The CPA Journal

Some Advice upon Choosing a Career

By Jeffrey R. Hoops, CPA, Ernst & Young

Editor’s Note: The responses to my question posed in May—“If you could do it over again, would you still be an accountant?”—have been fascinating. This month’s guest editorial comes from Jeffrey Hoops, a partner of Ernst & Young and current chair of the NYSSCPA Tax Oversight Committee. Jeff shared with us a letter he wrote to his daughter, a college sophomore, as she prepared to choose a major. Everyone at that crossroads should have the advantage of such a father’s experience, insight, and support.

Over the past months I’ve been listening to you and watching you struggle to choose a college major that will lead to a career that really interests you. Above everything else, I hope you choose something that challenges you and about which you can be enthusiastic and passionate. Nothing is worse than being miserable or bored with your job.

I have tried not to influence your decisions because I believe strongly that they are yours to make. However, because other people will be giving you advice, I will state the case for public accounting in general and the Big Five in particular.

First, the environment at the Big Five contains many young people. For example, at Ernst & Young we have 75,000 people worldwide, about two-thirds of whom are under 30. There is a tremendous camaraderie among the staff—many of them develop lifelong friendships or meet their spouses at the firm. Almost everyone who leaves says that they miss the people here the most.

Although the first year of work in any job can have boring moments, there are many advantages to spending it in the Big Five. You get to see different businesses and industries in the course of your work and you get to see different client locations. You don’t just see accounting—you see how a business actually runs. Perhaps most important, you get a feeling of helping people. Next to their health and love lives, most people care most about their money, and accounting is a profession where you can help people accomplish their financial objectives.

In addition, I can’t imagine a career that offers more diverse opportunities. You can specialize in audit, tax, or management consulting. You can specialize in providing services to a particular industry (such as media and entertainment) or in serving small businesses. We even do personal financial planning. Some people stop serving clients directly and move into other areas of our business, such as personnel or marketing. We offer temporary assignments in London, Paris, and Tokyo, and rotations through specialty areas like mergers and acquisition consulting.

Because we need to keep providing value to our clients, all of the Big Five have mandatory continuing education. Many seminars are intensive and off-site, giving our young staff from all around the world an opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences and to bond with each other. Most firms pay for part-time graduate school study, and I think that most also pay for a full-time MBA degree and pay your salary while you attend—with the understanding that you will return to the firm after you finish.

Working for a Big Five firm can lead to other opportunities. Our clients know we hire only smart people; consequently, they often hire our staff. In the long run, most of our staff leave to pursue opportunities in a variety of industries.

In terms of money, although accounting pays less than investment banking or computer consulting, your pay will be better than most college graduates.

There is no doubt that you will earn your money. You said you want early responsibility, and at the Big Five you get as much as you can handle as soon as you can handle it. You will often feel that your time is not your own, but we don’t have the same sweatshop atmosphere and heavy travel schedule that exists in many large law firms, management consulting firms, and investment banking firms.

This brings me back to your college major. I agree with your friends who say that accounting or finance are better majors than marketing. I started out as a marketing major but switched to accounting because I liked it almost as much as marketing and the job opportunities were better. My experience tells me that recruiters—even for marketing jobs—are more impressed with an accounting or finance degree, because you can’t coast through those courses.

You may have noticed that the Big Five firms are practically tripping over themselves to recruit graduates from your college. Even if it adopts a five-year degree program, I bet you can still get an undergraduate degree in accounting in four years. Next year, with your grades and other activities, you’ll undoubtedly get a summer internship, and a full-time job offer by the end of the internship. When you begin your senior year, you’ll know where you’ll be working after you graduate. That takes off a lot of pressure and lets you enjoy your senior year. By the way, Ernst & Young’s summer internship program includes several social events, and an end-of-the-summer intern convention in Orlando. And you get paid a great salary plus overtime for three months. I know the other firms have similar programs.

I feel strongly about the firm and profession to which I’ve devoted the last 25 years. If you want to talk about it, you know I can chew your ear off. But I’ll repeat my conviction that this is your decision. I know that you will make the right one for you, and that’s what’s most important.

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