Military Careers, Second Careers - Navy Times

Hot field of accounting demands right training, skills

You probably won’t be seeing “CSI: Accountants” on television anytime soon. Still, increased federal regulations and the rise of forensic accounting are helping to transform the once stereotypically dullsville accounting world into a hot, hot career.

“The Wall Street Journal said we’re the sexy profession,” said Jack Hatcher, assistant professor of management at Purdue University. “I don’t know if that’s true, but there certainly is an opportunity for every grad who has a well-developed skill set.”

The U.S. Labor Department predicts the number of accounting jobs will increase by 18 percent to 26 percent from 2004 to 2014, with some of the growth in finance-related jobs and forensic accounting. Accounting also is serving as a springboard to other careers. The caveat is that the new breed of accountants will need more education as well as stronger leadership and communication skills.

“Look at Arthur Andersen and the way they imploded” after accounting fraud at Enron was exposed in 2002, said Jamie Pratt, chairman of accounting programs at Indiana University. “That creates a huge incentive in accounting firms ... to hire the best people.”

To land an accounting job these days, you need good interpersonal, communication, teamwork and leadership skills, Hatcher said.

“The old thought of what accounting used to be has changed,” said Mark Brostoff, associate director for undergraduate career services at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business ”It’s not just poring over numbers alone in a room.“

Largely because of corporate scandals involving Enron, WorldCom and Tyco, experts said a growing number of employers are requiring accountants to have completed the 150 credit hours needed to take a certified public accountant exam — even though it means another year of study.

More accountants also need master’s degrees and specialized certifications, the Labor Department said. For example, Indiana University is working on offering what would be the state’s first master’s degree in taxation accounting at its Indianapolis campus.

The growing demand on accountants to be diverse and well-trained in all things financial has produced a growth in accounting jobs related to finance, including personal financial planning, Pratt said.

“The financial markets are very hot right now,” he said. “There are a lot of deals that companies have to orchestrate, and there are a lot of bodies they need to orchestrate these deals.”

To gain access to finance careers, Brostoff advised students to take a broad range of courses and even pursue a double major.

Another growing area, forensic accounting, probably sounds glamorous in today’s “CSI”- and “Law & Order”-drenched culture. In reality, the work is sometimes undercover and in potentially hostile environments.

Indiana State University’s relatively new minor in forensic accounting has been available only to criminology and accounting students for the past couple of years. Starting this fall, the program will be available to all students, said Tom Harris, assistant professor of accounting.

The Labor Department predicts the field of forensic accounting will continue growing until at least 2014.

Increasingly, accounting is serving as a springboard to other careers, including finance, mergers and acquisitions, and investment banking, experts said. It’s also becoming more common for students to obtain degrees in both accounting and law.

“We find that accounting students are really able to grab hold of different opportunities through a double major, such as finance,” Brostoff said “(An accounting degree) doesn’t pigeonhole them the way it used to.”