1. The Value of “CPA”
Bobby Schroeder
Tax Manager
Ericksen, Krentel, & LaPorte, LLP
New Orleans, Louisiana
November 3, 2015
2. Exploring CPA Careers
My Path…
• Didn’t go straight to CPA
• Graduated from University of New Orleans, 2005
• Tax Manager for 10 yrs
• AICPA/LCPA Volunteer
• Student Recruitment / Young Member Issues / Tax
Issues
3. CPAs By The Numbers
2013-2014 Total Accounting Enrollments:
• 207,071 – Bachelor’s
• 39,641 – Master’s in Accounting
• 3,107 – MBA with Accounting Concentration
• 2,068 – Master’s in Taxation
• 1,195 – Ph.D.
• 253, 082 – Total Accounting Enrollments
Source: AICPA 2015 Trends in the Supply of Accounting Graduates
and the Demand for Public Accounting Recruits Study
4. CPAs By The Numbers
• CPA Firms hired 43,252 accounting graduates in 2014
• 51% Male, 49% Female
• By Service Line:
• 47% Accounting and Auditing
• 27% Taxation
• 16% Consulting/Other
• 10% MIS/IT
Source: AICPA 2015 Trends in the Supply of Accounting Graduates
and the Demand for Public Accounting Recruits Study
5. CPAs By The Numbers
Firm Demographics for Professional Staff:
• 52% Male, 48% Female (All Firms)
• 47% Male, 53% Female (Less than 10 CPAs)
Firm Demographics for CPAs Only:
• 59% Male, 41% Female (All Firms)
• 58% Male, 42% Female (Less than 10 CPAs)
Source: AICPA 2015 Trends in the Supply of Accounting Graduates
and the Demand for Public Accounting Recruits Study
6. CPAs By The Numbers
Firm Demographics for Firm Partners:
• 76% Male, 24% Female (All Firms)
• 70% Male, 30% Female (Less than 10 CPAs)
Source: AICPA 2015 Trends in the Supply of Accounting Graduates
and the Demand for Public Accounting Recruits Study
7. Becoming a CPA
More than 166,500 new jobs will be
created by 2022, which is a 13.1% job
growth rate
US News and World Report
ranked accounting as the
16th top job in 2015
8. Becoming a CPA
Is the CPA for me?
Is finding a job once you graduate important to you?
Is salary a motivating factor?
Do you want to be challenged and have variety in the work that
you do?
Do you want to have options in where you work?
9. Becoming a CPA
A Convincing Argument
10-15% higher income
than non-CPAs
90% of firms hiring the
same or more
accounting grads
15. AICPA Legacy Scholarships
Apply for an AICPA Legacy Scholarship
Award amounts:
$1,000 - $10,000
Deadline to apply:
April 1
Requirements:
• Accounting major
• GPA 3.0+
• AICPA Student Affiliate Member
Good morning everyone. My name is Rebecca and I’m here from the American Institute of CPAs where I serve as the Senior Manager of College and University Initiatives. How many of you are familiar with the AICPA?
For those of you who don’t know, the AICPA is the world’s largest member association representing accounting profession. We have more than 394,000 members in 128 countries and we also write and grade the CPA Exam.
I’m here with my colleague, Samantha Mitchell, who leads the AICPA scholarship programs, to share a little career inspiration with you as it relates to the CPA profession and to explore some of the opportunities available to you if you decided to join it.
For those of you who are not familiar with the AICPA, we are the world’s largest member association representing the accounting profession. We’re 125 years old and have nearly 386,000 members. We also happen to be the writers and graders of the CPA Exam. My job there is to share the CPA story with college students like you and to create resources to help you get there, one of which happens to be the website ThisWayToCPA – which we’ll get to in a little bit.
So who is the AICPA and why are they of interest to me?
The AICPA is the world’s largest member association representing the accounting profession. The organization has more than 400,000 members in 145 countries.
They also write and grade the CPA Exam and created the website, ThisWayToCPA.com, which we’ll get to in just a moment.
They have members in a variety of practice areas including:
Business and industry
Public accounting
Government
Education
So who is the AICPA and why are they of interest to me?
The AICPA is the world’s largest member association representing the accounting profession. The organization has more than 400,000 members in 145 countries.
They also write and grade the CPA Exam and created the website, ThisWayToCPA.com, which we’ll get to in just a moment.
They have members in a variety of practice areas including:
Business and industry
Public accounting
Government
Education
So who is the AICPA and why are they of interest to me?
The AICPA is the world’s largest member association representing the accounting profession. The organization has more than 400,000 members in 145 countries.
They also write and grade the CPA Exam and created the website, ThisWayToCPA.com, which we’ll get to in just a moment.
They have members in a variety of practice areas including:
Business and industry
Public accounting
Government
Education
So who is the AICPA and why are they of interest to me?
The AICPA is the world’s largest member association representing the accounting profession. The organization has more than 400,000 members in 145 countries.
They also write and grade the CPA Exam and created the website, ThisWayToCPA.com, which we’ll get to in just a moment.
They have members in a variety of practice areas including:
Business and industry
Public accounting
Government
Education
There’s a lot of great news for accounting graduates today. The CPA profession continues to offer a promising future with an estimated 166,700 new accounting and auditing jobs will open up by 2022. This equates to a 13.1 percent job growth rate.
According to US News and World Report, accounting ranked 16th on the list of the top 100 jobs, and 3rd for best business jobs.
So before we dig into the details, I want to ask you all a few questions.
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then a career as a CPA will be a great fit for you.
You know, in my job we have this saying that there’s a CPA behind every cupcake you eat. If you think about it, it’s true. Every business has accounting at its base and companies wouldn’t do very well without the guidance provided by their accounting experts. You can go anywhere and work for pretty much anybody when you’ve got those three little letters next to your name : C-P-A. Oh, and did I mention that CPAs tend to make 10-15% more money than accountants who don’t have the license? Or that in 2011, the AICPA’s trends report said that 90% of all of the public accounting firms surveyed said they’d be hiring the same or more new accounting graduates? It doesn’t take a CPA to figure out that that means the odds are in your favor to get a job soon after graduation AND they going to pay you well at that job.
Now, you might be thinking, ok Rebecca, your salary talk got my attention. But what do I really have to do if I become a CPA?
You know, in my job we have this saying that there’s a CPA behind every cupcake you eat. If you think about it, it’s true. Every business has accounting at its base and companies wouldn’t do very well without the guidance provided by their accounting experts. You can go anywhere and work for pretty much anybody when you’ve got those three little letters next to your name : C-P-A. Oh, and did I mention that CPAs tend to make 10-15% more money than accountants who don’t have the license? Or that in 2011, the AICPA’s trends report said that 90% of all of the public accounting firms surveyed said they’d be hiring the same or more new accounting graduates? It doesn’t take a CPA to figure out that that means the odds are in your favor to get a job soon after graduation AND they going to pay you well at that job.
Now, you might be thinking, ok Rebecca, your salary talk got my attention. But what do I really have to do if I become a CPA?
So before we dig into the details, I want to ask you all a few questions.
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then a career as a CPA will be a great fit for you.
Now let’s get into the fun stuff and talk about what resources the AICPA has specifically for you in your college years.
Last, but not least, and most importantly! I’m inviting you to join the AICPA as a student member for FREE! It’s an easy, online application on ThisWayToCPA.com
Just register on the ThisWayToCPA.com and then complete your application for membership. Then we’ll send you your membership number and you’re in! It takes less than 5 minutes and you get the benefits of….
Benefits:
- Resume Builder (Since your future employers and interviewers are probably members, it will let them know that you’re serious about your career)
- Network of more than 400,000 members
- Discounts on products / conferences / webinars
- Low price on AICPA research libraries
- Online Journal of Accountancy and other publications
- And more…
One of the more confusing parts of the licensure process is understanding the requirements for your specific state. The AICPA developed the state requirements tool to help with that. Within this feature, you can select the state / territory in which you plan to be licensed and click through to get a full rundown of the requirements for that state.
https://www.thiswaytocpa.com/exam-licensure/state-requirements/
The site also hosts online applications for the AICPA’s Legacy Scholarships for accounting undergraduate and graduate students. The scholarships are exclusive to AICPA Student Affiliate Members (which we’ll get to in a minute) and all selected recipients are enrolled in the very prestigious AICPA Legacy Scholars program.
Award amounts range from $1,000-10,000
Deadline: April 1
Eligibility requirements:
Accounting major
GPA 3.0+
US citizen or permanent resident
AICPA Student Affiliate Member
As an AICPA Legacy Scholar, you’ll spend 8 hours on a service project for each semester you have the scholarship.
The service project is focused on advocating for the accounting profession and can include:
-Giving a presentation to undecided business majors at your school
-Running a table on campus to talk to your peers about joining the AICPA
-Planning a presentation or round table discussion with a CPAs at an accounting club event
You’ll also be matched with a young CPA coach to guide you through your service project & give you any career advice.
You can also participate in the AICPA Accounting Competition on ThisWayToCPA. The competition is open to AICPA Student Affiliate Members who are attending an undergraduate college & university in the U.S. & territories.
The challenge is case-based and will allow you to experience real-life accounting scenarios and apply what you’ve learned in class to actual challenges that CPAs face.
If your team makes it to the finals, you’ll get a trip package to Washington D.C. to compete against two other teams to an executive panel of judges. All finalist teams receive a $10,000 cash award to split among their team members and compete for tiered campus awards at the finals. ($5k, $3k, and $2k for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place)
Conclusion: Our goal for today was to share with you the opportunities available to you when you join the CPA profession. I hope that some of you are inspired to learn more about it and we are happy to remain a resource for you if you have any questions or would like more guidance. Our contact information is listed here for any of you that would like to reach us after today. Thank you again for having us. Does anyone have any questions?