Staff Accountant vs Tax Analyst position

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  • #186533
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I have just graduated and I’ve got two job offers. One is for Staff Accountant in private, the other one is Tax Analyst in private too. I have 2 tax seasons as a seasonal Tax Prep working at tiny CPA firms through college. So, with the long term goal in mind (like one year) to pass all CPA parts and come back into public accounting, but this time to join bigger accounting firms ( mid-tier or even Big 4), would it be cool to have the Tax Analyst position on my resume as a continuation of my tax work in college and, the way I see it, it should be saying to the recruiter that I am seriously decided to specialize in tax. Or, would it be better to take Staff Accountant position, just because this way my experience would be more diverse, and I will still be doing sales tax returns in this position. Any opinions? I don’t have much experience with big accounting firms recruiters, so I am not sure how they see things. Does anybody know?

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  • #577849
    Skynet
    Participant

    Thread title was very misleading. Thought it was a 3 round MMA match between a staff accountant and a tax analyst is the octagon.

    If you plan on going to public accounting later i suggest the staff accountant position. Plus, once you pass all sections of the CPA exams, you can get licenced assuming the CPA you are working under is willing to sign off on the experience.

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    #577850
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I agree, but why? I just wanted to here some opinions…

    #577851
    taxman89
    Participant

    if you want to get into big 4 then go with staff accountant however if you like tax its not a bad idea to go with the tax analyst job. in my area you start off higher as a tax analyst than staff accountant. Plus if your goal is, for example, tax manager its not that much slower of a career path. We just hired a tax manager that came from a big 4 with 6 years exp (masters/cpa/jd etc) which is why they say big 4 exp>industry exp (i am assuming this is why you want to move to big 4). We also have a guy that started here out of school (with a masters) and he has been here 5 years and is prolly about 2-3 years from getting manager. Point being if you go 2 years industry move to big 4 it would prolly still take another 5-6 years in big 4 before you can jump back to industry as a manager so it might be quicker (if you can differentiate yourself and are good) to just tax the tax industry job.

    If your goal is big 4 partner than that paragraph is pointless….take the staff accountant job because it will be a better lead in to big 4.

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    #577852
    jaredo155
    Member

    It largely depends on what you want to do at the larger firms you plan to go back and work for, if you want the door open to both audit and tax then take the staff accountant job, if you know you want to be in tax then take the tax analyst job.

    It also depends on the size of the companies where these positions are available, are they the same size, if not the larger of the two companies is going to look better on a resume to the larger firms regardless of which position you take there.

    I don't think what taxman89 said is universally true, I started as a tax analyst at a Fortune 1000 company and our Tax Director was only 28, he went from law school to a big 4 spent 4 years there and made Manager, and was able to come to industry as a Director. Our Financial Reporting Director was 29, and had gotten his Masters worked for a big 4 for 6 years and made Manager, and then came to industry as a Director. The Managers in both of these departments were both in their late 30's and had spent their entire career in industry climbing the ladder (one had their Masters the other had their CPA). In my experience in the market I am in (a top 20 metro area) it is standard for you to receive at least a one title bump when you go from big 4 to industry (ie Senior becomes Manager or Manager becomes Director). This however is not true for national, regional, or local firms only the Big 4 get this treatment in my experience.

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    #577853
    taxman89
    Participant

    i am in a fortune 200 company with a tax dept of about 60 plus about another 20 or so overseas (so the size difference prolly makes a difference) and there is no way you make directed with less than 25years. however if you left here for another company's tax dept you would most likely get a position bump like what jaredo is talking about…..so basically jaredo is right….it totally depends on the company/situation

    edit: “he went from law school to a big 4 spent 4 years there and made Manager,” that was the exact career path of the manager we just hired, and manager is about 2 steps below director. so yeah….it varies….alot. which is why its awesome being able to ask on another71 because it gives your a bunch of different perspectives

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    #577854
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    “It also depends on the size of the companies where these positions are available, are they the same size, if not the larger of the two companies is going to look better on a resume to the larger firms regardless of which position you take there.”

    The two companies are of the same size basically, but the one with the tax analyst position is publicly traded. The other one is privately held. Can you say that you get more experience in publicly traded corp? I am not sure, give me a hint.

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