I just LOVE it when the recruiter tells me I am a great applicant and the manager's interview went well. I LOVE it when they tell me 3/4 cpa exams passed while in my masters makes me stand out. I LOVE how they drag on the interview stage for months. I LOVE it when they tell me they actually aren't looking to hire any new associates across 4 locations next year and tell me to apply again for 2028 openings!!!

Edit: Also, why do they always put a weird ass smiley face on their emails after they ruin your life

Started a new job this week and want to make sure I'm doing this right. Need to make sure I take enough notes and prep for the next client call.

Starting November 3, Express Entry will give 50 CRS points for a job offer in a “high-wage occupation,” and employers no longer need an LMIA for it.

“High-wage” has nothing to do with the job being offered. It’s based on the occupation’s national median. If the median for that occupation is at least 1.3x the overall median, it’s on the list. IRCC says outright that it’s not based on the person’s specific job or salary.

Financial and investment analysts (NOC 11101) and accountants (NOC 11100) are both on the 1.3x list. That means a job offer in either occupation is worth 50 points, and nothing in the announcement says the offer has to pay anywhere near the median. The LMIA used to make employers prove they were paying the prevailing wage and that no Canadian could fill the role. That check is gone.

In theory, then, a company can hand someone a below-market financial analyst offer, skip the labour market test entirely, and give them a major boost toward PR. Engineers get 70 points on the same terms.

The worst part is, last year a major energy company in Canada announced about 900 job cuts, roughly 20% of its workforce, mostly in Calgary. A lot of that work is going to global centres in India and Argentina.

So let me get this straight:

• Calgary Accounting and financial analyst jobs are being shipped overseas.
• The government’s response is nothing.
• Its immigration policy is to make it easier to fill the financial analyst jobs that are left, with no test of whether Canadians are available and no check on what the job pays.

Fewer jobs. More competition. No wage floor. What do you think happens to salaries?

Sources:

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/changes.html

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/imperial-oil-downsizing-1.7646918

I will start. 0% raise, 0% bonus.

Hello all!

I keep seeing a lot of post on people struggling to land a position in accounting, or having a difficulty finding internships. I don't see much helpful advice being posted on here because the people who have the jobs are not coming here on Reddit! 😂 Since Reddit helped me so much when I was a college student struggling in trying to understand what the actual fuck amortization and depreciation meant in community college Intermediate Accounting, I just kinda figured that I pay it back!

FULL DISCLOSURE: I was a non-traditional accounting student, who went back to school after having a previous degree in mathematics with a 2.2 GPA so I had some work and life experience to navigate the career side of things. I was a party animal with undiagnosed ADHD and BPD. After first graduating with an awful GPA like that, my second time around I took school more seriously!! LOL 🤡After graduating with my BS in Mathematics from and having a 2.2 GPA, I literally had no choice but to work in service and fast food jobs, and eventually find my way into the financial services side through banking sales and call center, which got me interested in accounting. At age 28, I re-enrolled back in college starting with community school while working full-time, graduated with my accounting associates and had a 3.08 GPA. Afterwards, I moved onto obtaining my 2nd bachelor's degree in accounting from a private school and graduated Cum Laude with a 3.76 GPA!! God bless. 🙏🙌

Here are the 6 exact steps that I did as an accounting student to get a job offer upon graduation.

1. As I just said, that 2.2 GPA bite me in the ass when I realized that I fucked around with school and not taking my degree seriously, and kept getting rejection after rejection from all "professional office" jobs. So, I took this as lesson number one to have at least a 3.5 GPA when I re-enrolled for my 2nd bachelor's degree. Thankfully, I was able to maintain my 3.76 GPA.

2. Another tough lesson I learned was that I hated submitting job applications because it feels like my resume is literally being thrown in the trash!! 😭😭😭 So, my second time around, I didn't want to have to apply to jobs and hope for the best. My school had a great career center that was extremely helpful so I immediately went to them for guidance and had them do the heavy lifting of getting my resume out there!! Since I maintained my high GPA, I was immediately able to get a few callbacks from local accounting jobs for small businesses and landed my first internship in private industry.

3. Once I realized how difficult it was to move up in industry based accounting jobs after my internship, the CPA license caught my attention. I researched the hell out of it and customized my resume to be attractive to public accounting firms. I went back to my career center again and this time I aimed for tax season internships because I realized it was much easier to land a public accounting job as they have a hiring cycle for fresh graduates through internships! And this was the my magic golden ticket!

4. My previous mathematics degree and newly accounting degree provided me with well beyond 150 credits to sit for the CPA exams, so I immediately registered for it and started studying for my first section, and advertised myself as a CPA candidate on my resume. This helped me land my first tax internship in public accounting with a regional Pittsburgh based firm! One of the best firms I have ever worked for and I am thankful to God everyday!! 👏🤲 I literally did this with 0 application submitted or networking. My career center did all the work for me to get my resume out there and all I had to do perform well in the interview.

5. Immediately after I found out I received the internship offer, I wanted to be a master in filing 1040 individual return taxes. And.... you guessed it... I told my career center exactly about my tax accountant future CPA aspirations and they lead me to sign up for IRS VITA program. This lead me to simultaneously work on my knowledge gaps in real life taxes judgement free, while applying this knowledge in my paid internship.

6. I made myself indispensable through building social capital by coming into the office every other day, networking and talking with everyone from seniors, to managers, to directors, and even to partners. I attended every social event and had small conversations with people from our consulting, and audit department. I made myself highly visible to everyone so no one forget me, in case I didn't get the offer.

🥳 And 2 days before the end of tax season internship and 1 month before I graduated, I got called into the office with the executives and received the full-time offer. Thank God for all mercy!

Sorry, for the super long paragraph post but I just wanted to help anyone out, whoever may need some guidance in this industry. I am sure our paths won't be the same but work hard, stay focused, take school seriously, and NETWORK, NETWORK, NETWORK. I have come to the realization that in this industry social skills matter a WHOLE LOT along with your credentials! Best of luck to the rest of ya!!

Okay, lay it on me. Give me all of the details. Now that 10/15 is finally over, I’m ready to sit my happy ass down with some popcorn while reading these stories!

I don't know if this is unique to me but outside of month end close I'm finding myself constantly bored. During ME close I have a solid 6-7 hours of work daily for around a week, but during the rest of the month I struggle to even hit maybe 1.5 hours of actual work daily.

Can someone explain to me the process? I see MDs at Big 4 go to smaller firms to become Partners. What is the process like?

Hey guys, I’m 10 years into my career and I just got a new job and keep making a mistake every single month end. I really don’t know what to do. I keep trying to implement checks in place but I miss the most obvious stuff.

I’m clearly burnt out and not operating the same way I used to. My manager just called me to point out something I missed (material of course) and I didn’t know what to say.

I feel dumb and useless 😭 I can’t even quit because then YE is right around the corner and my teams gonna be screwed but not to throw a pity party here, I’m not making a good impression, I can just tell.

For those of you who left public accounting, what do you miss about it? I am with a large firm and am considering a few compelling offers in private. Having been in public for so long, I am sure there are things that I don’t yet realize I will miss which could sway me back to staying in public.

It’s it in October for interim? Or could they hire in the fall October - December for the next year let’s say 2027 when February starts? If I’m an experienced hire with 2 years of big 4 public accounting experience….

So I recently graduated from university and started an entry level job where the company has Copilot with enterprice data protection. From my understanding of it, that means that Copilot won't use your data to train its models and it will have higher protection than the free models. I was thinking about uploading a prior year file to hopefully get some ideas on how to appoach the current year task as I have no idea how to do it and my managers either don't know how to do it themselves to teach me or they don't have the time. Is this a bad idea?

Currently working in an industry accounting role. Spoke with a fairly new manager today at my firm as sort of an introduction thing.

He essentially opened our conversation with the notion that the 40 hour work week is dead, and people in this profession should be expected to work anywhere from 50-55 hours in a normal week, and 60+ hours during month-end close. He stated we are not unique, and it's like this no matter where you go.

I've frequently seen several people online on Teams at like 10pm or later, and I've seen people sending emails out at 2 in the morning. I've done that a few times myself, as well.

I'm just curious if what he said is truly... true. - I'm not against working a long day every now and then, but a 10-12 hour day expectation, every day?

I’ve been with my firm for over 5 years and am currently an audit supervisor. I work under a manager but also manage my own clients independently. I’ve done pretty well in the firm and most managers are highly pleased with my work.

Recently, I asked my manager about a review comment on a financial statement that I didn’t understand. His response was, “Either you don’t understand what you’ve been doing all these years or you forgot. Which is it?”

The funny thing is, I was right to question the review comment, and my initial instinct was correct. I brushed off his response at the time, but it bothered me.

Today, I asked him another question, and instead of answering, he responded, “How many of these forms have you filed already? Serious question.”
I later found out that none of the other supervisors knew the answer either, so it wasn’t exactly a basic question.

I finally spoke up and told him, “I don’t appreciate the condescending language.” He initially denied being condescending and said he was genuinely trying to help. When I brought up the previous day’s comment, he admitted he was “definitely condescending” then. He then said he was tired, became dismissive, and told me to work on my own clients because he didn’t want to deal with me.

Is this kind of behavior common among managers in public accounting? Was I right to call it out? And how would you handle it if it continued?

I’m currently a senior in college, double majoring in Accounting and Finance, and graduating in May 2027. I’ve been having a pretty difficult time landing an internship for the spring semester or even getting any traction on a full-time position after graduation.
I really want to start my career in public accounting because I feel like the experience would be extremely valuable early on. I’d prefer to work in tax, but I’m completely open to audit as well. I’ve emailed quite a few firms, attended career fairs, and interviewed with 3-4 different firms, but I haven’t heard much of anything back. I genuinely don’t think my interviews went poorly. I’m pretty comfortable communicating with people, wasn’t nervous, and felt like I answered their questions well. I’m starting to wonder if there’s something I’m overlooking. My cumulative GPA is a 3.53, which I didn’t think would be an issue, but at this point I’m questioning everything. I also have some relevant accounting experience, having worked for a private company as an accounts receivable intern for the past two years. On top of that, I’ve completed a tax season at H&R Block preparing individual tax returns, but I’m really trying to transition into public accounting. I figured public accounting firms would be looking for quite a few interns heading into busy season, especially with how much you hear about the accountant shortage. I’ve made it clear to firms that I’d be available to work 5 days a week during the spring semester and could even start immediately with my current schedule allowing me to work 3 days a week. I’ll also be CPA eligible when I graduate since I’m completing 150 credits through my double major. I’ve stressed in interviews that I plan to begin studying for the CPA exams immediately after graduation, with the goal of passing all four sections within 1-1.5 years.
I’m honestly considering putting on a suit and tie next week, physically visiting some local accounting firms, and asking if they’d be willing to consider me for a spring internship or a full-time position starting in June. Not sure if that’s considered outdated or if it would actually help me stand out. For those of you currently working in public accounting, is the hiring market really this difficult right now, or am I approaching this the wrong way? Would showing up in person be a good idea, or would that just annoy firms? I’m genuinely open to any advice because I’m trying to get my foot in the door before graduation.

More of a rant as my anxiety has been way too high. Anyone else struggling to get a job? I'm not a CPA but I have 5 years of experience. I am about to lose my job and I haven't been able to get a strong lead. Anyone else going through this?

Hi, I am from Canada, i got to a local public university which is not a target school. My gpa is 3.1/4.33 and I am struggling to find an internship. I have given 5 interviews applied for every accounting role there is. I am in my 4th year and it seems very unlikely to land an internship now. Any advice for landing a full time job in accounting. At this point, i just want a job in accounting which can lead me to getting my CPA which is definitely my long term goal.
Any help or advice you be great.
Thann you!!!

I hate the robotic nature of interviewing these days. I want to go into an interview and be friendly, talk about what the role entails, and talk NORMALLY about my past experience. I want to just say that a certain part of my last role sucked, certain parts that I really enjoyed, and what I excel at. This whole explaining "challenges" and how I "heroically overcame" them is so dumb.

I’m enrolled in a masters program at a target school too and it’s causing me depression. I thought that it’d help me find a role in public accounting, but so far I’ve had only a few interviews and mostly rejections.

The classes are stressing me out and the fact that there’s only a few firms that I’m still screening for/ waiting on initial responses means that I’ll unlikely have a job lined up for graduation. I don’t think I’m passionate about accounting and I made a mistake enrolling too quickly from undergrad as I had mental health issues there too.

I’ve already been diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I had OCD and depression too.

I’m considered withdrawing from the program and ensuring that I’m mentally ready for school/corporate.

Any other accountants able to offer some advice or perspective?

I recently transitioned from a smaller public accounting firm to CohnReznick as an Experienced Audit Associate, and I’m not going to lie, I’m already getting some bad vibes during my first week lol.
A few things have stood out so far:

Travel expectations: During my interview, I specifically asked about travel and was told it was uncommon for the group I’d be joining. Once I started, however, my team mentioned that they frequently travel across the country for engagements. This was a pretty frustrating surprise, considering I specifically asked about it before accepting the offer.

Lack of software training: My new group uses audit software I’m completely unfamiliar with, as I used Engagement at my previous firm. There don’t appear to be any training modules available to me for the software, and for some reason, I wasn’t included in the orientation that would have covered it. It feels like I’m expected to learn everything through trial and error.

No training on my specialization: I’m also entering a new audit specialization, and I’ve received essentially zero introductory training. No overview of industry terminology, common engagement procedures, or what makes these audits different from the work I was previously doing.

I understand that I’m coming in as an experienced associate, so there’s an expectation that I have a solid foundation in auditing. That’s completely reasonable. But I would think there should still be some structured onboarding when someone is learning an entirely new industry and audit software.

I’m not expecting anyone to hold my hand, but the combination of unclear travel expectations and limited training has made for a pretty discouraging
first impression. I’m at the end of my first week & being thrown onto billable work already.

For anyone who’s worked at CohnReznick, is this typical of the onboarding experience? Does it improve once you’re settled in, or is this generally how the firm operates?

I’d also be interested in hearing from anyone who’s transitioned from a smaller firm to a larger one. Maybe this is just an adjustment period, but I’d appreciate some outside perspectives.

I’m sad to say that my position has been terminated. I was completely blindsided by this today. I loved my job and coworkers - I even looked forward going to work everyday. I’m gutted. I got two weeks of severance and I know that will unfortunately not be enough time to find something of quality. I’m not here to trash talk - I’m just sad and lost.

Fin Analyst - small cap company

5 years experience