Revenge of the nerds

The big firms are scrambling to hire aggressively – and early – to fill the large demand for accountants. The labour shortage is so great, word in the industry has it that if you were trying to sell an accounting firm, the best scenario would be to have 30 employees and no clients.

Welcome to the new reality: commerce has become mainstream. The trend is reflected in criminal trials that capture mass-media headlines. In the 1990s, the most sensational criminal trials involved alleged celebrity atrocities as in William Kennedy Smith’s rape trial and O.J. Simpson’s murder trial. In this decade, the most famous criminal trials have been the prosecution of Enron’s Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling and Andrew Fastow, with Fastow making dramatic allegations against Canadian banks at his sentencing for securities fraud.

The Enron scandal has helped the accounting profession and expanded the need for accountants. In 2002, the U.S. government passed the Sarbanes-Oxley act, commonly referred to as SOX, to protect investors and re-establish confidence in the U.S. capital markets. These days, companies are scrambling to comply with the regulations. The costs of compliance are still being determined, but an average-sized publicly traded company in the U.S. can expect a US$1-million accounting bill, while the largest public companies can expect to pay upwards of US$12 million a year. This means billions of dollars for the accounting industry.

“SOX was the best thing to happen to accounting,” UBC accounting prof Johan de Rooy says. “It blew the business open. Ten years ago we thought we sold audits. Post-Enron, we now know that what we really sell is believability, trust and security.”

When accountants fail at their core tasks, we see havoc in the capital markets. Thanks to the overly creative accountants at Enron, today’s accountants are enjoying a boom, charged with cleaning up the system that allowed the debacle to happen. It took an Enron-sized accounting screw-up to show the true value of competent and honest accountancy.

Still, where there’s room to play with numbers, and with today’s understanding of how important that play is for capital markets, accountancy is seen as anything but a cookie-cutter job for a bean counter. “If you are not creative, you are not an accountant,” says de Rooy, “you’re a bookkeeper.” If accounting simply involved bookkeeping, then Enron’s downfall might never have transpired. Accounting practices are open to interpretation and, to a large degree, are subjective.

The rising profile of accounting, coupled with growing demand, has led to a hot job market, and the profession is attracting a wide range of people who see it as the route to a vibrant career in business. “It’s exciting to teach students with multidisciplinary backgrounds who have an aptitude to pursue a career in accounting,” de Rooy says. “We’re seeing a rich blend of students who have non-accounting backgrounds, and they are being attracted by an explosion of available work.”

Joanna Mukai entered UBC’s Diploma in Accounting Program after completing an honours degree in French literature at Princeton University. Even with a prestigious undergrad degree, she was surprised at the speed with which she was hired. “I was very fortunate to receive offers from my three top-ranked firms,” she says. “The offers came with gifts: iPod speakers, a laptop bag and a piece of carry-on luggage. Although I really liked all three firms, I felt most comfortable with the people from Deloitte, so money was not an important factor. My fit with the firm was the deciding factor, and the accountants I met through recruiting were a brilliant, passionate and diverse group of people.”

UBC’s Kiu Ghanavizchian takes the new perception of accountants a step further. He states right on his course syllabus: “My ultimate goal in this course is to make you more fun at parties. Real accountants are those people who can converse intelligently about how the financial markets function and how they react to accounting information. These accountants are the ones who achieve the greatest financial success, have rewarding careers and are more likely to have an active sex life.”

Sex and accounting? Yes, in the real world, and outside the stereotypes, accountants do enjoy a good lifestyle that may even include such things as sex, travel and perhaps even art. As an occupation, accountancy offers the economic freedom needed to engage in exciting activities. Salary is a draw. After 10 years, the average expected salary of a certified accountant is $150,000 a year.

With a career in accounting, you know that the salary is going to be competitive. What’s left are the perks. Andrea Ciolfitto, a recruiter at KPMG LLP, says it all comes down to lifestyle. “Less and less, money makes a difference,” she says. “The current generation has more choice, and they are looking for intangible benefits. They want training. They want a good life.”

The battle for recruits has less to do with salaries than it does with a firm’s allocation of “personal care time” or willingness to pay for yoga classes. Students who sign a contract with KPMG are given a laptop to help them finish their schooling. They will also get a pair of bionic running shoes and access to language classes so they can learn Spanish, French or Mandarin in their spare time.

In the ’90s, jobs in high-tech were the hot thing for the young generation less interested in money than the lifestyle attached to a career. HR departments knew that they could attract vibrant talent with smaller salaries if they put a pool table in the staff room, let employees come to work in ripped jeans and encouraged them to adorn their office space with posters and Star Wars action figures.

You probably won’t see any miniature Darth Vaders adorning the desks at Ernst & Young LLP, but the push toward selling accountancy as a desirable lifestyle is evident. EY gives its employees a $1,000 stipend to spend on recreational activities such as gym memberships or ski passes. The job can be demanding but, as Ernst & Young’s Tom Whalen puts it, “You are not thinking about an audit when you are dropping into the back bowls at Whistler or you are up to your waist in powder.”

International accounting standards are harmonizing, and that gives accountants greater flexibility to work overseas. Canadian accountancy designations are recognized throughout the world and further opportunities are opening up, such as the mutual-recognition agreement CGA Canada signed this past December allowing CGAs to work in the European Union.

As the current generation of students takes a closer look at accounting, they are seeing a profession that breaks the nerd stereotype and offers everything they are looking for in a career. Even so, the stereotype still lives. In my first week in the Diploma in Accounting Program, I expected to be intimidated by the math, but that turned out to be okay; the only time I second¬-guessed my decision was when I ¬noticed a couple of my fellow students sporting cell phones attached to their belts. But now as I enter my second semester, I can ¬assure anyone looking at a career in ¬accountancy that it is possible to become an accountant, not care about golf and know that a cell phone is not a fashion accessory.

Accountancy is not a sentence to a life of boredom and bean counting. It requires a vast skill set that makes business function at a higher level. At parties, I have two choices when people ask me what I do. I can say that I’m a writer or that I’ve recently started a career in accounting. I use “writer” as a conversation starter and “accountant” as a conversation stopper. But more and more I’m owning up to my new profession.

A few weeks ago, I was having a pleasant conversation with a woman who asked me, “So what do you do?” I told her I was in training to be a comprehensive business expert for the development of the global economy.

“Well,” she said, “that sounds interesting.”