Wannabe Accountants

Last week I attended the Ontario Universities Fair and was pleasantly surprised by the questions from parents and students alike. There were quite a number who seemed generally interested in our program, as well as a larger-than-usual group who wanted to become teachers. Yet, as always, the line up of those wanting to become accountants was dwarfed only by the pool of aspiring future journalists.

I have never been able to understand this. Of course my bias against the accounting profession may come from the fact that my own father turned away from it to do something "more rewarding" before he even completed his CA. My best friend from childhood obtained his CA designation and quickly decided that auditing wasn't how he wanted to spend the rest of his life either. Accounting isn't exactly a "sexy" career choice, so why do such large groups of teenagers claim they want to be CA's, CGAs, and the like?

My best guess is that many of them don't! They may actually want to be musicians, artists, or historians, but their parents won't hear of it. Others might see a professional designation as the clearest way to guarantee membership in the country's top tax bracket. Or perhaps they've heard there are openings at Enron and like the idea of moving to Houston. ;-)

I don't have anything against being an accountant per say, but I fear that many people look to the profession as a default position without realizing the multitude of career options that exist. It may be a good stepping stone to some future corporate position but so is an MBA in finance - if that's really the route you decide upon once you have some experience.

Of course I'm not ruling out the fact that some people actually enjoy working with income statements and balance sheets. Surely there are those who, as children, waited in anticipation each day for the brief Sesame Street segments that featured "The Count" and his unusual fascination with numbers. And if accounting is really your dream job then I fully support going after it.

But if numbers are your fancy, wouldn't it be more fun using them to calculate the moon's gravitational pull on the Earth? Or how about watching the digits rise on the speedometer of a new sports car that your design team helped to build? Actually, maybe that's the answer! These students really just want a big firm to sign their pay cheques so they can buy a nice set of wheels! Now that's a motivation I can understand.