before we get into who's doing what on an official level, let's see what's going on from Google's point of view, searching for "FIRMNAME" and "Vancouver Olympics: PwC: they're running a study to figure out whether or not the Olympics end up breaking even or perhaps even generating a profit for the hosts. How very stereotypical for accountants, I know. KPMG: a profile on Executive...
Reading the adventures of new recruits on myCAsite reminded me of Homer's job search: Smithers: What would each of you say is your worst quality? Man 1: Well, I <am> a workaholic. Man 2: I push myself too hard. Homer: Well, it takes me a long time to learn anything, I'm kind of a goof-off... I love those quotes, but how about something useful? "I have no fear of fire" is only a good interview response to a limited range of career options. Is audit one of them? Sometimes. Something to keep in mind is that most of the major firms use behavioural interview questions . A quick search will reveal sample lists - the link above is one good example, apparently used by the State of Kansas in their interviews. From that same post, you'll read someone's comment which shows how to fail at these interviews: "dude plz post the answers to all these questions if possible." Fail. The thing about these interviews is that there is no single "correct" set...
Training new people is huge in accounting firms. As you gain experience, you typically end up doing more teaching than raw accounting. With that in mind, consider this questions, one of several I've received from my readers who have been sending me a series of interesting questions that are giving me a delightful backlog of topics to discuss.. In this case, we're asked about the difficulties you may encounter switching from one group, say the regular financial audit team, to the IT audit group in a given firm: If, let's say, a first year financial audit staff is starting their second year in a firm and transfers into a second year IT audit staff position, wouldn't there be an almost insurmountable learning curve? The first year financial staff spent the entire first year in learning about financial auditing techniques, and now has to deal with tests on data conversions instead of auditing operating expenses!" The good news is that no, this isn't an "almost...
Hot on the heels of my discussion of when people choose to leave , comes news from LYF - he has resigned from his current firm and has done so with style . Go read all about it . It's a very good breakdown explaining how to pick the timing, how to plan the departure - starting 4 months in advance is advised, and factors to keep in mind, including the potential requirement to pay back exam fees the firm may have paid on your behalf. I like the idea pointed out to get the new employer to cover such fees for you, along with a smart breakdown on how to share the news. And I most of all like how it allows him to enjoy a summer-long vacation. Well played, and good luck at your next job and during the summer adventures!
If you want to avoid paying peak summer prices at popular destinations, May is a great time to travel. And although I thought I was going to follow up by saying, "and yet this year I didn't," that's obviously not true. Couple the well timed vacation with an early start to my busy season - yes, while the personal tax people are ready to take a break, I'm getting busy - and I new posts fell on hold. So thank you to the student who wrote to ask me a few good questions, including the following: If you leave your CA firm to work in industry, when is the best time to jump ship? I've heard people say "as soon as you have your hours and can use your CA," to "as high as stick around until you're a manager." I like questions like this because they're easy to answer and are also popular fodder for discussion. You'll find your dream job, somewhere. Maybe it'll even have an In-N-Out Burger location and will be outside the LAX flightpath...
My title, though technically accurate, is completely unfair though - Dr. Mankiw is way more experienced than I am - he's a PhD damnit - and he's written books and many other wonderful things . But it's also very fun. It all stems from a webcast for CAs, to teach them how to use social media effectively. They showed Chartered Accountants how to make it easier to set up their "online brand" and to appear like more of an authority by making it easier for people to find you online. And with that I got an excuse for a short excursion into navel gazing and teasing of a distinguished academic, the former being something I generally avoid unless I can put some good spin on it, and the latter always serving as an excellent way to get yourself blacklisted from Harvard. So onwards, to the patting of ourselves on the back. How do you make yourself easier to find online and look like the authority figure you basically are? Write about something you consider important and add some...
So. Will you ever get to enjoy job security? There's only one pair of answers that can adequately address that sort of question: "...short answer: "Yes" with an "If," long answer: "No" -- with a "But."" - Rev Lovejoy, 4F07 I write that, inspired by comments in response to one of Francine's popular blog posts on big four layoffs, this time with a tail of comments over 300 postings long and counting, including the following question : "Is at-will employment fairly common for 1st years? When can I expect to gain some sort of…security?" I couldn't help but quote the Simpsons in response to that question because in many ways you can give a simple "yes or no" response, but what you say, your words will be empty without some kind of explanation. If you want to treat "job security" the way classic unionist types look at it, not only is there no such thing in this field - a job for life - but the idea of...
Realizing that I a healthy number of readers - and friends! - come to me asking for career advice, it struck me that I should probably start sharing this advice in an organized fashion. So I’m starting a series of posts filled with quirks and trivia that will you a vague idea about what the other aspects of becoming a Chartered Accountant are like - such as the first entry: Consider becoming a CA if you have a good eye for detail. For example, if you noticed that one of my site’s ‘tag’ categories just got renamed to Brilliant Career Advice from something else, you should consider becoming a CA. If you remember what that tag used to be called, you get bonus points - and risk being accused of being a stalker... unless you’re really just proving how much you want to become a CA. Mentioning stalking and how it's a Bad Idea, however, is one of those brilliant Good Ideas: I'll get back to that topic in a future post.
I can think of three options, when searching for a new bank, or if you want to learn more about any large business you're considering dealing with.. Go to the official banks' websites, as well as those of any "one stop shop"/"compare all the banks" services. Run a google search on a bank, like HSBC. Not too helpful if the "signal to noise" ratio is not working in your favour. Ironically - because it's usually a place with an even worse "signal to noise ratio" - try running a twitter search on the same keyword. Interesting. Also try adding a "#" to the beginning - "#hsbc" yields even more. I'm not looking for a bank, but after watching The Take and learning of the violent death of Gustavo Benedetto at the hands of the Argentinian HSBC security chief - yes, that's shocking and ridiculously sad, I'd like to know if they bothered to apologize officially - I wanted to see what others were saying about HSBC....
I love reading. I have the above image in my mind when reading my current book. But it has little else with what follows . I was going to go somewhere with that first sentence, but brought it to a full stop. It was a while ago that I filed away the fact in my mind that I read more than many other people do. I realized this first when, speaking to a professional journalist I met was asked which section of her newspaper I read. "I read all of them." She was a little shocked. I didn't have a daily subscription, so if I was paying cash for the product, I should get full use out of it, no? Over time, I realized that not everyone looks at things the same way. And getting busier, I would drop whatever appealed to me least. But I would still read newsmagazines from cover to cover. And still do - they're much shorter, and less frequent! Of course, I ended up speaking to an acquaintance working for one particular magazine and had a repeat of my earlier conversation with the newspaper...
You know you're attached to certain things, if you respond with enthusiasm to changes. I refer of course to the new gmail theme s. If you don't have themes available on your account - gmail will inform you when they're loaded on your particular account, it takes some time to activate worldwide - you'll know. I heard about it earlier today from a friend on the other side of the continent, but didn't see them until now. And it looks cool. I'm very much intrigued by how some themes change based on which location you report being in . I changed to Tokyo from home, and boom, it changed from night to day, literally, in the background graphics. Very cool. Geeking out on gmail themes seems appropriate, because I today I also learned that I'm apparently the #2 geek in the city, based on the now-tabulated CISA exam results. I am, of course, very curious to see how much geekier you have to be to score first place on that exam. And did that guy - I presume, sorry, that...
Fortunately I don't find myself working with idiots - but I did find them discussed in the august columns of the Wall Street Journal. Oddly enough the managers weren't being blamed. And to be honest, today our subject is more about idiot journalists, but they certainly air the views of people that I wouldn't want in charge of my company's HR practice. The WSJ article reads like something you would expect in the Dilbert universe - thanks to BD for pointing it out. It does a Pravda-worthy job of slamming young employees as a group. Yes, some people are stupid and aren't ready for the workforce. But trying to make it sound like everyone is like this is a complete abdication of personal responsibility - which the WSJ ironically trashes the young workers for not having - since it means you failed to find the good employees that you want to hire. Want a good example? Look at the last "CEO" hiring job done by the US public. Please please please don't screw things...
Dennis , the online business guru - go read his collected wisdom - wrote a little article listing ways companies can save money. It's a quick and clever little list. But one point made me shudder: cutting back on cleaning expenses. "Consider the frequency of janitorial services. Does the office really need cleaning every night? Might staff at least partially fulfill that service?" Some random statistic I stumbled across ages ago said that offices are some of the worst places in terms of germs. Accounting firms lead the pack according to the study. Perhaps it was just advanced internal fear mongering to generate sales of hand sanitizer. Perhaps not. Regardless, I continue to wash my hands, but I also appreciate the hard work of the cleaning staff. I also know for a fact that people would revolt if they were confronted with overflowing mounds of rubbish in the office. It'd be nice to thing everyone can pitch in and help, but unless you work in a very small office that's...
A thought occured to me . Even though I'm Canadian, pretend you and I are both Americans for a moment. The nationality doesn't matter, just run with it. Let's assume that you have your own little business and you're buying some kind of tool, and you have perfect knowledge about the quality of two competing products. You're going to use this tool for five years before you plan to stop using it. Let's assume you were presented with two options. Also assume there are no other hidden costs (i.e. no extra pollution caused from shipping the tool because of carbon offsets or whatever) and money is no object - you have at least $60 burning a hole in your pocket, ready to spend. Option one is buying a $40 tool made by Americans from all American raw materials which you knew would work at 100% efficiency for one year, then break and be useless and impossible to repair. Option two is buying a $60 tool made by, let's say the British, from British raw materials, which you...
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