A family friend told me I should network more through Linkedin as it works wonders and can open doors.

August 1st I updated y profile which I hadn't in 2 jobs ago. I then went through all of the people I should know and quickly went from 110 connections to 1k+.

I was told to post every few days to gain traction in the algo so I did every 3 days. Anything from current events in finance and accounting, leadership, my family, news that I found interesting...etc.

One post went kind of viral and got me 250k impressions.

One month later I have gotten 3 clearly AI recruiters wanting to connect on jobs they have open, one person spamming me 8x on how they can fix issues that payroll softwares can't do, and multiple ads for MBA programs, certificates, and free coolers and grills when demoing some software.

So with Linkedin...how does one use it to their advantage? Or is it a lost cause?

Current job, management

TC: $150k

3 days in office hybrid (3 hour round-trip commute on a good day and $15 fare)

PTO: 32 days

New opportunity, non-management

TC: $120k

Fully remote

PTO: 15 days

Taking a paycut, but I'm going to have more time for my family and myself. I've also been looking for a way out of management for a while.

Including admin stuff, checking emails, meetings etc. From 8am-6pm how much are you guys actually working? Are you staying busy the full 8 hours outside of the lunch break? Is there any downtime to chill and talk with coworkers?

Edit: meant to clarify no timesheets as in no billable hour system

Avoid merging with Doane. The promises made during early discussions have not materialized, and the internal systems are in complete disarray. Teams are already signaling burnout, and based on current turnover patterns, most staff will be gone within three months. The managing partners in Ontario are bullies, lack empathy despite promising "support" without defining it. These mergers are meant to pad the unit value for variable partners on the backs of others.

Look at recent industry mergers (Collingwood, Midland, Kitchener, Guelph to name a few): offices shuttered within weeks, entire departments walked out, and in some cases the mergers had to be reversed because the integration was so poorly managed. Doane is following the same trajectory — fast talk, empty commitments, and no operational stability.

If you’re considering a partnership, protect your people and your clients. Doane is not a safe bet.

So for context, I’m extremely underpaid. $72K Senior tax analyst at a top 10 firm in Canada. Have my CPA and done part of the in depth tax program

Current role: $72K, still a year away from a manager promotion, 4 days in office 1 day WFH, pay for my CPA in depth program. Only pro I see is the bigger firm name and I feel like I’m learning a lot from the tax planning side

Job offer: Senior accountant with a tax specialization $105K-$110K (Still TBD), fully remote, also pay for my CPA studies. They are telling me that a manager promo is 6-12 months from the start date which I assume would result in another pay raise.

I know this sounds like an obvious decision but should I be concerned with the smaller firm name and /or the exposure I get with the tax planning work a local firm would do versus a mid sized?

Also, what are the downsides to full time remote jobs?

I’m about 6 months away from graduating with my accounting degree, and this is my second accounting-related job. I previously worked in AR.

The job I applied for and got accepted was titled as bookkeeper, but probably 80% of my time is spent printing, saving, filing, binding, and organizing documents. The other 20% is mostly payroll. It is a small firm and I work directly with the owners.

The part that makes it even more frustrating is that I have to track my time for all of these tasks, so I feel pressure to stay productive while doing work that I find extremely repetitive and uninteresting.

I really enjoy analytical work, solving problems, building solutions, understanding how things work, and finding ways to make processes more efficient. But most of my day here is basically printing, filing, and organizing documents.

It’s only been about a month, but I’m already really bored and starting to wonder if accounting jobs in general are more like this than I expected, or if I just ended up in the wrong position.

I would really appreciate any advice or perspective. Thanks y’all

I'm in tax. I just started a new job where the company is *extremely* pro AI. They have weekly meetings about how to use it, they put returns into it, I could tell the hiring manager used it to write her emails to me when I was in the hiring process, etc.

I'm a big fan of AI. I think it saves a lot of time on research (before verifying the source of course) and getting help with Excel formulas when I have some obscure problem. But I don't think it actually saves time for absolutely everything.

I use AI to help me automate my workpapers as much as possible in Excel. I used AI to help me write Power Automate flows to automate some license tracking. But I use it as a tool to help me with *other*, more efficient (IMHO) tools. And I prefer to do my own writing because I think AI writing is just disingenuous.

The funny thing is that at my last company, they never used AI and I was the one that introduced everyone to Copilot and talked about the ways it was useful. So it's a total 180 from this new company.

So how do I handle this when they constantly push me to use it for EVERYTHING? Do I keep my mouth shut since I'm new? Do I just casually bring up reasons why AI might not be the best tool for a particular task?

It feels like I would be trying to convince religious people that God may not exist.

I am a trainee in a small firm. I have so far never made an actual serious mistake at work, until Monday.

Last week I was uploading some data for clients on a website, instructed by a guy who is not my manager but he is senior. I followed his instructions and did my job, he said he would take care of client X and gave me a few orientations on other specific clients. After Thursday, this senior employee left for a week of vacation. The deadline for this service was yesterday, i went home on Friday confident everything was ok.

Yesterday I arrive at work to face the fall of Rome. Dozens of aggressive emails from my boss. From 32 clients, there were problems with 4 accounts. All the accounts that presented problems were the ones my senior colleague said he would take care of. Besides that, the login system on the website was not working, after being updated. Another senior employee was supposed to have deal with it, but didn’t. My boss goes completely bersek, to the point he started to see problems in accounts that were actually just fine, calls me to his office to yell at me multiple time, a complete shit show.

I simply dealt with the situation, everything was solved in less than an hour and no client or deadline was harmed. But ever since, my boss is punishing me, he threatened to fire me next time and it is clear that I lost credibility, because now I am being micro managed in every single thing and completely lost my autonomy for mistakes that weren’t even mine. Probably I won’t have my contract renovated after probation period and now every small imperfection in my work is becoming a big deal.

I am not even mad at my senior, because everything was completely disproportional for such a small inconvenient. I was expecting some reaction, but apparently this might cost my job, and it wasn’t even my mistake.

Is this type of reaction normal in accounting office? Has anyone experienced similar situations?

What are everyone’s thoughts on this? Opinions on climate reporting aside, does anyone else agree this letter seems to misconstrue the key elements of auditing standards? Primarily the independence requirement

I just got off the phone with a recruiter. I am a Controller and wanting to make the jump to VP of F or CFO sometime in the near future. Recruiter gets right to the pitch:

Series B company....raised in 2021 and in 2025 37M total.

They are cash basis and need to do an accrual conversion. They do roughly 30k transactions a month in 17 states.

They are on QBO and signed a contract to move to NetSuite Q1 2026.

They do payroll in house...this seat would do it.

This seat is new. Someone from the VC firm was handling mediocre accounting and reporting until now.

They want a comprehensive board deck built.

They want a 5 day close from 20 currently.

They want a robust 2026 budget by service line to be presented in mid Q4.

They want this person to mentor 2 staff accountants.

They want the books to be audit ready for 2026 and interim starts in 4 weeks.

They are remote but want 1 week of the month to travel to San Fran.

They require minimum 60 hr weeks with Saturday afternoons reserved for status update calls with the CEO. The recruiter specifically said if you watch college football on Saturday's this isn't the right fit.

They asked me what I make. I declined to say. I asked for the budget for the role. They enthusiastically say 185k which falls flat on me. I asked what the bonus structure is. There is none. I asked what the equity would look like. They said it's contingent to be discussed based on completing goals to get them to a sustainable place by 12/31/27.

They then got mad when I passed on wanting to move forward and said that I wasted their time.

Oof.

TL;DR: I graduated (6/2026) without a PA offer lined up, and I feel like my career will stagnate as a result, especially compared to peers who are now in public. I would like advice

As the title says, I got my BS in Accounting this June. I didn't do an internship due to having done an unrelated BA and the second degree only taking 3 semesters. I see people I graduated with already in top 25 firms. I may have a job in payroll lined up. If it matters, I am in NYC.

I will take the job. The issue is, I just feel like my career will never take off. The PA cycle begins this fall, and I will have just started this job. I feel like that will hurt my application. I will probably have to wait until next fall to get recruited.

I know many say to take CPA exams, but that will take me some time: I still need one more class to be eligible (and even then, it will be for NJ since they require 24 credits and NY is 33).

I can't afford to buy CPA review materials (public helps you) so I will need to save up for that, plus take another class.

I just feel like those who start in public right out of college will have a huge edge over me. They can leave public without even getting the CPA and still have the experience on they resume. I am saving money just to take those exams for the chance to even get into public.

I hope this post doesn't come off the wrong way. I am just feeling like this degree has not brought me the career prospects it promised.

Any advice will be appreciated. Thanks

I'm 31, currently in an accounting program in Western Canada, coming from a background in kitchens and physical labor. I came back to school with a clear goal: get my degree, get my CPA, and build a stable career.

The Situation: Today was the first day of the semester, and listening to student execs/peers talk about campus recruitment left me thoroughly exhausted. Everyone was stressing over Big 4 / mid-market firm networking mixers, corporate socializing, "making impressions," and playing the campus recruiting game just to land a $50k entry-level job.

My Take / Personal Preference: Personally, the performative networking side of public accounting really doesn't appeal to me. I just want to focus on my coursework, learn the material, get my degree, and go straight into industry/corporate/government accounting rather than public/audit.

My Questions for the Community:

1. For those who skipped campus firm events and went straight into industry: Did it hurt your long-term career progression or CPA prep?
2. How much does a practical background (trades, kitchens, labor) actually help when interviewing for industry roles vs. traditional public accounting?
3. Is the campus rumor mill around public recruiting as dramatic in reality as students make it out to be?

Appreciate any honest feedback or experiences from people who took the non-traditional route!

As I sit here at my desk job writing this Reddit post, I can't help but think about what my future looks like.

I'm a 25M who graduated last year with a bachelor's degree in accounting. Honestly, since high school, I've never really known what I wanted to do. I went to college because I was always told that it was the path to becoming successful.

I started at a community college studying business because it seemed like a safe choice, but I still didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. After that, I transferred to a large university and earned my accounting degree because I heard it was a stable and reliable career path.

One thing I'm proud of is that I worked full-time throughout college, so I graduated with no student debt. Right after graduation, I landed a job at a public accounting firm making $86k a year. Unfortunately, I was laid off after about nine months. I spent two months unemployed before joining my current accounting/finance rotational program, which is supposed to last two years. My current salary is $70k.

Lately, I've been questioning whether I made the right career choice. After all the years of school, I feel like I could have pursued a different path and potentially be making more money. Honestly, I'm bored at my current job. It's a typical open-office desk job, and I find the work uninteresting.

What makes me question things even more is seeing people in the trades. Online, I constantly see union electricians, plumbers, and other skilled tradespeople talking about making $50+ an hour after completing apprenticeships, while also receiving pensions and great healthcare benefits. One of my friends completed just one year of electrical school and already makes $38 an hour at a non-union company. He can work as much overtime as he wants, which gives him the opportunity to significantly increase his income.

Meanwhile, I'm on a fixed salary. Whether I work harder or put in extra effort, my pay remains the same.

AI is another thing that worries me. I keep wondering what accounting and finance jobs will look like five years from now. Will I have wasted all this time and education if AI ends up replacing or significantly reducing the demand for jobs like mine? It feels like the competition could become even tougher as technology advances.

Healthcare has also started looking appealing to me. I see radiology techs and nurses making $40+ an hour, even in lower-cost-of-living areas. Many of them also have the option to pick up overtime whenever they want. I constantly hear stories of people in healthcare or the trades saying they can make $2,500+ per week if they're willing to work extra hours. Those numbers seem almost impossible to reach in my current field unless I spend 10+ years climbing the corporate ladder and eventually becoming a senior manager or something similar.

I know people often say that healthcare and the trades are physically demanding, but I find myself wondering: isn't every job hard on your body in some way? Office workers sit at desks all day, while tradespeople and healthcare workers stay active. The people I know in healthcare rarely complain about the physical side of their jobs. Some of them are 5 feet tall and weigh around 120 pounds, so I know I could physically handle that kind of work if I chose to.

I've worked outdoors most of my life up until graduating college, so physical labor doesn't necessarily scare me.

At this point, I don't know if everything I see online is realistic or if I'm just seeing the top 10% of people showing off their earnings. I don't know whether I should continue studying for the CPA or if it will end up being a waste of time. I'm feeling pretty lost right now and don't want to waste any more years heading down the wrong path.

Another thing that has been making me question my path is that my girlfriend is graduating this year from a two-year radiologic technology program and already has a job lined up making around $45 an hour. I'm happy for her, but it's hard not to compare our situations. I spent several years earning a bachelor's degree, and even after all that schooling, she's going to be making more than I am right out of school with less time invested. Seeing that makes me wonder if I chose the wrong path financially, especially when I look at healthcare and trade careers and see people reaching strong incomes much earlier in their careers than what seems typical in accounting.

I don't know if this is a legitimate concern or if it's just my ADHD talking and making me think the grass is always greener on the other side. Sometimes I can't tell if I'm truly unhappy with my career path or if I'm just restless and constantly looking for something different. Has anyone else been in a similar situation? If so, what did you do, and what advice would you give?

I’m an accounting student with 2 years left until graduation. I know the basic principles, but I still feel like a beginner and I don’t feel prepared for a real accounting job.

My university is very theoretical and traditional, and what I see in job requirements often doesn’t match what I’m learning. I’ve tried self-learning too, but I’m not sure what to learn or in what order.

I’m from a developing country, but I have access to online resources and I’m willing to work hard. I just don’t want to spend money on private institutes that teach the same theory.

If you were in my position, how would you learn accounting from scratch?

What courses, websites, books, or YouTube channels would you recommend? What practical skills should I focus on, such as Excel, bookkeeping, accounting software, financial analysis, etc.?

And for those already working in accounting: what do you wish you had learned before graduating?

Thanks!

Drunk Accounting is genuinely one of my favorite past times. Passed all the exams drinking while studying and if I ever have to work past 7 pm the bourbon is coming out.

I just started my junior year of my accounting degree. My degree does not require an internship. What is your advice? Is it best to do an internship or does it not matter?
Also where is best to apply for an internship?

Hey guys, basically the title. I’ve been looking into making a swap to TAS from big4 at around the one year mark after completing all of my exams for the CPA. I know that it is a much more competitive position. Does anyone have any advice? What is the most important thing to do? Is it realistic that someone that really wants to do it makes the switch if they just keep at it?

I know that most likely I will have to exit big4 in order to do this, as they usually do the swaps around the two year mark. Even with that is it realistic? Along with this I would be trying to move offices if that matters at all.

I’m preparing for the Financial Accounting section of a local accounting license. The exam is somewhat comparable to CPA FAR in terms of the topics and difficulty, except my exam is based on IFRS rather than US GAAP.
I’ve taken the exam twice before, but honestly, I didn’t study seriously either time. I scored 31/100, and the passing score is 60.
This time I’ve been studying seriously for the past five months. I studied each topic thoroughly, did question banks for each topic, took practice tests, reviewed my mistakes, etc. My scores are generally good now.
The problem is that I’m starting to notice that I’ve forgotten parts of some topics and some details I studied months ago. I honestly didn’t expect the forgetting to be this noticeable.
My exam is on September 27, and I have full-time study leave from September 11 until the exam. My plan was to spend that final period doing comprehensive/mixed question banks and full reviews rather than studying individual topics again.
For those who passed a difficult Financial Accounting exam (especially CPA FAR or something similar):
What would you recommend doing during the final month? How do you deal with forgetting older topics, and what would you focus on during the last 2 weeks?
Any advice for actually getting over that 60% passing line would be greatly appreciated!

( AI was used to translate )

Title, I’m going to finish my CPA soon. It’s been really good knowing that something that I am doing really does pay dividends later. For those who have gotten their CPA done, what is something that you did after that accelerated your career heavily? Whether it's learning something like python or power query or even getting really good at quickbooks?

Does it matter where the internship is or is it just important to get one?

Had my first accounting class today so I talked with the professor and she mentioned a company that does huge internship groups.

With that being said if Im eyeing something like governement coming out of college in the next few years should I be going for a specific type of internship?

I'm planning to apply for Big 4 audit internships, but I'm currently deciding between graduating in June 2028 or June 2029.

I'll have completed all the credits required for an Accounting degree, plus an additional 45 quarter hours, by June 2028. However, I only recently started applying for internships, so I'm concerned that I may have missed the main recruiting cycle for 2027 internships.

If I don't secure a 2027 internship, my plan would be to stay enrolled through June 2029 and double major in Accounting and Finance. This would make it so I'm not behind in the recruiting timeline for 2028 internships.

For the 2027 internships I've applied to, I've listed my expected graduation date as June 2028. For the same firms' 2028 internship applications, would it make sense to list June 2029 as my expected graduation date? Or would having different graduation dates across applications to the same company raise a red flag?

• EY is allocating $100M this fiscal year to reward employees who demonstrate human skills like adaptability, innovation, judgment, and thoughtful experimentation with AI.
• Employees can earn spot bonuses up to $500 and major awards of $10,000–$25,000, with no cap on total rewards.
• The shift reflects a broader industry trend: firms are overwhelmed with “AI slop” and now emphasize critical thinking, judgment, empathy, and creativity to make AI useful.
• EY is overhauling training: a new 12‑month career residency, immersive AI/data/software boot camps, and 95% of partners have completed experiential AI‑transformation sessions.