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why aren't people leaving?

Okay fellow auditors...what happened to the complaining? Your zest to leave the audit field. I know there's plenty of accounting jobs out there. We still get those recruiter calls. Nobody's taking the bait and leaving. It's not like our industry is doing great. We're having layoffs too. Many of you have your CPAs, so it's not like you're waiting for the hours or anything. Are the firms just doing a better job at recruiting and retaining people? I mean, people stopped leaving even before the economy dipped. If the firms rely on people leaving so they can keep dipping into the college farm, and these people don't leave, do they have to keep laying off people all the time regardless of the economy. This is especially problematic at the promotional levels - senior associates and managerial levels. No firm can afford to have a plethora of people at these expensive levels, especially when the number of clients stay the same. HR's implicitly saying they're unsure of what to do since they haven't had this happen in the past. I'm baffled by this.

Come on people, leave.
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Comments

Daniel said…
Hello,

I do apologize for asking an off-topic question but I can't seem to get an answer anywhere online. If college graduate wants to go into tax at either the Big 4 or some other mid-size firm, does he eventually get the necessary work experience to get a CPA license? How does this work?

Thanks.

P.S. Great Blog!
April 22, 2009 at 4:52 PM
Anonymous said…
Why dont you leave?
April 22, 2009 at 5:00 PM
notfordisplay said…
Because I love my job and can't think of anything else to do?

Come on.
April 22, 2009 at 6:43 PM
notfordisplay said…
Daniel,
in the past you needed audit experience to get a cpa license (so tax people would do audit rotations) but I believe this year in certain states they might have changed that to include tax experience hours as equivalent to audit hours. You'd have to check your state requirements via the aicpa website.
April 22, 2009 at 6:45 PM
Daniel said…
Thanks,

Then if I may indulge, what does a CPA license do for a tax professional?

Thanks again,

Best Regards,

Daniel
April 22, 2009 at 6:55 PM
CPA_Candidate said…
The same thing it does for an audit professional. It's a sign that you probably know what the heck you're doing(although this is not always the case). I'm not a CPA yet but I had to clean up a CPA's mess with one of my tax customers.
April 22, 2009 at 7:09 PM
Anonymous said…
Uh...what exactly are you trying to say here?
April 24, 2009 at 11:09 AM
Anonymous said…
why arent people leaving? probably b/c they'd rather be employed than unemployed.


to the OP, was this a serious question?
April 24, 2009 at 11:13 AM
Adri said…
daniel, i live in Texas, and had one year of only tax experience when I got my license. We don't need audit experience here, thank goodness.
April 24, 2009 at 4:06 PM
New Joiner said…
Hi, I'd recently found 1 of the people in the office reading this blog so I checked it out. It's a nice blog wif lots of insights! Neway, I'm a newbie in one of the big4 outside US. The hours here's crazy and I feel lik leaving de firm but not sure if it's de rite thin 2do..
May 7, 2009 at 12:30 AM
Anonymous said…
New Joiner - I hope that's not how you type at work.
May 14, 2009 at 5:25 AM
Malaysian Auditor said…
Hey,

Stumbled your blog on google search and just kept reading and reading. Yeah youre experience pretty sums up much of what im doing right here in the Malaysian Big 4 firm... guess the audit experience is a global thing yeah?
May 23, 2009 at 4:10 AM
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