Financial Auditor.
Working on my CPA.
Aircraft Mechanic/Inspector at AA. Trying to get into real estate.
Residential Real Estate or Commercial Real Estate? I’m licensed to sell Real Estate in DC, just choose not to.
hows the job/pay/etc. also how did you land it
im currently in the project accounting department at an engineering firm. i want to move to something else funner with more pay though
actually, i just want something with higher pay. i dont mind grinding a crappy job
just graduated last year. i have a finance degree
.NET Developer, using C#.
Right now I’m a full time student studying Web Design and programming; just trying to build up my skills as best I can.
Residential. I want to own real estate, but I cant buy any right now.
currently i am a sale associate at the gap 2 years running. i may be getting a fencing instructor job…lol never thought id be doing that.
Musician. But unfortunately, my voice has been giving me trouble lately, so I started a job at a music store this week because singing is often part of my deal. :\
I did an internship at one of the Big 4 accounting firmswhich lead to a full time offer. If you want FUN then stay the fuck away from auditing. It’s long ass hours and the work can be mind numbingly painful. Well, if you want a GRIND then the Big 4 is for you.To give you an idea of how much I worked, 2 weeks ago I was working from 8:30am to 3-6am the following day. Went back to the hotel, slept for 3-4 hours and went back to work. My senior and manager worked 36 hours straight, they’re fucking insane or beasts. I can’t decide.
Current pay out of college is 52K a year + benefits and quarterly bonuses. (My firm pays bonuses at least. I live in Cali) There’s also a 5K bonus if you finish your CPA/CISA within a year which progressively lowers each year after. Gas is also paid for, as well as food. (Because you’ll be working through breakfast, lunch and dinner, especially during busy season).
There’s basically 4 paths you can take at a public accounting firm:
- Financial Audit
- Tax
- IT Audit
- Consulting (You need public accounting experience for this usually)
There are other sectors where you can branch off, but these are the 4 main paths.
The best thing about working for a Big 4 accounting firm, is that you can get the chance to audit huge companies (Yahoo, Ebay, VMWare, Apple, Oracle, Google, etc.) You’ll get the opportunities to talk to the Controller, assistant controller and CFO of said companies. It’s basically a free pass for networking. You just don’t get those kinds of chances straight out of college. Working for a big 4 firm will teach you enough to be marketable after you’re done doing your “time” at the firm. Honestly, when I talk to my clients that are hiring in the Finance Department, there’s only 2 things they look for: Big 4 experience and CPA. (Masters is worthless)
If you want to get into public accounting, my advice: stay for 3-5 years and GTFO because pay starts sucking balls after that. (you’ll be making 75-85K at the Big 4, when you can be making 100-150K in industry) And you will have experience managing people at least (that’s if you make senior).
VI The Sixth. What school did you go to? I got my degree with emphasis in accounting at UCSB, but haven’t actually pursued anything in the accounting field as of yet. I saw my friends get burnt out auditing at smaller firms like Rothstein & Kass. Same exact situation you said. I’m at home relaxing and I catch them at work at 2 in the morning still griiiiinding away.
i definitely want to get my cpa. when i was looking for work, having your cpa was a huge plus. more so than other things
I kept it local and went to San Jose State. A lot of start-ups in the Valley along with big names. It was easy to network as well, as 3 of the Big 4 is situated within 10 minutes from the campus and a lot of SJSU Alumni (Partners included) like to hook up SJSU graduates. I felt that it was pointless paying more money to go to Berkeley or Santa Clara - we all end up in the same place anyway.
There was plenty of work in the Valley about 1-2 years ago, but it’s getting tougher as less VC’s are investing in start-ups and there’s less work all around. It’ll turn around eventually though, the Valley is pretty resilient.
But yeah, the hours are bad. The Firms condition you to work like 12+ hours a day. Working a straight 8 hour job will seem like a vacation after you experience public accounting. 
Yup, the CPA is well worth the time and money invested. Don’t knock public accounting though. Your CPA isn’t going to mean anything unless you have public accounting experience. That way, you’ll know the risks and assertions behind the financial statement line items as well as understanding controls (SOX 404). Actually, being an internal auditor seems like a pretty chill job. I wouldn’t mind doing it after my time in public accounting.
The best way to manage in accounting is to think like a thief. If I wanted to materially misrepresent my financial statements, what would be the best way to do it? But more importantly, how would I PREVENT this from happening? That’s where your experience as an Auditor comes in and that’s why ex-auditors are sought after.
Herbologist.
Bartender, hours and pay are pretty good; plus I don’t have to wake up in the morning.
On site Manager for a staffing agency. Pay is decent, plus bonus/comissions at the end of the month. There are days when i do absolutely nothing. Then there are weeks when i work 12 hour days…
I manage over 65 employee’s, 4 leads, and 2 supervisors. I actually can’t tell you if i like this job or i hate it.
Quality Assurance Tester at Sony Computer Entertainment.
Ressurection!
I can finally show some of the stuff I did in the last 3 years, working as an animator.
[media=youtube]cr7AciJ4gv4#"[/media].
No, not that one with Edward Norton. This was written by legendary French filmmaker Jaques Tati(who?) many years ago and already had that title and they stuck with it. The dude talking there is the director Sylvain Chomet, who made an Oscar nominated film called Les Triplettes de Belle-Ville some years before that.
I don’t know why, but for some reason they decided to show one of [media=youtube]cr7AciJ4gv4#t=2m3s"[/media] in this little interview thing. (I only animated the man, the girl was done by someone else.) It was the last scene I did and I guess it’s ok. I drew the nose way too small though, and there’s some weird stuff going on in the inbetweens. Unfortunately, my best scene was cut from the movie for time. That’s showbusiness I guess.
It recently debuted at a German film festival, but I couldn’t go see it so I’ve actually never seen the completed film. Apparently it’s getting pretty good reviews, so hopefully it’s coming soon to a screen near you!
I’m a production support analyst for consulting company based out of India. My offical is System Engineering Consultant, but I don’t make System Engineer Consutlant money, so it’s just a fancy title.
I work with a proprietary ESB application based on Aqualogic, Weblogic, and has backends webservices spanning anything in the company. I also double up an MVS support analyst fixing batch jobs for the companies management and acquisition divisions.
Overall the job is way easier than it could be. My boss is leary about giving me more responsibility because she’s pretty conservative. Slowly she’s been winging me from dealing with just mundane day to day stuff. I now get to come in (on my off day) to help facilitate Database maintenance
The job is pretty laid back. I work with an ingegrated team. This means that I am the only one in my location who does what I do. While I work in the same office as 4 other people, they do entirely different things and interface with entirely different teams, and have entirely different bosses. Only the project manager is the glue that binds us all.
I’ve only met my direct boss a handful of times, since she works at the client site in Virginia. She also stated she has no interest in moving to Atlanta anytime soon. Also, since she is a Technical manager, it would violate policy for her to work in the same area as I physically am. That means I work in Atlanta with no physical boss to report to. all of my interaction with my boss is through meeting, emails, or IM.
The project ends December 2011, and at that point I am free to move to other divisions in the company. Right now I'm obligated to work with this client. Overall it's not too bad. I hate the fact we are a "experimental unit". But the client has yet to complain about us, and we were suppose to have our review in December. I still keep my fingers crossed though, because you never know what could come up.i’m a full-time hater