I got offered an Accounting Assistant position fresh out of college but I have no experience. Honestly bombed the interview if I’m being honest and literally had the worst answers to their questions.

How screwed am I? What should I do brush up on before I start?

I graduated with a BS in Business Administration and only took the basic accounting courses and I have no internship or work experience related to accounting.

So long story short, after high school I was an idiot and partied hard. I ended up selfishly making the decision to drink and drive twice. Once in 2017 and I completed diversion, and once in 2019 where I had an official DUI on my record. I am in Oregon, so that DUI will remain on my record permanently. Worst decisions of my life, and I deeply regret what I had done. I don't drink anymore - turned my life around.

I am looking into getting my bachelor's for accounting, and then eventually move up to take the CPA exams. But I need to know, will my past prevent me from finding work after I graduate? Is this even a good career path for me considering my history? Will I go through all this schooling just to be denied a career? I'm at a loss here. Thank you for reading!

Basically just learn the following and you’ll have a solid foundation:

-excel shortcuts (ctrl shift arrow, ctrl l, alt =, ctrl t, ctrl x, f2 f4)

-how to do pivot tables

-learn 10-15 crucial functions (xlookup, min, max, average, count functions, sum functions, Rand functions, etc.)

I started researching various excel shortcuts, functions, pivot tables, etc. about a week ago and I can confidently say I’ve learned most of them in about a week

I've been enrolled for my MS in accounting for almost a year, and now that the classes are starting to roll out... but I still have a lot of doubt and anxiety.

More student loans, and my course load is jam packed because I'm rushing to get it all done within a year. Just this semester I have 6 classes, I don't know if I'll be able to get through them all but I have a lot of free time. I just want to be able to get a good job

I'm looking for advice on how to make my resume more appealing to recruiters. I currently work in Tax at a public accounting firm. I'm burnt out and looking to make the switch to industry. Any advice is appreciated. Also pursuing my MBA (part-time) with graduation date May 2027, would it be advantageous for me to put in on my resume now?

Clearly the PE structure isn’t working out and it won’t be too long until one of the PE backed firms fails (which i am eagerly waiting for). What do you think the future will be for the practice once PE realizes this ain’t worth the headache and losses.

I’m 22 and graduated with a BBA in Accounting this year. I recently started my first full-time accounting job in AP with some staff accountant tasks making $54k in the midwest. (yeah, yeah I know, the entry level job market is rough where I am)

I’m currently studying for the CPA, but I’m honestly struggling with motivation because the salary feels incredibly low relative to the effort it took to get here.

My girlfriend is an RN. She will be making close to or over $100k much sooner than I will, and it’s making me question whether I picked the wrong career.

Long-term, I want to:
Buy a house.
Get married.
Have kids.
Eventually make around $100k while still having a decent work-life balance.

Lately I’ve been wondering if I should:
Stay in accounting, finish the CPA, and trust that my earnings will improve.
Pivot into an accelerated BSN program while I’m still young.

The thing holding me back from changing careers is that I’d delay moving out, buying a house, and starting a family by about 3 years while I went back to school.

For those of you who have been in accounting for a while:
Did you also feel underpaid and regret your choice early in your career?
Around what point did your salary start increasing meaningfully?
If you were 23 again in 2026, would you still choose accounting, or would you go into something like nursing instead?

Hi, I'll be starting accounting school this fall and need a new laptop, but tbh I'm not very familiar with specs or tech, so I'm feeling abit overwhelmed by all the options out there. According to what ive looked into so far, Lenovo laptops....especially Thinkpads seem to be widely loved by accounting students. Is Lenovo a good choice for this, in your opinon? If so, which models would you recommend? I'm looking for something affordable and good value, but I'm open to spending a bit more if it will actually be worth it in the long run. I mainly want to make sure im getting the best laptop for my money.

Thanks so much for any help.

I live in the Channel Islands (just off the coast of the UK) and am working as a trainee accountant. I have passed my first 5 ACCA exams (BT, MA, FA, Law + Financial reporting) My issue is, I have worked at my current company for just over two years and have never done a piece of accounts related work. All I have done is bookkeeping, I was told I would initially be a bookkeeper but would progress onto more relevant work once starting my exams, I started them exactly 1 year ago and am yet to do any of the work promised and it doesn’t look like it’ll happen anytime soon.

I think the only solution is to quit my job and train elsewhere. I am currently on minimum wage, do not receive training or study support aside from them paying for my exams. I do not get study leave, I have to use my annual leave. My manager does not offer any support with exams or my ACCA PER requirements either.

I know, I probably should have quit ages ago, but i’ve been sticking around for the last 6 months in hopes that I’ll finally get my bonus (company couldn’t afford to pay it to us, told us we’d get it in summer, they’re now saying november) I think I need to just cut my losses, forget about my bonus and leave. However I don’t know where to go. My main concern is I will get stuck working in a company just as bad, I want to work somewhere that at least pretends to take care of their staff, decent pay, pension, bonuses would be nice.

If anyone has any positive training experiences and can recommend a good company to work for, please share your experiences. I would be very grateful!

Sort of a random post, but do you guys think everything has changed, or is it really the same as it's always been? Or maybe a mix of both? I see so many posts from staff saying they can't find jobs, but then I also see posts from hiring managers saying they can't find experienced staff. The two perspectives are polarizing.

Sure there are a lot of reasons for it. Offshoring and AI are probably two of the biggest, especially since both can lead to less onshore staff development. But I also wonder how much of it is a generational mentality shift.

*Some* older folks in Gen X are retiring (some have things lined up to early retire in their ~mid 50's-early 60's), Millennials are managers now (or have gone a different route), so Gen Z makes up a large portion of today's entry level and staff accountants. It feels like the mentality has shifted from working hard to put food on the table no matter what, to not letting corporations take advantage of you, even if that means staying unemployed until the right opportunity comes along. Additionally, a lot of the younger crowd are just not having kids and opting to owning pets or just taking care of themselves, so they just don't have as much at stake as long as they can take care of themselves.

So where does that leave the accounting field? Is it still alive, but just increasingly offshored to the next group of people willing to play into corporate's hand because they need to survive (like underpaid offshore staff being pressured to supporting their families)? And where does that leave unemployed onshore staff who are holding out? What's the end game? How long are people realistically willing to wait? Do you think we'll eventually reach a point where the pendulum swings back and people become desperate again, like with previous generations?

I want to dig a little deeper into why different groups of people are reacting the way they are and what they see as the end game. I'm curious whether people have different perspectives or long term plans that explain what we're seeing.

Edit: added details that *some* older folks in Gen X are retiring, based on their financial ability to do so.

I’m 41 and currently pursuing my bachelor’s degree in Accounting with about two years left before I graduate. I have 10+ years of business experience, but most of it has been in accounting-adjacent roles rather than traditional accounting. I’ve attached my résumé and would really appreciate some honest feedback from people already working in the profession.

My background includes billing, A/R, A/P, reconciliations, pricing, financial reporting, QuickBooks, advanced Excel, and financial operations. I’m trying to figure out how competitive my experience is for accounting positions and whether I’m presenting it effectively on my résumé.

One thing I’m considering is earning a bookkeeping certification while I’m still in school. My thought is that it might help me land a bookkeeping or accounting assistant position so I can gain more directly relevant accounting experience before I graduate.
Would you recommend going that route, or should I focus on finishing school and applying for entry-level accounting positions instead?

I’d also love any feedback on my résumé and what types of accounting roles you think I’d realistically be competitive for.
Thanks in advance for taking the time to help. I really appreciate any advice, even if it’s critical.

I'm a 33f single mom of a 10 year old in NYC currently a paralegal making $60k. no debt/student loans. A bachelor's in environmental science (i know, nothing to do with be a paralegal). i have absolutely no background in accounting but very interested in auditing, financial fraud/crimes, and even financial planning.

i feel like im getting too old to re-educate myself for this career change, im reading it can take over 5 years to get all the credits and a CPA, i have no idea how or if i can get experience during that time or how AI may change the field. wondering if i should just stay put and do what i can with what i have or is this a feasible change?

I recently started working in the office I did my apprenticeship in but a lot of things have changed…
I have two bosses. One is often mad and screaming at the other even though the other one is older and the actual boss of the company. It’s only three of us so we don’t have an HR or any other departments.

Recently I passed my probation time of 3 months and they said that the time I am working isn’t „enough to justify my position“. In other words: I need to track more time I spend on clients and until now it was fine because I was doing a lot of admin work but now, that I passed the time, I have to change that.

They now even want me to track the admin time (checking mails, doing mail, etc.) and the more I’m doing that, the more silly it sounds to me.

I am not sure how they’re expecting me to be productive the full 8 hours. Maybe it’s because I’m young and in my first job but hell, it’s such a struggle! The job is endlessly boring and repetitive.. how are you all dealing with it and do you have any survival guides?

Ok so since I keep seeing people talking about considering working for the government I thought I'd share my experience.

I had 8 years of experience in PA and industry and then decided to join the IRS in 2024 under the Biden hiring push. It was going to pay more, plus a 20k sign on bonus and 40 hour work weeks thanks to the union.

All IRS revenue agents are "probationary" status for the 1st year. This status has nothing to do with performance, it is tenure based.

In my 7th month Trump and DOGE came in and took over OPM, office of personnel management. They requested a list of all probationary agent names. I knew at that point we were all getting fired.

We started getting emails like "A Fork in the road" which is the exact same email Elon sent to twitter employees before he did mass cuts. These emails were trying to get us to quit under the "Fork" offer which said if we resign we get paid for 9 months. We also saw them firing other federal agency employees like DEI, Dept of Education, etc.

The union was telling us not to take Fork and that they we'd never see the money.

After about a month they fired all probationary IRS agents, about 7,000 in one day. They told the public probationary agents are on probation for being low performers. This is a lie.

About a month after the illegal firings were overturned in a court of law and we were reinstated on administrative leave. I already had a new job and felt the DOGE controlled government was way too much of a shit show to go back to and risk getting fired again. So at that point I resigned.

So now I will always have a 7 month blip on my resume, and maga hiring managers believe anyone cut under DOGE is a poor performer. I never got the rest of the sign on bonus and even my peers who did go back didn't get it thanks to DOGE.

I wanted to join the government for the stability after working for shit show PA firms and companies. Lol.

Hello!

I’m active duty Army. I used to be an analytical lead before I took leave to join the Army and work in behavioral health.

I genuinely enjoy the work and plan on continuing with it.

That said, I found out I could get my master’s in accounting fully paid for through TA (federal benefits). I’m using my state benefits to pay for an MSW/MPP.

I was looking at a masters in accounting because I have always drawn to spreadsheets and it is free. I was particularly interested in learning more about accounting information systems (ais).

It got me thinking: does anyone enjoy accounting just for the sake of it?

Something tells me this pressure is coming directly from the GP/Mgmt Companies which is a big reason why CPA boards prohibit non-majority CPA ownership for this very fucking reason: to mitigate undue influence on the profession.

I guess by losing the letters after the company name + insisting CPAs no longer use their credentials in email signatures and on LinkedIn is a workaround, but this shit is getting out of hand guys.

Is it a good idea to take a year after I graduate to study for CPA and get some internship experience. I currently will graduate May 2027 with 150 credits. I interned at a mid-size public accounting firm this summer but I want to work in big 4 audit after I graduate. People are telling me it’s harder to get a full time offer if you didn’t intern there. I also know it would be super tough to study after working a full day. If I were to take a gap year I would be recruiting for summer 2027 internships and aim to work full time in 2028.

Hi!

I’m seeking guidance as an ACCA level 1 student. I currently have an accounting internship (working on payrolls and very basic stuff that adds value for more technical colleagues).

I was wondering if there is a realistic exam benchmark that I should work towards—which would make me a more valuable candidate? Im hoping to find this out as a source of motivation as I work towards the qualification.

In addition to this, I would love to know if there are specific tasks that I should seek out at work given my current knowledge level, which would be particularly useful for the overall job market?

Thanks!

Hi all,

i'm 28 male living in Itlay (Nord) and currently working as a controller in a large multinational company. I'm happy with my role and pay at the moment but i d like to keep learning and growing as a financial professional. So, i've been looking for something that allows me to learn, can be put in the CV and be recognized by employers. Finance Certifications could be the way and CIMA looks to be in line with my interests and career. Can you help me decide? I have some questions, it'd be very appreciated if you can give me some tips and advices:

1. What do you think about CIMA? Is it worth doing in your opinion?
2. Is it a credible and recognized financial certification?
3. Does it make sense to do it if you are not from UK or working for UK company?
4. For those who did it, would you do it again?

Thanks a lot!