If you are a young accountant then this post could help shape a better future for you. Of course, even if you are a seasoned accountant, the advice from Top Influential Accountants from a report by Accounting Today would be well worth a read.
The post is a long one, with tons of great advice directly from influential accountants. Below is a snippet of the post. Read the full article here.
Advice for Young Accountants
As part of our Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting report, we asked the candidates: "What one piece of advice would you give young people entering the profession?" Their answers are given in full below.
One piece of advice I give to McGladrey’s young professionals is: “It’s your ability to build relationships that will set you apart.” Outstanding technical capabilities are table stakes in this business. To truly stand out, you need to build your professional network inside and outside the firm, and form strong relationships with your clients while remaining objective and independent. At McGladrey, we teach our new professionals to do this in a variety of ways. In addition to traditional training, career coaching and career development activities, we also provide many opportunities to learn relationship-building skills on the job through our client experience programs, first-choice advisor challenge and our new “take one” initiative where partners bring younger professionals along on important client visits.
-- Joe Adams, Managing partner and CEO, McGladrey
Be entrepreneurial! There aren’t enough young people in most firms who want to be owners. There is a lot of opportunity given the retirement of the Baby Boomers if you have the drive and desire to go for it.
-- Gary Adamson, President, Adamson Advisory
In the book “Lean In,” author Sheryl Sandberg shares an important piece of advice she received when she was trying to decide if she should join Google. She was counseled to consider a company’s potential for growth when weighing options. “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, you don’t ask what seat. You just get on,” she was advised. The idea is that when there is growth, there are opportunities. “Those in more established industries can look for the rocket ships within their companies – divisions or teams that are expanding,” she writes.
I believe this is very good advice for young people looking for a firm to join in the profession.
-- Charles Allen, CEO, Crowe Horwath LLP
Understand that business innovation in an Internet age will not wait for accounting regulatory bodies to develop appropriate rules. In that context, it is vitally important for accountants to be ever more mindful of their ethical responsibilities to all users of financial information.
-- John Ams, Executive vice president, NSA
Be like a sponge and absorb all the knowledge you can about how the firm operates, how it makes money and how you can become a more contributor.
-- August Aquila, President and CEO, Aquila Global Advisors, LLC
I think the selection of where you work is critical. Choose a progressive firm or company that embraces technology and lifelong learning.
-- Erik Asgeirsson, CEO, CPA.com
1. Learn, don’t memorize.
2. Understand your personal responsibilities and the public’s expectations of an individual CPA.
3. Endure, remain curious, yet resilient and objective.
-- Billy Atkinson, Chairman, Private Company Council
That they are knowledge workers, not service workers. This means: They own the means of production (80 percent of the developed world's wealth resides in human capital, according to the World Bank); firms need them more than they need any firm; they are responsible for creating an outcome for their customers, not performing a series of tasks; the value that they create cannot be measured by hours; the office is their servant, not their master; effectiveness (doing the right thing) is far more important than efficiency (we can be efficient at doing the wrong things); judgment is far more important than any measurement; and ultimately, they are volunteers who will decide to invest their intellectual capital in firms that pay them a reasonable economic return, and treat them with respect and dignity.
-- Ron Baker, Founder, VeraSage Institute
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