The Life of the Underdog Accountant
OK so you might be wondering, what is an underdog accountant? Here in Canada you are an accountant that is classified as a second class citizen accountant if you have the following characteristics in your profile:
- No big 4 accounting experience. The reason people think that is because working for those firms are prestigious and if you don’t have experience from those firms you probably were rejected by them. This means that you are beneath those who have this experience.
- The CA designation is the most prestigious. It might be a bit better now since there is only one accounting designation, the Canadian CPA, however previously there were three designations. The CA, Chartered Accountant, which was an accountant that specialized in public accounting. This is the designation that you will obtain if you went to work for one of the big 4 accounting firm. Then there were two other ones the CMA, certified management accountant who dealt with internal and management accounting. The last one was the CGA, the certified general accountant who specialized in corporate accounting. All very confusing I know but in Canada there’s only one designation now, the CPA. Previously though, everyone thought that the most prestigious designation is the CA designation.
So I fit neither of those criteria, I guess I am an underdog accountant right? Yes at first I thought I was doomed since I decided not to go into the big 4 assurance route, however it was by choice that I applied to the big 4 firms for consulting rather than assurance. There are a few different areas that you can apply to at the big 4. More to come on that if anyone is interested in learning more about it! When I was applying I knew I was taking a big risk as consulting was much more difficult to get accepted into then assurance. I did end up getting rejected for consulting. However when that didn’t work out I couldn’t apply to any assurance job because it was too late and application deadlines have all passed. So should I not even consider a career in accounting then? That was a question that I kept asking myself since the word on the street was if you are not a big 4 accountant than basically you are considered the bottom of the barrel accountants!
How did my career turn out five years after graduating?
Well I ended up joining one of Canada’s largest banks and was accepted into a rotation program. I did receive some accounting experience but I also received some bank operations and project management experience in the program as well so I was able to gain a broad set of skills. After the rotation program was done I secured a full time accounting role where I completed my hours for my accounting designation. The accounting role was a hybrid financial systems and financial reporting role. This was perfect for me because I enjoyed working with systems. On top of that I was able to obtain a skill that the big 4 CAs don’t have, because they don’t learn about financial systems in their big 4 experience.
After I obtained my designation many recruiters called me regarding financial system related positions. They said that it was a skill set that was highly needed but not a lot of people have it. I then started interviewing for positions that were full time financial system roles and I got a few offers. Believe it or not I was only 24 at the time and the offers I received were all in the low 6 figure range. I know it’s not amazing money but it was still an above average salary within my peers in the same age group.
So the conclusion?
Based on my experience I think that you certainly don’t need to be a big 4 accountant to be a successful accountant. Although it is a much difficult route, there are many examples of people who were successful without that experience. Besides working at the big 4 accounting firms right out of school is stressful, people are work from 9 am to 1am or 2am in the morning during busy season and the pay isn’t great.
So new accounting grads — it is ok if you do not have the big 4 accounting experience. There are alternatives to this that can help you have a successful career in accounting as well!
