They’re cybersecurity experts and expert witnesses. They lead major corporations and advise big-time athletes and rock stars. Some even carry guns and badges.
They’re accountants.
And they have an image problem, at least among young people, who are liable to call them number crunchers and bean counters–and who see a profession long stereotyped as boring.
“I definitely had that perception, even though I wanted to do it,” said Robin Levy, a 27-year-old audit supervisor at San Jose’s Shilling & Kenyon/SK Consulting. “But the perception that accountants just sit with a calculator all day, closed up and kind of nerdy … I’ve found that not to be the case at all.”
Accountants have earned a good reputation with the public, said Susan Waters, chief executive officer of the California Society of Certified Public Accountants. At the same time, people don’t appreciate how diverse accounting careers can be, she said.
“The public focuses on one aspect of accounting, auditing and things like that,” Waters said. “It’s a very important part of the profession, but it’s a richer and more varied job than that image seems to imply.”
The organization kicked off its student outreach program in November because of a drop in nationwide accounting enrollment. There were 22 percent fewer bachelor’s and master’s degree accounting students in 1998-99 than in 1995-96, according to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Stereotypes are only partly to blame. In recent years, young people have shunned accounting for high-tech careers that promised instant riches, said David George, the California society’s chairman.
That attitude is likely to change now that the dot-com bubble has burst, he said. Accountants don’t necessarily become millionaires, but they do earn a decent living. A general audit, tax and cost accountant with one to three years of experience at a large company would earn $38,500 to $40,750 a year, according to the Robert Half International 2002 salary guide.
“Kids will be scrambling around trying to figure out what they will be doing,” George said. “They will be trying to find more stable professions.”
George believes the campaign will go a long way toward crushing misconceptions about the profession, particularly in the wake of the Enron debacle.
“It’s going to create an opportunity for us,” George said. “It provides a greater awareness of the situation and provides students with the knowledge that this is a very important profession.
“We’ll tell them while this event (Enron) is visible and unpleasant, it is not representative of the profession as a whole.”
Like many of her friends, Levy could have taken the dot-com route. But she chose accounting because it was a solid career that gives her an inside look at how companies operate.
“There were definitely times when I questioned, `What am I doing?'” Levy said. “But I know I’m doing the right thing. I’m very happy here.”
Vanessa Hill, 31, chose accounting over a career as an FBI agent. Her father is a retired FBI agent, and her stepmother still works there. Although some agents are CPAs, Hill didn’t like the idea of being in “kind of a paramilitary” organization. She also didn’t want to carry a gun.
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As a manager in litigation consulting services at San Francisco’s Hemming Morse, she conducts financial investigations. Her specialty is known as forensic accounting.
“Before I left for college, my father told me to have a major that meant I could get a job,” she said. “He suggested accounting, and I said, `No way. That’s way too geeky.’ I would never have guessed then that I would be an accountant.”