Accounting Careers: Substantial Change, Not Sizzle, Required to Attract Recruits

The AICPA is in the process of launching a five-year, $25 million ad campaign to attract more students into the accounting profession. While a noble effort, I don’t think the profession is addressing the real causes for the significant decline in enrollments in college accounting students across the country. By some estimates this decline has been at least 50 percent in the past 10 years!

To reverse the current trends in college enrollments in accounting programs, we need to understand that our profession has a serious value issue that is not being adequately addressed. While we can attempt to glorify the profession with ad campaigns, students are looking at their career alternatives from their point of view. What’s in it for me? How can I have a career and also a life? These life questions cannot be answered by trying to sell the same old book with a new cover.

At a recent national AICPA practioners conference, Allan Koltin, a well-known consultant to the profession, asked the audience a question. “How many of your children are becoming accountants and entering the profession”? The response was overwhelming! The vast majority of attendees responded that their children are not entering the profession. This hit very close to home, as I have a son who recently graduated with a degree in accounting and a very high GPA. He has made career plans outside the profession. He thinks he has a better opportunity elsewhere.

To understand what is happening, I think we have to examine why we entered the profession. I happen to be a baby boomer, 1948, and was the first in my family to get a degree. The first to enter a profession. The first in my family to experience the flexibility and satisfaction of a professional career. Life is work. My depression era parents taught me that hard work should be expected and tolerated as it goes with the turf. As I have consulted with CPAs around the country I find that my story is not unique. The vast majority of CPAs in my age group have pretty much the same story to tell. Professional accounting has been a conversion profession. From blue collar to white collar in just one generation! This was an opportunity that could be had with a four-year degree, a reasonable amount of intelligence and a lot of hard work. The true American dream.

Fast forward 30 years and the situation our children are dealing with is very different. You have been successful, provided an above average standard of living and in most cases all of your children have attended college, some gaining degrees from the most prestigious universities in the country. Now our children are looking for a better life, and that’s what we want for them. It’s very normal for parents to want their children’s lives to be better than theirs. Where have our lives been deficient? Time! Time for the family, time for a hobby, time to think. And we are not unique. Look at the nursing profession and the staffing shortages presently being experienced throughout the country. Again time is the issue, with 24-hour staffing and weekend work. My wife is a nurse, and neither of our children pursued her profession either.

In my opinion, time holds the solution to the CPA staffing problem. It is much more important than money as a long-term solution to the staffing of time-driven professions. The solutions will be just as complex as the problem. But starting with the question of where can we find more time when people want to spend less time, I offer the following thoughts:

1. Let’s spend our lobbying dollars trying to solve the problem of workload compression. Tax season has become a dirty word for many in the profession. It seems to me that it would be reasonable and prudent for our government to spread out the filing of tax returns throughout the year. A very simple solution that could do much to alleviate the shortage of experienced personnel in the profession.
2. Go out today and buy Ron Baker’s book on value pricing and then start using the billing techniques. If you link your value to time the only way you can increase your value is to give more time. Not smart!
3. Change the way we do the work. For more than 10 years I have asked my audiences how much of their work could be performed by someone with less experience. I very consistently get back numbers in excess of 50 percent. My next question is then why do we need more experienced personnel in the profession. The usual answer is that there is a charge time requirement and compensation is tied to that requirement.
   
   A partner who is not leveraged – does not delegate work - is simply not as valuable as one who has leveraged work. There is really no room in most firms for a partner or senior manager who will not leverage their work and skills. If they want to act as sole proprietors, doing all the work, let them operate as sole practioners. To test my theories, try allocating overhead on a per partner basis and watch how quickly the mindset changes.
4. Change your mindset. Rather than approaching your work from the viewpoint of how much you can work, why not have the expectation of how you can work less and make as much or more money. A very good friend is a dentist. He has leveraged his practice, works four days a week and makes an annual income that most accountants only dream about.

As you can see from my recommendations, the solution to the staffing problem in public accounting is not an external matter. The solution is very much within us if we will only rise to the challenge. Advertising will not change the demographics of our society or the expectations of younger generations. Let’s all get to work and make this a better profession!