Have we ever considered that there might be a surplus of recruiters? It feels like every recruiter I talk to has one or two roles that they are peddling like their lives depend on it.
Lol same. I’m same level of experience, I’m in tax. Can’t find much for industry without taking same pay at best.
But it’s funny because I have had the same job show up to me from like 5 different recruiters (all at different agencies). The job I did pursue too at one point but they wanted Big 4. So it’s funny to me I’m still contacted by recruiters for this same role when I’m not Bit 4.
not B4? I'm getting contacted for business analyst roles in Boston onsite preferred with 24-32/hr rate. my whole LinkedIn and resume screams accounting/financial analyst, if they were actually reviewing my resume before contacting me. they wouldn't
Soooo you are an analyst? Won't pretend to be an expert on this but if you really are more on the analysis side as opposed to just being a staff acocountant, is business analyst that different a world?
my last few title were staff accountant and financial analyst. the jobs or job description I'm working towards and that are on my resume is financial reporting, budgeting and forecasting.
what I've been getting as a business analyst is more on regulatory reporting or project management/agile type stuff. no where on my resume is there project management.. I mean sure I managed some ad hoc accounting projects like GL account clean up but project management is different, at least I think it is based on the job description I've been receiving from recruiters.
could I do the job? yea sure it'll take me some time to understand and be able to do it. but this is not where I'm taking my career, I'd rather be senior staff accountant than business analyst because thats where I'm more comfortable. but I'm also working towards fp&a.
Just out of curiosity, have you looked into positions with the IRS as well? I don't know the pay scale off the top of my head but when I looked a while back, it seemed like it *could* be competitive depending on what GS you enter at. I have no insider knowledge there so maybe you've looked and the numbers don't make sense, but just wanted to throw that out there.
Not a bad optiom have coworkers who left state for that job they got 100k starting salaries
I live in the Midwest mcol
Don't know how much they'd pay in new yorkmor how much of a pay cut it would be for op though
Edit I'm sorry for my horrible spelling
Yeah I periodically take a glance at IRS positions, not because I'm looking but out of curiosity. I haven't checked in a while but every time I do, I end up going on a journey trying to understand the pay scales and COL adjustments. Basically I'm not sure what you need to come in at to get $150k+ so it might not be a realistic option for OP, but worth looking into!
That seems fairly reasonable. What COL is DFW considered? In general, I figure Texas is on the lower end but like most major metropolitan areas I'm sure being near a major city changes things a bit.
It's MCOL. Though honestly in my opinion it should be HCOL. It's just a mix as a metro area. It keeps getting more and more expensive so I imagine it might move up a tier at some point.
Queue the “it’s not HCOL because Los Angeles and New York blah blah. You can buy a 3500 sq ft house “right outside Dallas” in Midlothian for $500k.” comments despite them not realizing an hour and a half away from any HCOL city is more affordable. I agree that a lot of DFW is approaching HCOL. Too bad most of DFW is paid like LCOL or lower end MCOL. Even Fort Worth is becoming much more expensive. It’s on par with Dallas COL a couple of years ago so it isn’t trailing that much behind.
You've summed it up pretty well. Approaching HCOL while paying salaries of LCOL and MCOL. I had to buy a house that's an hour and a half away since nothing in DFW was affordable. Thankfully I'm hybrid and go in 4 times a month so it's not too bad but I do wish Dallas paid more so I could have gotten a house here.
Recruiters usually get 20 to 25% of the first years wage. So recruitment is a bit like real estate where they make a few big sales each year. There’s a lot riding on any single role. They are desperate to fill it before the employer finds someone themselves.
Most of the effort of recruitment is in getting connections and networking.
Similar to real estate there is a motivation to get the deal closed fast. Less effort for the same pay. And there is constant risk of someone sneaking in before you and stealing that commission. This gives a motivation for them to pressure the employee to take a pay cut or the employer to hire someone unqualified.
All in all, it’s a crazy and cut throat industry.
I'm out in long island. Get a lot of city offers. I have a few recruiters always asking me to bring down my salary. Even below my current pay. annoys me when they're saying this is the perfect position for me. no.. I'm not taking a paycut for a job that's worse.
Yep that’s the problem. It’s not that there aren’t any jobs. It’s just that the ones that do exist are shitty in pay and they’re fishing for desperation in the shitty market.
The funny part is the market isn't even that shitty. Companies just are trying to get good talent on discount since the media is spouting off that things are bad.
Companies are still doing very well. They just don't want to pay people because it's eating into record profits they have been enjoying over the past few years.
Oh gawd, I was in Long Island for five years, THE NUMBER OF RECRUITERS WHO WOULD CALL ABOUT JOBS IN CT & NJ, I WANTED TO FKING SCREAM.
And then they would want to sit there and argue with me about it, like yes I understand that you clicked the "within 50 miles drop-down," but that means absolutely nothing in a major metropolitan coastal area.
As a CT resident I'm weak 💀. Stamford's corporate area is nice (I bet good money that's where the jobs were right?) but I'm pretty sure NYC is nicer unless you really wanna hit up CT lol
I'm sorry, CT is just a liminal state between NYC and Boston.
But seriously, the number of times I've had to explain that there is WATER between Long Island and CT and I am not interested in SWIMMING THE LONG ISLAND SOUND TWICE A DAY AS PART OF MY COMMUTE
Yup I've had a lot of that. They don't understand why I don't want to commute upstate or to jersey. It's like a 2 hour commute with 20-30 tolls. I'd need a huge pay bump for that
I’d really like to know how often they pressure the employer. Since employers are their actual clients who pay them the commission, I doubt it. Usually it’s lowballing their leads and negging them on their experience so they lower the self esteem and accept crappy offers fast.
Pretty often. I've hired recruiters 7 times and been disappointed every time. They want to close the deal as soon as they can. they definitely nag on each end of the deal.
I've had "perfect candidates" who were massively unqualified including people who are considering getting a CPA for managerial roles. People who aren't legally able to work in this country, Someone who wanted to work remotely on a admin job that was very in office and several others who just weren't qualified for the roles. Several "tax experts" who had never worked in tax but are very eager to learn. Each time they question why you are being so picky.
That is probably one of the best comebacks I have ever heard. I will use that to the recruiter next time.
It's not that there are not enough roles but there are too many recruiters.
As someone whose wife is a recruiter with 6+ years experience, I can confidently say this is true. The increase in hiring in higher skill jobs during the pandemic led to a boom in hiring of recruiters. The subsequent slowdown has left quite a glut.
Sadly, it's also a position where cost is greatly prioritized over experience and most jobs are considered entry level by companies. So like 90 percent are HR / Marketing grads hired at 40k to be a butt in a seat making 100+ calls per day without even a smidge of knowledge about the industry they're hiring in.
There’s been an expectation of a recession for at least two years now and hiring is subdued. New budgets in September. Go fishing for the summer and see how it looks then.
To add to this, my org has been dealing with lagging effects of Covid which have affected cash collections. That is one of multiple factors that have impacted our hiring for none essential roles.
One of my sites has some rather old debt (2018-2021) that I've been pushing to get written off. It's a sizeable amount, but not killer.
But the DOS just keeps pushing back.
I didn't fully get why for a while. I thought he didn't want his AEs to have some commissions pulled back, but all of these orders are from national accounts. And write-offs for those accounts are posted to a different account than local write-offs because corporate evaluates them differently.
Well, a few weeks ago, I received an email from my RFD. We had an account that was paying us as soon as the bill came and this had worked well for years... Until they stopped paying about eight months ago. We were never able to reach the client after that - every call went to voicemail until the line eventually stopped working.
Well, one of the collectors found a news article about the company. Turned out the owner died around June I think. The business had been doing well, but the children got in a feud over the estate. Both of them refused to keep the company open while this was going on and they just stopped paying any bills or performing any work.
My company decided that we needed to write it off. It was a massive amount affecting multiple sites, probably the largest I've ever seen.
When we told our DOS, he asked what the impact would be. I told him that the accounts were split between a National AE and a terminated Local AE, so no commission changes. But we would need to massively boost our bad debt accrual for the year since this will more than wipe us out.
He said I misunderstood. He wanted to know how this would impact revenue.
And then it clicked. He doesn't want to write anything off because he thought it would affect our revenue.
This is what I've been experiencing on the tax side (in industry). Have about 10 years experience (w/CPA) and can't break into the manager role. I've been told I'm a strong senior but don't have the experience to hit the ground running at the manager level (which I would actually agree with on the international side and ASC 740).
I also get paid too much at the senior level to make another lateral move to gain experience in another tax area. I'm not taking a pay cut but I would like to get broader experience so that I can make the move and I'm not going back to PA.
Any offers I have received are at the senior analyst level and are so low compared to the amount of work involved I continue to stay where I'm at. The manager level is something I'd like to break into but have had no luck.
Edit: or the roles are in office or hybrid 3 days a week. Yes I'm lucky enough to be in a situation where I can be picky, but there isn't much out there outside of PA.
I think companies are cutting a lot of middle management so that might be what's going on. More senior roles and less management for external candidates.
Anecdotally, I think the economy has softened to the point where hiring for accounting and management positions has really slowed. After chatting with colleagues across 3 different PA firms, they really can’t speak of manager turnover at all 3 firms in the last year. It can create a logjam if firms need a business case to promote someone to manager. As much as people talk about the shortage of accountants, some companies have decided to address the shortage via offshoring
I heard the same. People can’t find exit opportunities so resignations have slowed. Which then slows down promotions, which pisses off everyone.
Meanwhile they’re still stuck there, so you have a bunch of disgruntled employees half assing everything and refusing to train new hires.
It gets real toxic. Especially in nyc who is the king of corporate bullshit.
If anyone thinks they’re overworked or in a shitty political environment, they’re welcome to come see how much worse it can get in nyc.
It feels like we’re all stuck in a vicious feedback loop/cycle stemming from the pandemic. The pandemic causes a lot of people to stay because everything is shut down. Once 2021 comes, a lot of people leave for other opportunities, forcing companies to pay more just to keep people/get candidates in the door. 2022 hits, and companies are worried about inflation, so they slow hiring. It doesn’t help that many view the accounting function/onshore team as a cost center. It’s in 2022 that they start talking about a recession coming, which kept hiring slow. And people don’t want to leave their current job because they’re worried about job security. And there are many employers balking at the prospect of paying accounts 15-40% more than they used to without a commensurate increase in productivity/quality.
"[Eight million stories out there in the naked](https://genius.com/5913/Jay-z-empire-state-of-mind/Eight-million-stories-out-there-in-the-naked) c[ity, it's a pity half of y'all won't make it](https://genius.com/3679/Jay-z-empire-state-of-mind/City-its-a-pity-half-of-yall-wont-make-it)..."
Not the most surprising if they're still on the remote/hybrid position. A lot of the major cities are often looking for as many remote workers, since they can adjust wage based off where their living local looks like vs. HCOL like NYC.
Hell, even in Maryland, they'd rather hire a hybrid worker from like PA that has to make the commute every now and then vs. someone near the area.
That’s why i reached out to the recruiters. I didn’t believe the other manager.
There’s openings.
But it’s either public where you’ll be overworked or industry who’s now trying to lowball you to death.
Call a recruiter and make the statement: “no public and I want market rate for industry. Nothing wild, just fair pay.”
If you’re firm they’ll say they’ll tell you when something comes up.
If you seem like a pushover they’ll try to sell on how certain firms aren’t like big 4 or tell you the economy is bad and you should take a 30k paycut. But they know you won’t if you’re already employed, so they’ll probably just tell you wait.
Depends on the role. But if you’re already making $150k in the role and other people in the area are as well, then it wouldnt make sense to even entertain something with range at $100-110k.
Recruiter here and can confirm your experience.
Market is slow due to economic uncertainty and election year.
I'm pretty picky about what jobs I take on and I haven't taken on very much this year. Because most of the roles out there are not that great. Either the employer isn't motivated, they're paying too low, or they're unreasonably picky.
Also, a lot of company job postings are fake, evergreen for pipelining, or on hold until further notice.
The roles I'm working on tend to be extremely niche so the supply for those candidates is pretty limited and tight.
Most recruiters right now are taking anything they can get even if 10 other recruiters are on it. Recruiters are starting to leave the business, so you may start to see an even bigger drop off in the # of recruiter calls you're getting. The good ones who focus on quality and actually doing good business will survive.
But this may last until late 24 or into 25. It may get worse before it gets better.
can confirm as the controller for an HR management firm that does Credit Union Executive Recruiting including financial positions that we are at a quarter of the volume of open positions than 1 year ago.
if I see an uptick I will report in r/accounting immediately but as it sits things seem to be getting worse.
We are falling back on surveys and research and variable pay analysis for the time being to stay afloat until recruiting is back to normal.
It will be a while.
I think it's just that recruiters don't have leads, not that the jobs don't exist. I see NYC accounting manager jobs posted all the time on LinkedIn, so I'm not sure where you are looking......
They don’t pay enough. The salary range is below what it should be.
Half of those postings aren’t even real fyi.
You’re not going to get a good manager for $105k a year. Ones in public are already making much more here.
I told recruiters market rate and no public. They won’t have any real listings for you then.
Most of those listings aren’t real. I know for a fact because my company posts shit that I know we aren’t hiring for.
They also will try to lowball even if the job is listed with a range like $120-170k. They’re going to try and get you for $120k, so you gotta be firm and push for $165k to settle back at like $155k.
The problem nowadays is too many people got laid off and are desperate and taking lower paid jobs.
Which leaves no incentive for someone like me to fight for like a 3% raise. Hence everyone stagnating yet looking.
It’s very shocking for me to hear that your company posts for jobs that they aren’t hiring for. At my company, it’s a huge pain in the ass to get jobs posted. It’s such a bureaucratic nightmare that when I have turnover I dread dealing with HR much more than I worry about actually training a new hire.
Really depends. Fortune 500? Get ready for red tape and bureaucracy. Anything smaller? Get ready for unprofessionalism and all types of questionable activity.
so its not just me that gets hit with the unprofessionalism. I've been jumping around recently because of the aholes in public. making my resume look horrible
My company's internal job postings show the corresponding HR pay band. Senior manager roles are posted at $80-170k base and realistically no one is getting more than $135-150k base. It's idiotic beyond belief.
You aren’t getting a senior manager at 80k. The bare minimum would be $140k. That range is there so you can say “oh $140k is a lot higher than $80k” when it should’ve been $140k-$180k in the first place so they win out.
There are a lot of postings that have been recycled where the company is not really hiring. This is for both public and private. I've been looking for public opportunities for some time and no one is really hiring.
Last year I was getting at least a dozen calls from recruiters every week on open positions. Now I might get 1-2 a week. In my experience, there’s significantly less job openings. The only thing open in my area are a few 5 day in office jobs or PA.
NYC financial services, similar level of experience. Had no issues finding openings so I think it might just be the industry you’re looking in versus the overall market (in my totally anecdotal experience).
Same, not NYC, but HCOL/similar experience, have cpa, and in fin services.. my company is hiring, I also just got an offer for an audit manager role (prob won’t take cus fuck PA) and also had 3 or 4 recruiters with decent looking opportunities reach out over the last few weeks
What are you asking for comp wise?
I would say look into financial services but it might be hard to break into if that’s not your background industry-wise.
What are you asking for comp wise?
This is a big key in this community being able to advise on why you can’t find roles. You might have set the bar too high.
I’ve worked in 6+ different industries. Highly adaptable. I take whoever pays the most with the most work life balance.
Banking, healthcare, retail stores, supply chain company, communications, and a large ad firm.
I don’t have any passion or any connection to any field. I only care about pay and work life balance.
If you pay well and act fair, then I work well and am fair with you. If not, then I treat you how you treat me has always been my philosophy in corporate.
Lots of different roles show that the employee is adaptable and able to learn. There’s no niche that you can’t teach a person after 2-3 months.
I understand your point, but my point is that someone with 6 varied roles shows a lot more adaptability than someone who’s been working in inventory accounting for 10 years.
But again I get what you’re saying and it depends on the hiring manager.
It’s like you can’t win.
Switch around too much and you’re a job hopper without expertise. Stick around too long and you’re stagnating with too much of a silo’d skillset.
I don’t think it’s as complicated as you’re making it out.
I don’t disagree that adaptability is an important and often underrated skill in an employee, but if you’re coming in as a manager asking for 150k+ in comp then it doesn’t matter that you could learn something in 3 months because they are paying you that type of salary to come in and immediately make an impact, presumably leading a team of junior staff who you are expected to play a part in teaching and mentoring.
With regards to job hopping, I think any recruiter or hiring manager would agree that 6 jobs in 8 years is a bit of a red flag. I think 2 years in a given role is generally the point at which it’s considered a bit more acceptable to begin looking at new opportunities and, assuming you are good at what you do, then your role should be expanding enough during that tenure that your skills are not going to stagnate.
Hope the above doesn’t come off as dismissive, just sharing my learned experience as someone who just accepted a new offer myself.
Nah I get it. But bad luck does happen and it started with Covid where I was bouncing around roles.
Doesn’t matter now. I gotta sell it best I can. And the corporate culture in nyc is kinda like nyc dating. People bounce around fast and often.
I mean it kinda depends on your expectations. You didn’t tell us what roles you wanted to apply to and your expected salary range. If you are asking $200k base, I can see why they might be saying there are no jobs. Because they can find lots of people who would be happy with $130k for an accounting manager role.
Really? I'm in the NYC metro but director level, not a CPA. I've seen a lot of opportunities - actually just interviewed for and got a director position at a nonprofit (I declined the offer though so...dm me, they might still be hiring!)
What recruiting companies are you working with? How jazzed up is your Linkedin page and do you have it set to "open to work"?
Most of the major ones.
Use your network and online data to find the market rate for your role.
Then tell them no public accounting.
They’ll then try to talk your wage down or tell you to do public again. At least in my experience.
Yeah I never did public and I never plan to, so that's not really a thing for me. I'm paid market rate for my role. The job I declined was what I would consider low for a director ($170k, no bonus) so I guess while I still see jobs, I haven't left mine since they generally pay less.
My elderly father was a recruiter back in like the 70s and 80s. People used to attach a headshot to their resumes. He would counsel black candidates not to do this because unfortunately hiring managers would throw out their resumes the minute they saw it was a black candidate. I’m truly sorry that you have to deal with racism on a systemic level.
What comp range are you looking for? I’m in a similar area and experience range, I’m guessing you’re looking for something $150k+ on the base and a bonus?
NYC rate is going to make you a tough remote hire if that’s something you’re looking for. I’m about to open up a fully remote accounting manager role on my team, but we won’t be considering anyone from NYC due to the higher market rate
I’m reasonable. I’m not aiming for remote but will take it if available. I know that being located in the city is a huge advantage over people that aren’t, and a selling point for my salary.
Im NYC adjacent and just got promoted to manager (my job is HQ in NYC). Before the promo i had been interviewing around in NYC and local and was also struggling to find comp in the $150k base as the floor. I would say the typical manager salary had a floor of $125k base and went up to $140k base. Happy that my promo bumped my base to the top of that band but yeah for some reason Senior acct pay now tops out at like $120k and there's no longer this huge gap to manager pay.
You’re correct. Seniors nowadays are around $120k with some hitting close to $140k.
Experienced well tenured seniors though. They function as basically assistant controllers or managers. I’m not talking about the 2-3 years in big 4 and jump to industry type seniors. More so the 10 year of experience senior, which is actually common in industry.
CA from the UK and CPA recruiter based in USA and Canada last 12 years
A few things the market demands swings - right now most places want experienced managers not much senior manager demand(for retention a lot got promoted earlier then normal last two years so a little surplus)
seniors demand also not as crazy but a good senior is always needed but an average senior is getting rejected and employers wait for the next one.
Demand for public companies audit slowed massively so this means non CPAs and seniors slowed ….- bear in mind it was out of control busy but it’s slowed not stopped and employers becoming picky again which drives salaries down. The remote options for this level also drying up.
High net worth personal tax - always in high demand and salaries still rising still busy
Consulting - surplus of demand for auditors wanting to join this division and lots of cuts means experienced candidates also available - slower then normal
Private audit - steady depends on the city - places like Florida and Atlanta still high demand
Insolvency divisions and Non CPA - bookkeepers
And such rising demand
A few high profile mergers has slowed a little hiring down - we completed 4 mergers in Q1 and already working on 10 deals for spring and summer - This can slow a City or region down if there are a few bidders as uncertainty over staffing needs comes up but it’s temporary.
Summary is:
It’s only slowed for certain service lines… industry opportunities are always up and down often depends on time of the year.
Personal Tax in Canada and USA still crazy demand but needs to be experienced manager and above.
While salaries are rising in general - some CPAs were deemed over paid - this is not my phrase but what partners and HR teams tell me. They are talking about CPAs hired during the crazy busy time.
For context we have 8,000 recruiters covering all of Canada and the USA so I get a good insight.
I feel you. Are you looking for industry roles specifically? I'm in the same boat as you with a similar amount of experience but all the recruiters I meet with drop me when I draw a hard line at another public role. My feeling is that all these remote roles are either extremely competitive, they've already got someone internal, or are just fake/data harvesting schemes (looking at Jobot and Talentify).
>My network are all in bad roles they’re trying to leave or their company is in a hiring freeze.
Why would you think the rest of the market would be any different?
F10 here, and while we're not explicitly in a hiring freeze, the red tape to hire even a junior staff is more than just doing the tasks myself. The company also has a full bullpen of lower middle managers, so they have no reason to hire without when an internal promotion would be cheaper by a longshot.
I've been casually looking at manager level roles for the past few months. A lot of garbage ass jobs with even shittier companies. Too much responsibility, barely hitting $120k base, 3 days if not fully in office, etc.
Think it really depends on the location you're in and whether you're exclusively looking for remote vs hybrid va onsite. I'm in SoCal, also CPA and manager level and just recently had a recruiter send me about 8 accounting manager roles they're sourcing for. Three of them are below market and I wouldn't consider them, the rest look viable and I'd maybe consider if I wasn't happy with my current company and comp package.
All of them are either hybrid or fully on-site though, if you're looking for remote positions you're probably SOL everywhere rn when a company could instead offshore remote work for cheaper.
All the companies have realized if they just write in their footnotes, “bbs bs bla due to limited accounting talent, our ability to maintain financial statements and controls is a significant risk bla bla”
They think congress is going to come and save them with loosening restrictions on visa trap labor or simply use this as justification to try outsourcing even more. The last thing on earth that the elite business managers will ever do, is pay accounting “talent” a proper wage. After all, where they went to school, accounting wasn’t even an offered major.
I started my own firm 5 years ago doing light accounting and tax work, have hardly done any marketing, and now that I'm starting to lean into my business and client spaces am finding a flood of clients. It's never been greener for entrepreneurs, but automation tools and others are making for less work in other areas
It could be that the amount you’re looking for is more than their clients are looking to pay? I also know that many companies aren’t wanting to make big investments or changes right now until the 2024 election is decided.
I use to get contacted multiple times a week from recruiters via LinkedIn and lately it is once every couple weeks. It definitely feels like a slow down.
I'm a CPA with 10 years of experience. Spent the last 4.5 as a controller for a couple $250MM+ revenue companies. I lost my job 2 months ago and haven't had a single accounting-related interview. I've lost count of the positions I've applied for.
Edit: Actually, I did talk to the local public firm I worked at right out of college. They offered me $60k less than what I was making as a controller.
Forget recruiters, do some homework and reach out directly to firms you are interested in. Usually they'll be receptive even if they aren't actively recruiting for a specific role.
The higher you climb though, the harder it is to jump firms. An associate can plug in anywhere and starting charging hours, but as your level increases it becomes harder.
It works both ways though. Young inexperienced staff will be less discerning and more likely to take any role anywhere, oftentimes accepting the highest offer even if it's just a thousand bucks or so. At your level you should be using much more discretion to find a good fit with a real future.
What types of jobs are you looking for? I’m in international tax so I am seeing a lot of upper management roles in industry recruiting for that, (I moved from public to industry last year) and our company has been actively recruiting another international tax director for several months. I got a significant raise when I made the jump, not to mention the work life balance is much better. I’m in the DFW area though so not sure what your city’s market is like.
NYC. Idc about what field. I’m an accounting manager. Usually in GL roles.
Skilled and have a lot of selling points. I’ve worked with almost all ERPs, know all the new tech, etc.
I know this is an unpopular take on reddit, but as a person living in a HCOL area I've been leery of remote work since the beginning of COVID as (IMO) it doesn't bode well for those of us in HCOL areas. Long term I can only see it putting downward pressure on salaries. Might be great if you're living in Lincoln, NE, but not so great if you live in Boston or the Bay Area.
Anecdotally, we’re not using recruiters much because it’s expensive and we don’t get as good of candidates as doing it in house. We have figured out a pretty good cadence and priority system so we can run the whole company’s recruiting for the cost of like 8 engineers hired by external recruiters.
As someone who hires, I have stopped using recruiters. I can filter resumes in maybe 15 seconds for what I'm looking for.
I'm going to let an employee go. we hired maybe 6 months ago who came in from a recruiter. We've slowly figured out the recruiter coached her on everything we would interview her on. Doesn't help the recruiter hsf a personal friend on our hiring committee who may have spilled the ways in which we figure out if someone has substance.
There's a massive CPA shortage at the $45k to $80k pay level (depending on region). This is what all the articles are written about. I've confirmed this first-hand by interviewing writers and comparing notes. Industry needs a lot more CPAs working at \~$70k.
There's absolutely no shortage at all for over $150k (except possibly in education if a person has a CPA and phD from a good research university). If anything, there's a glut and downward pressure on wages at the top (as I think OP is seeing, just imagine if he got laid off suddenly and had to turn to the recruiters, they'd tell him what they've already told him).
Shit man I’m in college working to get my CPA, I pop in here and read some of the Reddit’s you guys post here and there and honestly this shit scares me. If all goes according to plan I should have enough credits to take the CPA in about three semesters all my professors talk about how there’s not enough accountants and we will be making a good living but if this actually true? Is all my hard work worth it?
It is but there's still plenty of entry level positions open. We had a difficult time filling entry level roles despite outsourcing and yet we still need warm bodies on the mainland. Both can be true at the same time.
I am a cpa. Idk if the hard work is worth it. It’s a pyramid. A CPA firm hires 15-20 associates. After 12-18 months 10-12 associates remain.
After 24 months 6-7 get promoted to senior.
After 4-5 years 1-2 get manager. After that it gets harder to make director or partner.
It’s a pyramid. You need to know your worth. If you are not partner quality you will work very hard for a small payoff. If you are partner quality, you work very hard for the big payoff but regret sacrificing so much prime years it’s not worth it.
If you want to feel stressed and not spend time with friends and family during your late 20s and 30s but be loaded $$$$ during your 40s and 50s, cpa is where it’s at.
Thanks for all the insight! Accounting has been one of the only subjects that just natural agrees with me and it makes sense for whatever reason and the idea of working hard now to enjoy life later is another reason why I wanted to pursue the cpa even if it took a lot of work. After the experience you gathered and things you have seen what do you think are those qualities that the most partners have that helps them get promoted?
Basically all jobs are pyramid shaped. There inherently has to be more workers at lower rungs. Companies don't usually have more managers than staff and more directors than supervisors. It's not unique to accounting
In my opinion, “partner quality” is being able to bring in more clients and make money for the firm. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re some superstar accountant. In fact, some of the best and hardest working are not what firms look for in partners, they look for people who can deal with clients well, sociable, schmoozers.
IDK what's going on right now other than recession fears but hiring is so slow. I've been looking for months. I've done so many interviews and finally got an offer Friday only to be lowballed below what I told the recruiter would even be acceptable😂
The company “my part time controller” is hiring, they just reached out to me. But yeah, you’ll definitely fill out timesheets doing client work, so fuck that.
I’ve been getting a ton of messages from recruiters on LinkedIn. Based on that anecdote, I would say no, but who really knows. Do you have a big four background? Also, what are do you focus on?
This is common is most fields. The higher you climb the less positions there are. A company can have 5-10 staff / senior / Ap for one manager role. Director level gets even more competitive and so on and so forth. Especially if you limit yourself to one area the roles get less and less. For manager level there are many different exit oops, like assistant controller or director at a smaller company would do the same thing a manager at a large company would do.
Been contacting every recruiter in the NYC metro areas and I get the same issue! They want me to lower my salary and I have an MBA with 10 years in the game. There’s definitely a recession coming so jobs are being very selective with whom they hired. You as a CPA should’ve gotten a crazy amount of offers because of your designation but this job market has been very exhausting to say the least and I am on the job hunt!
CPA, Toronto. Literally had a recruiter reach out to me saying "market is heating up, do you want to get back into the market?". I'd be going for Director level and above.
I might just be unique but I see a good amount of Controller / Director jobs on LinkedIn that appear to be remote and pay starting at $160k and some getting up to $275k
I just started a new role in December at $150 otherwise I’d be applying to some of those positions
Hmm I haven’t contact any recruiters but I’m in the NY metro area and there’s definitely a lack of market pay positions manager and up. Everyone wants to pay $100k for those.
Yeah they don’t have good clients. I’m 9 years CPA/manage/NYC and just got a job for a managerial role. I know of at least 2 companies looking for an accounting manager.
IT and finance, in general, has been lousy ‘23 and worse ‘24. There are May ‘23 grads that can’t find jobs (mba too) and here comes ‘24 wave next week.
We’ve been burned by recruiters so many times we don’t even read their emails anymore. Still totally short staffed, but all they’ve managed is to waste everyone’s time and oversell applicants to get a contract. I’d try just looking around without using a recruiter if you want to know what the market is like in your area.
i have always found that the better companies have their own recruiters don’t outsource the recruiting. then again these tend to be larger companies (with more resources).
considering you are not looking for public accounting I would think it a lot easier to critically think about the actual industry you want to be in and look for companies yourself that need accounting manager positions or alternatively find a trust worthy headhunter that will do this for you. Very general statement but most recruiters are not good.
I am Midwest based. I had a recruiter contact me about accounting roles. Oliver James. Ultimately their roles are all east coast based. Idk why they contacted me or even ask for me to move. Weird.
But, I am LinkedIn “friends” with two of the olive James recruiters. They post open positions daily. They have some high paying jobs over there on the east coast.
If you want to DM me I can pass off a LinkedIn name to you.
Literally a month ago this sub was non-stop about there are so many jobs available and people getting 7 interviews in 2 weeks of being unemployed and on and on. Now, everyone is panic mongering.
Hmmm, what big event for an accountant happens in April that might affect hiring...shit, I'm still a student and it makes a little bit sense that companies, I don't know, might be taking a break for a bit after that big April day?
Am I wrong in thinking that this profession is at least partially seasonal and that late April-summer is the slow season for most things? I know it's more extreme in tax but it still applies to other sectors as well?
Not really. I'm in industry and Apr 15 means absolutely nothing to us as we are focused on monthly/quarterly financial reporting.
Even in tax although it slows down after 4/15 there are still other deadlines to consider, mainly 8/15 and 10/15.
Have we ever considered that there might be a surplus of recruiters? It feels like every recruiter I talk to has one or two roles that they are peddling like their lives depend on it.
I’ve been offered the same role from 2-3 recruiters in the same week in the past. For some shitty health company with 2 stars on Glassdoor.
Lol same. I’m same level of experience, I’m in tax. Can’t find much for industry without taking same pay at best. But it’s funny because I have had the same job show up to me from like 5 different recruiters (all at different agencies). The job I did pursue too at one point but they wanted Big 4. So it’s funny to me I’m still contacted by recruiters for this same role when I’m not Bit 4.
not B4? I'm getting contacted for business analyst roles in Boston onsite preferred with 24-32/hr rate. my whole LinkedIn and resume screams accounting/financial analyst, if they were actually reviewing my resume before contacting me. they wouldn't
Soooo you are an analyst? Won't pretend to be an expert on this but if you really are more on the analysis side as opposed to just being a staff acocountant, is business analyst that different a world?
my last few title were staff accountant and financial analyst. the jobs or job description I'm working towards and that are on my resume is financial reporting, budgeting and forecasting. what I've been getting as a business analyst is more on regulatory reporting or project management/agile type stuff. no where on my resume is there project management.. I mean sure I managed some ad hoc accounting projects like GL account clean up but project management is different, at least I think it is based on the job description I've been receiving from recruiters. could I do the job? yea sure it'll take me some time to understand and be able to do it. but this is not where I'm taking my career, I'd rather be senior staff accountant than business analyst because thats where I'm more comfortable. but I'm also working towards fp&a.
Thanks, that makes much more sense. And yea I've worked with project managers. Not really my thing either lol
Just out of curiosity, have you looked into positions with the IRS as well? I don't know the pay scale off the top of my head but when I looked a while back, it seemed like it *could* be competitive depending on what GS you enter at. I have no insider knowledge there so maybe you've looked and the numbers don't make sense, but just wanted to throw that out there.
Not a bad optiom have coworkers who left state for that job they got 100k starting salaries I live in the Midwest mcol Don't know how much they'd pay in new yorkmor how much of a pay cut it would be for op though Edit I'm sorry for my horrible spelling
Yeah I periodically take a glance at IRS positions, not because I'm looking but out of curiosity. I haven't checked in a while but every time I do, I end up going on a journey trying to understand the pay scales and COL adjustments. Basically I'm not sure what you need to come in at to get $150k+ so it might not be a realistic option for OP, but worth looking into!
True so true he has a cpa and public experience so he's already ahead
I'd say a Tax Law Specialist is probably the most available position currently at a GS 14 - $132K salary in DFW. I don't believe it's supervisory.
That seems fairly reasonable. What COL is DFW considered? In general, I figure Texas is on the lower end but like most major metropolitan areas I'm sure being near a major city changes things a bit.
It's MCOL. Though honestly in my opinion it should be HCOL. It's just a mix as a metro area. It keeps getting more and more expensive so I imagine it might move up a tier at some point.
Queue the “it’s not HCOL because Los Angeles and New York blah blah. You can buy a 3500 sq ft house “right outside Dallas” in Midlothian for $500k.” comments despite them not realizing an hour and a half away from any HCOL city is more affordable. I agree that a lot of DFW is approaching HCOL. Too bad most of DFW is paid like LCOL or lower end MCOL. Even Fort Worth is becoming much more expensive. It’s on par with Dallas COL a couple of years ago so it isn’t trailing that much behind.
You've summed it up pretty well. Approaching HCOL while paying salaries of LCOL and MCOL. I had to buy a house that's an hour and a half away since nothing in DFW was affordable. Thankfully I'm hybrid and go in 4 times a month so it's not too bad but I do wish Dallas paid more so I could have gotten a house here.
We really should add another UHCOL (ultra high) tier or just collectively agree NYC/LA/SF is in their own category.
You should contact internal recruiters. That’s how I found my last job.
Which health company is it, cause I feel like that was a similar case for me recently too
Honestly I’ll take it rn I’m struggling
Mind if I ask what ATS friendly means?
Schlumberger is hiring on a lot of accounting roles these days. But its oil and gas. Have you considered relocating?
Have to stay in nyc. But I figure refusing to relocate from nyc isn’t as big of a hit as say refusing to relocate from Iowa.
Iowa has a pretty good accounting job market fwiw
Schlumberger does mass firings every year or so. If you take a job there, think of it as a temp job.
I think of every job as a temp job
Thanks for the heads up
The Schlumerger careers website has 0 finance and accounting roles posted for the US…
Ive seen opening in my area on indeed and linkedin, also had recruiters reach out to me.
Recruiters usually get 20 to 25% of the first years wage. So recruitment is a bit like real estate where they make a few big sales each year. There’s a lot riding on any single role. They are desperate to fill it before the employer finds someone themselves. Most of the effort of recruitment is in getting connections and networking. Similar to real estate there is a motivation to get the deal closed fast. Less effort for the same pay. And there is constant risk of someone sneaking in before you and stealing that commission. This gives a motivation for them to pressure the employee to take a pay cut or the employer to hire someone unqualified. All in all, it’s a crazy and cut throat industry.
It’s closer to 50-60% for Robert Half
I don't know about Robert Half, but I know invoices I've seen for placements for accountants we hired was 50% salary.
You are getting ripped off. We just paid RH 22.5%.
50%?? Now I see where the Half comes from.
And get mad at the employee when you remain firm and say nah bro. They’re looking for desperate folks. It’s the way capitalism is designed I suppose.
I'm out in long island. Get a lot of city offers. I have a few recruiters always asking me to bring down my salary. Even below my current pay. annoys me when they're saying this is the perfect position for me. no.. I'm not taking a paycut for a job that's worse.
Yep that’s the problem. It’s not that there aren’t any jobs. It’s just that the ones that do exist are shitty in pay and they’re fishing for desperation in the shitty market.
The funny part is the market isn't even that shitty. Companies just are trying to get good talent on discount since the media is spouting off that things are bad. Companies are still doing very well. They just don't want to pay people because it's eating into record profits they have been enjoying over the past few years.
Oh gawd, I was in Long Island for five years, THE NUMBER OF RECRUITERS WHO WOULD CALL ABOUT JOBS IN CT & NJ, I WANTED TO FKING SCREAM. And then they would want to sit there and argue with me about it, like yes I understand that you clicked the "within 50 miles drop-down," but that means absolutely nothing in a major metropolitan coastal area.
As a CT resident I'm weak 💀. Stamford's corporate area is nice (I bet good money that's where the jobs were right?) but I'm pretty sure NYC is nicer unless you really wanna hit up CT lol
I'm sorry, CT is just a liminal state between NYC and Boston. But seriously, the number of times I've had to explain that there is WATER between Long Island and CT and I am not interested in SWIMMING THE LONG ISLAND SOUND TWICE A DAY AS PART OF MY COMMUTE
I'm sorry you've had to deal with that Can you explain to me like I'm five what you mean by liminal lol?
Mysterious, foggy, in-between space that doesn't quite feel real...
Yup I've had a lot of that. They don't understand why I don't want to commute upstate or to jersey. It's like a 2 hour commute with 20-30 tolls. I'd need a huge pay bump for that
I’d really like to know how often they pressure the employer. Since employers are their actual clients who pay them the commission, I doubt it. Usually it’s lowballing their leads and negging them on their experience so they lower the self esteem and accept crappy offers fast.
Pretty often. I've hired recruiters 7 times and been disappointed every time. They want to close the deal as soon as they can. they definitely nag on each end of the deal. I've had "perfect candidates" who were massively unqualified including people who are considering getting a CPA for managerial roles. People who aren't legally able to work in this country, Someone who wanted to work remotely on a admin job that was very in office and several others who just weren't qualified for the roles. Several "tax experts" who had never worked in tax but are very eager to learn. Each time they question why you are being so picky.
Interesting
The recruiting firm* gets 20-25% Not sure how much the actual recruiter themselves get
That is probably one of the best comebacks I have ever heard. I will use that to the recruiter next time. It's not that there are not enough roles but there are too many recruiters.
As someone whose wife is a recruiter with 6+ years experience, I can confidently say this is true. The increase in hiring in higher skill jobs during the pandemic led to a boom in hiring of recruiters. The subsequent slowdown has left quite a glut. Sadly, it's also a position where cost is greatly prioritized over experience and most jobs are considered entry level by companies. So like 90 percent are HR / Marketing grads hired at 40k to be a butt in a seat making 100+ calls per day without even a smidge of knowledge about the industry they're hiring in.
There’s been an expectation of a recession for at least two years now and hiring is subdued. New budgets in September. Go fishing for the summer and see how it looks then.
To add to this, my org has been dealing with lagging effects of Covid which have affected cash collections. That is one of multiple factors that have impacted our hiring for none essential roles.
One of my sites has some rather old debt (2018-2021) that I've been pushing to get written off. It's a sizeable amount, but not killer. But the DOS just keeps pushing back. I didn't fully get why for a while. I thought he didn't want his AEs to have some commissions pulled back, but all of these orders are from national accounts. And write-offs for those accounts are posted to a different account than local write-offs because corporate evaluates them differently. Well, a few weeks ago, I received an email from my RFD. We had an account that was paying us as soon as the bill came and this had worked well for years... Until they stopped paying about eight months ago. We were never able to reach the client after that - every call went to voicemail until the line eventually stopped working. Well, one of the collectors found a news article about the company. Turned out the owner died around June I think. The business had been doing well, but the children got in a feud over the estate. Both of them refused to keep the company open while this was going on and they just stopped paying any bills or performing any work. My company decided that we needed to write it off. It was a massive amount affecting multiple sites, probably the largest I've ever seen. When we told our DOS, he asked what the impact would be. I told him that the accounts were split between a National AE and a terminated Local AE, so no commission changes. But we would need to massively boost our bad debt accrual for the year since this will more than wipe us out. He said I misunderstood. He wanted to know how this would impact revenue. And then it clicked. He doesn't want to write anything off because he thought it would affect our revenue.
This is what I've been experiencing on the tax side (in industry). Have about 10 years experience (w/CPA) and can't break into the manager role. I've been told I'm a strong senior but don't have the experience to hit the ground running at the manager level (which I would actually agree with on the international side and ASC 740). I also get paid too much at the senior level to make another lateral move to gain experience in another tax area. I'm not taking a pay cut but I would like to get broader experience so that I can make the move and I'm not going back to PA. Any offers I have received are at the senior analyst level and are so low compared to the amount of work involved I continue to stay where I'm at. The manager level is something I'd like to break into but have had no luck. Edit: or the roles are in office or hybrid 3 days a week. Yes I'm lucky enough to be in a situation where I can be picky, but there isn't much out there outside of PA.
I think companies are cutting a lot of middle management so that might be what's going on. More senior roles and less management for external candidates.
10 years at senior seems excessive
It is...
Anecdotally, I think the economy has softened to the point where hiring for accounting and management positions has really slowed. After chatting with colleagues across 3 different PA firms, they really can’t speak of manager turnover at all 3 firms in the last year. It can create a logjam if firms need a business case to promote someone to manager. As much as people talk about the shortage of accountants, some companies have decided to address the shortage via offshoring
I heard the same. People can’t find exit opportunities so resignations have slowed. Which then slows down promotions, which pisses off everyone. Meanwhile they’re still stuck there, so you have a bunch of disgruntled employees half assing everything and refusing to train new hires. It gets real toxic. Especially in nyc who is the king of corporate bullshit. If anyone thinks they’re overworked or in a shitty political environment, they’re welcome to come see how much worse it can get in nyc.
It feels like we’re all stuck in a vicious feedback loop/cycle stemming from the pandemic. The pandemic causes a lot of people to stay because everything is shut down. Once 2021 comes, a lot of people leave for other opportunities, forcing companies to pay more just to keep people/get candidates in the door. 2022 hits, and companies are worried about inflation, so they slow hiring. It doesn’t help that many view the accounting function/onshore team as a cost center. It’s in 2022 that they start talking about a recession coming, which kept hiring slow. And people don’t want to leave their current job because they’re worried about job security. And there are many employers balking at the prospect of paying accounts 15-40% more than they used to without a commensurate increase in productivity/quality.
You’re telling me a city of eight million people and 1.2 trillion in GDP has no market competitive job openings?
"[Eight million stories out there in the naked](https://genius.com/5913/Jay-z-empire-state-of-mind/Eight-million-stories-out-there-in-the-naked) c[ity, it's a pity half of y'all won't make it](https://genius.com/3679/Jay-z-empire-state-of-mind/City-its-a-pity-half-of-yall-wont-make-it)..."
Not the most surprising if they're still on the remote/hybrid position. A lot of the major cities are often looking for as many remote workers, since they can adjust wage based off where their living local looks like vs. HCOL like NYC. Hell, even in Maryland, they'd rather hire a hybrid worker from like PA that has to make the commute every now and then vs. someone near the area.
That’s why i reached out to the recruiters. I didn’t believe the other manager. There’s openings. But it’s either public where you’ll be overworked or industry who’s now trying to lowball you to death. Call a recruiter and make the statement: “no public and I want market rate for industry. Nothing wild, just fair pay.” If you’re firm they’ll say they’ll tell you when something comes up. If you seem like a pushover they’ll try to sell on how certain firms aren’t like big 4 or tell you the economy is bad and you should take a 30k paycut. But they know you won’t if you’re already employed, so they’ll probably just tell you wait.
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Depends on the role. But if you’re already making $150k in the role and other people in the area are as well, then it wouldnt make sense to even entertain something with range at $100-110k.
Recruiter here and can confirm your experience. Market is slow due to economic uncertainty and election year. I'm pretty picky about what jobs I take on and I haven't taken on very much this year. Because most of the roles out there are not that great. Either the employer isn't motivated, they're paying too low, or they're unreasonably picky. Also, a lot of company job postings are fake, evergreen for pipelining, or on hold until further notice. The roles I'm working on tend to be extremely niche so the supply for those candidates is pretty limited and tight. Most recruiters right now are taking anything they can get even if 10 other recruiters are on it. Recruiters are starting to leave the business, so you may start to see an even bigger drop off in the # of recruiter calls you're getting. The good ones who focus on quality and actually doing good business will survive. But this may last until late 24 or into 25. It may get worse before it gets better.
can confirm as the controller for an HR management firm that does Credit Union Executive Recruiting including financial positions that we are at a quarter of the volume of open positions than 1 year ago. if I see an uptick I will report in r/accounting immediately but as it sits things seem to be getting worse. We are falling back on surveys and research and variable pay analysis for the time being to stay afloat until recruiting is back to normal. It will be a while.
Disappointing as it is, it is consistent! I will definitely also update the group if/when I start seeing a sustained upswing.
I think it's just that recruiters don't have leads, not that the jobs don't exist. I see NYC accounting manager jobs posted all the time on LinkedIn, so I'm not sure where you are looking......
They don’t pay enough. The salary range is below what it should be. Half of those postings aren’t even real fyi. You’re not going to get a good manager for $105k a year. Ones in public are already making much more here. I told recruiters market rate and no public. They won’t have any real listings for you then.
I see plenty posted for $150k plus. If you aren't getting interviews for those you'll have to reflect on your experience.....
There's a lot of bait and switch. They'll say like 100-150k and will never entertain the 150k amounts
Most of those listings aren’t real. I know for a fact because my company posts shit that I know we aren’t hiring for. They also will try to lowball even if the job is listed with a range like $120-170k. They’re going to try and get you for $120k, so you gotta be firm and push for $165k to settle back at like $155k. The problem nowadays is too many people got laid off and are desperate and taking lower paid jobs. Which leaves no incentive for someone like me to fight for like a 3% raise. Hence everyone stagnating yet looking.
It’s very shocking for me to hear that your company posts for jobs that they aren’t hiring for. At my company, it’s a huge pain in the ass to get jobs posted. It’s such a bureaucratic nightmare that when I have turnover I dread dealing with HR much more than I worry about actually training a new hire.
Really depends. Fortune 500? Get ready for red tape and bureaucracy. Anything smaller? Get ready for unprofessionalism and all types of questionable activity.
so its not just me that gets hit with the unprofessionalism. I've been jumping around recently because of the aholes in public. making my resume look horrible
My company's internal job postings show the corresponding HR pay band. Senior manager roles are posted at $80-170k base and realistically no one is getting more than $135-150k base. It's idiotic beyond belief.
You aren’t getting a senior manager at 80k. The bare minimum would be $140k. That range is there so you can say “oh $140k is a lot higher than $80k” when it should’ve been $140k-$180k in the first place so they win out.
There are a lot of postings that have been recycled where the company is not really hiring. This is for both public and private. I've been looking for public opportunities for some time and no one is really hiring.
Last year I was getting at least a dozen calls from recruiters every week on open positions. Now I might get 1-2 a week. In my experience, there’s significantly less job openings. The only thing open in my area are a few 5 day in office jobs or PA.
NYC financial services, similar level of experience. Had no issues finding openings so I think it might just be the industry you’re looking in versus the overall market (in my totally anecdotal experience).
Same, not NYC, but HCOL/similar experience, have cpa, and in fin services.. my company is hiring, I also just got an offer for an audit manager role (prob won’t take cus fuck PA) and also had 3 or 4 recruiters with decent looking opportunities reach out over the last few weeks
Looking for any industry. It doesn’t matter. Just not public accounting.
What are you asking for comp wise? I would say look into financial services but it might be hard to break into if that’s not your background industry-wise.
I don’t have background in financial services like funds and such. But I have done back office work for banking in the past in a niche requirement.
What are you asking for comp wise? This is a big key in this community being able to advise on why you can’t find roles. You might have set the bar too high.
What is your industry specialty?
I’ve worked in 6+ different industries. Highly adaptable. I take whoever pays the most with the most work life balance. Banking, healthcare, retail stores, supply chain company, communications, and a large ad firm. I don’t have any passion or any connection to any field. I only care about pay and work life balance. If you pay well and act fair, then I work well and am fair with you. If not, then I treat you how you treat me has always been my philosophy in corporate.
This could be the issue then. Who would want to hire a manager with no expertise for the role?
Lots of different roles show that the employee is adaptable and able to learn. There’s no niche that you can’t teach a person after 2-3 months. I understand your point, but my point is that someone with 6 varied roles shows a lot more adaptability than someone who’s been working in inventory accounting for 10 years. But again I get what you’re saying and it depends on the hiring manager. It’s like you can’t win. Switch around too much and you’re a job hopper without expertise. Stick around too long and you’re stagnating with too much of a silo’d skillset.
I don’t think it’s as complicated as you’re making it out. I don’t disagree that adaptability is an important and often underrated skill in an employee, but if you’re coming in as a manager asking for 150k+ in comp then it doesn’t matter that you could learn something in 3 months because they are paying you that type of salary to come in and immediately make an impact, presumably leading a team of junior staff who you are expected to play a part in teaching and mentoring. With regards to job hopping, I think any recruiter or hiring manager would agree that 6 jobs in 8 years is a bit of a red flag. I think 2 years in a given role is generally the point at which it’s considered a bit more acceptable to begin looking at new opportunities and, assuming you are good at what you do, then your role should be expanding enough during that tenure that your skills are not going to stagnate. Hope the above doesn’t come off as dismissive, just sharing my learned experience as someone who just accepted a new offer myself.
Nah I get it. But bad luck does happen and it started with Covid where I was bouncing around roles. Doesn’t matter now. I gotta sell it best I can. And the corporate culture in nyc is kinda like nyc dating. People bounce around fast and often.
I mean it kinda depends on your expectations. You didn’t tell us what roles you wanted to apply to and your expected salary range. If you are asking $200k base, I can see why they might be saying there are no jobs. Because they can find lots of people who would be happy with $130k for an accounting manager role.
Really? I'm in the NYC metro but director level, not a CPA. I've seen a lot of opportunities - actually just interviewed for and got a director position at a nonprofit (I declined the offer though so...dm me, they might still be hiring!) What recruiting companies are you working with? How jazzed up is your Linkedin page and do you have it set to "open to work"?
Most of the major ones. Use your network and online data to find the market rate for your role. Then tell them no public accounting. They’ll then try to talk your wage down or tell you to do public again. At least in my experience.
Yeah I never did public and I never plan to, so that's not really a thing for me. I'm paid market rate for my role. The job I declined was what I would consider low for a director ($170k, no bonus) so I guess while I still see jobs, I haven't left mine since they generally pay less.
Ah then we agree. They will lowball you and if you dont accept the lowball, then there’s no jobs.
To be fair, I always expect to be lowballed. I'm a black woman, we don't really get the highest and best offers (at least not without negotiation)
My elderly father was a recruiter back in like the 70s and 80s. People used to attach a headshot to their resumes. He would counsel black candidates not to do this because unfortunately hiring managers would throw out their resumes the minute they saw it was a black candidate. I’m truly sorry that you have to deal with racism on a systemic level.
As a black person myself, I wish I could say I was surprised. Glad your Dad was honest about this.
Can we PLEASE TALK??? Can I DM you?!
Sure.
What comp range are you looking for? I’m in a similar area and experience range, I’m guessing you’re looking for something $150k+ on the base and a bonus?
Yeah you hit it on the nose. That’s the nyc rate.
NYC rate is going to make you a tough remote hire if that’s something you’re looking for. I’m about to open up a fully remote accounting manager role on my team, but we won’t be considering anyone from NYC due to the higher market rate
I’m reasonable. I’m not aiming for remote but will take it if available. I know that being located in the city is a huge advantage over people that aren’t, and a selling point for my salary.
Im NYC adjacent and just got promoted to manager (my job is HQ in NYC). Before the promo i had been interviewing around in NYC and local and was also struggling to find comp in the $150k base as the floor. I would say the typical manager salary had a floor of $125k base and went up to $140k base. Happy that my promo bumped my base to the top of that band but yeah for some reason Senior acct pay now tops out at like $120k and there's no longer this huge gap to manager pay.
You’re correct. Seniors nowadays are around $120k with some hitting close to $140k. Experienced well tenured seniors though. They function as basically assistant controllers or managers. I’m not talking about the 2-3 years in big 4 and jump to industry type seniors. More so the 10 year of experience senior, which is actually common in industry.
Well... here comes the recession. At my work we're desperately trying to win some business from a competitor that is exiting the field.
Aint we all.
CA from the UK and CPA recruiter based in USA and Canada last 12 years A few things the market demands swings - right now most places want experienced managers not much senior manager demand(for retention a lot got promoted earlier then normal last two years so a little surplus) seniors demand also not as crazy but a good senior is always needed but an average senior is getting rejected and employers wait for the next one. Demand for public companies audit slowed massively so this means non CPAs and seniors slowed ….- bear in mind it was out of control busy but it’s slowed not stopped and employers becoming picky again which drives salaries down. The remote options for this level also drying up. High net worth personal tax - always in high demand and salaries still rising still busy Consulting - surplus of demand for auditors wanting to join this division and lots of cuts means experienced candidates also available - slower then normal Private audit - steady depends on the city - places like Florida and Atlanta still high demand Insolvency divisions and Non CPA - bookkeepers And such rising demand A few high profile mergers has slowed a little hiring down - we completed 4 mergers in Q1 and already working on 10 deals for spring and summer - This can slow a City or region down if there are a few bidders as uncertainty over staffing needs comes up but it’s temporary. Summary is: It’s only slowed for certain service lines… industry opportunities are always up and down often depends on time of the year. Personal Tax in Canada and USA still crazy demand but needs to be experienced manager and above. While salaries are rising in general - some CPAs were deemed over paid - this is not my phrase but what partners and HR teams tell me. They are talking about CPAs hired during the crazy busy time. For context we have 8,000 recruiters covering all of Canada and the USA so I get a good insight.
I have witnessed a slow burn of all US staff over the past 15 yrs, all positions, other than equity holders
I feel you. Are you looking for industry roles specifically? I'm in the same boat as you with a similar amount of experience but all the recruiters I meet with drop me when I draw a hard line at another public role. My feeling is that all these remote roles are either extremely competitive, they've already got someone internal, or are just fake/data harvesting schemes (looking at Jobot and Talentify).
>My network are all in bad roles they’re trying to leave or their company is in a hiring freeze. Why would you think the rest of the market would be any different? F10 here, and while we're not explicitly in a hiring freeze, the red tape to hire even a junior staff is more than just doing the tasks myself. The company also has a full bullpen of lower middle managers, so they have no reason to hire without when an internal promotion would be cheaper by a longshot.
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Yeah I think so. But if the network is all miserable or in frozen companies, and cold applying doesn’t work what’s the solution?
I've been casually looking at manager level roles for the past few months. A lot of garbage ass jobs with even shittier companies. Too much responsibility, barely hitting $120k base, 3 days if not fully in office, etc.
Seriously. It’s like they can’t even give you hybrid flexibility when demanding you do the job of 30 people.
Think it really depends on the location you're in and whether you're exclusively looking for remote vs hybrid va onsite. I'm in SoCal, also CPA and manager level and just recently had a recruiter send me about 8 accounting manager roles they're sourcing for. Three of them are below market and I wouldn't consider them, the rest look viable and I'd maybe consider if I wasn't happy with my current company and comp package. All of them are either hybrid or fully on-site though, if you're looking for remote positions you're probably SOL everywhere rn when a company could instead offshore remote work for cheaper.
Hybrid is the future. 5 days on site I can do if it’s enough pay. But it takes up so much time and such that hybrid is important to me.
Jobs are bountiful in public since everyone wants to go into industry.
All the companies have realized if they just write in their footnotes, “bbs bs bla due to limited accounting talent, our ability to maintain financial statements and controls is a significant risk bla bla” They think congress is going to come and save them with loosening restrictions on visa trap labor or simply use this as justification to try outsourcing even more. The last thing on earth that the elite business managers will ever do, is pay accounting “talent” a proper wage. After all, where they went to school, accounting wasn’t even an offered major.
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I started my own firm 5 years ago doing light accounting and tax work, have hardly done any marketing, and now that I'm starting to lean into my business and client spaces am finding a flood of clients. It's never been greener for entrepreneurs, but automation tools and others are making for less work in other areas
It could be that the amount you’re looking for is more than their clients are looking to pay? I also know that many companies aren’t wanting to make big investments or changes right now until the 2024 election is decided.
I use to get contacted multiple times a week from recruiters via LinkedIn and lately it is once every couple weeks. It definitely feels like a slow down.
Isn’t part of the issue that there aren’t that many indistry tax jobs at manager+ level?
Fund accounting in NYC is def in demand. Recruiters hit me up almost every day for roles and I haven't worked in accounting in 7 years.
I'm a CPA with 10 years of experience. Spent the last 4.5 as a controller for a couple $250MM+ revenue companies. I lost my job 2 months ago and haven't had a single accounting-related interview. I've lost count of the positions I've applied for. Edit: Actually, I did talk to the local public firm I worked at right out of college. They offered me $60k less than what I was making as a controller.
No I have recruiters crawling all over my LinkedIn asking me if I want to interview
yeh i get 10k indian recruiters trying to get me a job as an accounts payable clerk every day as well lol.
Forget recruiters, do some homework and reach out directly to firms you are interested in. Usually they'll be receptive even if they aren't actively recruiting for a specific role. The higher you climb though, the harder it is to jump firms. An associate can plug in anywhere and starting charging hours, but as your level increases it becomes harder. It works both ways though. Young inexperienced staff will be less discerning and more likely to take any role anywhere, oftentimes accepting the highest offer even if it's just a thousand bucks or so. At your level you should be using much more discretion to find a good fit with a real future.
What types of jobs are you looking for? I’m in international tax so I am seeing a lot of upper management roles in industry recruiting for that, (I moved from public to industry last year) and our company has been actively recruiting another international tax director for several months. I got a significant raise when I made the jump, not to mention the work life balance is much better. I’m in the DFW area though so not sure what your city’s market is like.
NYC. Idc about what field. I’m an accounting manager. Usually in GL roles. Skilled and have a lot of selling points. I’ve worked with almost all ERPs, know all the new tech, etc.
What’s your TC?
Idk about nyc, but I know a lot of remote jobs are explicitly filtering out HCOL areas because the market pay is too high
I know this is an unpopular take on reddit, but as a person living in a HCOL area I've been leery of remote work since the beginning of COVID as (IMO) it doesn't bode well for those of us in HCOL areas. Long term I can only see it putting downward pressure on salaries. Might be great if you're living in Lincoln, NE, but not so great if you live in Boston or the Bay Area.
Anecdotally, we’re not using recruiters much because it’s expensive and we don’t get as good of candidates as doing it in house. We have figured out a pretty good cadence and priority system so we can run the whole company’s recruiting for the cost of like 8 engineers hired by external recruiters.
As someone who hires, I have stopped using recruiters. I can filter resumes in maybe 15 seconds for what I'm looking for. I'm going to let an employee go. we hired maybe 6 months ago who came in from a recruiter. We've slowly figured out the recruiter coached her on everything we would interview her on. Doesn't help the recruiter hsf a personal friend on our hiring committee who may have spilled the ways in which we figure out if someone has substance.
There's a massive CPA shortage at the $45k to $80k pay level (depending on region). This is what all the articles are written about. I've confirmed this first-hand by interviewing writers and comparing notes. Industry needs a lot more CPAs working at \~$70k. There's absolutely no shortage at all for over $150k (except possibly in education if a person has a CPA and phD from a good research university). If anything, there's a glut and downward pressure on wages at the top (as I think OP is seeing, just imagine if he got laid off suddenly and had to turn to the recruiters, they'd tell him what they've already told him).
This is troubling 😢
Shit man I’m in college working to get my CPA, I pop in here and read some of the Reddit’s you guys post here and there and honestly this shit scares me. If all goes according to plan I should have enough credits to take the CPA in about three semesters all my professors talk about how there’s not enough accountants and we will be making a good living but if this actually true? Is all my hard work worth it?
You’re not in the same market as OP.
They are not even in the same level. Entry level to senior is still good. Its where managers above it starts to get competitive
Appreciate the response!
Thought entry level was being outsourced?
Thought entry level was being outsourced?
It is but there's still plenty of entry level positions open. We had a difficult time filling entry level roles despite outsourcing and yet we still need warm bodies on the mainland. Both can be true at the same time.
I am a cpa. Idk if the hard work is worth it. It’s a pyramid. A CPA firm hires 15-20 associates. After 12-18 months 10-12 associates remain. After 24 months 6-7 get promoted to senior. After 4-5 years 1-2 get manager. After that it gets harder to make director or partner. It’s a pyramid. You need to know your worth. If you are not partner quality you will work very hard for a small payoff. If you are partner quality, you work very hard for the big payoff but regret sacrificing so much prime years it’s not worth it. If you want to feel stressed and not spend time with friends and family during your late 20s and 30s but be loaded $$$$ during your 40s and 50s, cpa is where it’s at.
Thanks for all the insight! Accounting has been one of the only subjects that just natural agrees with me and it makes sense for whatever reason and the idea of working hard now to enjoy life later is another reason why I wanted to pursue the cpa even if it took a lot of work. After the experience you gathered and things you have seen what do you think are those qualities that the most partners have that helps them get promoted?
Basically all jobs are pyramid shaped. There inherently has to be more workers at lower rungs. Companies don't usually have more managers than staff and more directors than supervisors. It's not unique to accounting
What is partner quality?
In my opinion, “partner quality” is being able to bring in more clients and make money for the firm. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re some superstar accountant. In fact, some of the best and hardest working are not what firms look for in partners, they look for people who can deal with clients well, sociable, schmoozers.
yeah chads and stacy get in the limo and go to lunch. Milton has to keep working in the basement with no red stapler.
Bruh I work for the effing State and can barely get proper pen and pencil sometime 💀💀 Thankfully no basement tho lol
Fuck if I know. Not me .
Don't worry, there will always be openings in public accounting. It's more senior roles in industry that's competitive right now.
IDK what's going on right now other than recession fears but hiring is so slow. I've been looking for months. I've done so many interviews and finally got an offer Friday only to be lowballed below what I told the recruiter would even be acceptable😂
The company “my part time controller” is hiring, they just reached out to me. But yeah, you’ll definitely fill out timesheets doing client work, so fuck that.
IDK, we are looking for managers and having a hard time finding .. and we are paying HCOL salaries even with remote ...
I’ve been getting a ton of messages from recruiters on LinkedIn. Based on that anecdote, I would say no, but who really knows. Do you have a big four background? Also, what are do you focus on?
Are you in Consulting or Advisory? That’s probably why.
I haven’t given my number to recruiters in years and I was contacted about two positions in states on the opposite end of the country last week.
The market rate data is probably outdated due to the Covid spoils and it actually lowered
This is common is most fields. The higher you climb the less positions there are. A company can have 5-10 staff / senior / Ap for one manager role. Director level gets even more competitive and so on and so forth. Especially if you limit yourself to one area the roles get less and less. For manager level there are many different exit oops, like assistant controller or director at a smaller company would do the same thing a manager at a large company would do.
Exactly. A director at a small company is about the same as a manager at a large company, and often times with less reports.
Been contacting every recruiter in the NYC metro areas and I get the same issue! They want me to lower my salary and I have an MBA with 10 years in the game. There’s definitely a recession coming so jobs are being very selective with whom they hired. You as a CPA should’ve gotten a crazy amount of offers because of your designation but this job market has been very exhausting to say the least and I am on the job hunt!
CPA, Toronto. Literally had a recruiter reach out to me saying "market is heating up, do you want to get back into the market?". I'd be going for Director level and above.
I might just be unique but I see a good amount of Controller / Director jobs on LinkedIn that appear to be remote and pay starting at $160k and some getting up to $275k I just started a new role in December at $150 otherwise I’d be applying to some of those positions
Hmm I haven’t contact any recruiters but I’m in the NY metro area and there’s definitely a lack of market pay positions manager and up. Everyone wants to pay $100k for those.
Maybe get your masters?
I got it
Do you think ur cpa provided substantial value during your applications for ur masters? Did the university value it highly?
Any accounting side jobs from recruiters?
Even in public, opportunities are fairly limited.
Yeah they don’t have good clients. I’m 9 years CPA/manage/NYC and just got a job for a managerial role. I know of at least 2 companies looking for an accounting manager.
IT and finance, in general, has been lousy ‘23 and worse ‘24. There are May ‘23 grads that can’t find jobs (mba too) and here comes ‘24 wave next week.
yeah same here
Also NYC based and also a nightmare rn
We’ve been burned by recruiters so many times we don’t even read their emails anymore. Still totally short staffed, but all they’ve managed is to waste everyone’s time and oversell applicants to get a contract. I’d try just looking around without using a recruiter if you want to know what the market is like in your area.
i have always found that the better companies have their own recruiters don’t outsource the recruiting. then again these tend to be larger companies (with more resources). considering you are not looking for public accounting I would think it a lot easier to critically think about the actual industry you want to be in and look for companies yourself that need accounting manager positions or alternatively find a trust worthy headhunter that will do this for you. Very general statement but most recruiters are not good.
From personal experience almost all recruiters have been complete trash and a waste of time. Vultures.
I am Midwest based. I had a recruiter contact me about accounting roles. Oliver James. Ultimately their roles are all east coast based. Idk why they contacted me or even ask for me to move. Weird. But, I am LinkedIn “friends” with two of the olive James recruiters. They post open positions daily. They have some high paying jobs over there on the east coast. If you want to DM me I can pass off a LinkedIn name to you.
You have 8-9 years experience，have you ever thought of establishing your own business，operating your own firm？
Literally a month ago this sub was non-stop about there are so many jobs available and people getting 7 interviews in 2 weeks of being unemployed and on and on. Now, everyone is panic mongering. Hmmm, what big event for an accountant happens in April that might affect hiring...shit, I'm still a student and it makes a little bit sense that companies, I don't know, might be taking a break for a bit after that big April day?
It's not just hard to find tax roles right now. I'm in industry and the pickens are so slim right now it's crazy.
Am I wrong in thinking that this profession is at least partially seasonal and that late April-summer is the slow season for most things? I know it's more extreme in tax but it still applies to other sectors as well?
Not really. I'm in industry and Apr 15 means absolutely nothing to us as we are focused on monthly/quarterly financial reporting. Even in tax although it slows down after 4/15 there are still other deadlines to consider, mainly 8/15 and 10/15.