[TheWaitContinues]

Hello all,

I hope that everyone is doing well. From my last post, I requested some tips and help on how to land a job that will get me the necessary work experience to become licensed after I passed all parts of the exam. I would like to thank whomever assisted me and those that read my post. Fortunately, I was able to land a job, which was at a hotel ( I was trying to stay away, though I have experience working hospitality), and surprisingly my boss is a CPA which you don’t usually find much in the industry. I am currently doing AR work with few projects that will help me with my experience. Overall, I don’t think that I am exposed enough to the appropriate amount of experience in a year to earn my license. My question is, should I be worried about becoming a CPA without knowing the minimum a CPA should know?

Thank you for every assistance and feedback.

[Anonymous]

It's going to vary from state to state. In Ohio the term “experience” is very liberal. You can have basic accounting / bookkeeping duties that qualify in any industry. Other states may be more strict with their experience requirements.

Most states do require a CPA to sign off on your experience. Since your boss is a CPA, if you stay there a year you should be good.

[Anonymous]

If your state board accepts the experience, then it's acceptable. Being a CPA doesn't mean you know everything; it means you have enough knowledge of everything to pass general exams and that you've done qualifying real work for a year. A/R and some additional projects could be enough if it meets your state requirements (it would meet mine).

[TheWaitContinues]

Thank you very much for the input guys. I was just worried that I become a CPA but lack basic CPA knowledge.

Happy 4th of July to everyone.

[fuzyfro89]

No such thing as ‘basic CPA knowledge'.

I worked in external audit, internal audit, and now corporate finance. I know next to nothing about taxes. Conversely, someone who worked in taxes may be clueless in other areas. Someone who worked in only internal audit may know very little about financial statements. And so it goes…

Getting your CPA is step 1. Your career is step 2. You have to own it (as cliche as that sounds) to make sure that you continue to develop and advance… not on day one, but for the many years ahead.

[Missy]

With or without a CPA, the type of job you desire is going to be looking for that specific type of experience. If you're applying to a job as a controller for a manufacturing job they won't be as impressed with 30 years hospitality experience as they would with 2 years'; manufacturing experience, and vice versa. Your best bet is to start with the job you see yourself doing in 5-10 years then work backwards to figure out what specific experience would be the building blocks to that career. If you see yourself as a CFO in hospitality you may very well already be on the right path,

You're never going to have all encompassing experience that qualifies you for any job that lists CPA as a prereq. The positions that CPAs hold are just too vast.

Old timer,  A71'er since 2010.

Finance manager/HR manager

 

 

Licensed Massachusetts Non Reporting CPA since 2012
Finance/Admin/HR Manager

[Author]

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