Top Reasons Today is the Best Day to be a Young CPA

In the 1980s, when my mom did her first audit, she was sent to a feedlot in Clayton, a small town in northeast New Mexico, where she counted cows wearing the business suit she had bought as a freshly minted CPA. No one had told her that jeans and hiking boots were totally acceptable attire for tramping through fields. It was her first and last audit. 

Most accountants I know have some kind of horror story about a first job or an early experience that just didn’t align with the fun of those credits and debits in Accounting 101. Once we left school, the choices felt narrow: tax, audit, or industry. If we chose wrong (and that’s a common feeling too), it felt like we’d be stuck in the cave forever.

Today, not only are accountants not stuck in the tax-audit cave. The sky is the literal limit. In fact, if we follow the lead of Dave Hartley – Anders’ Partner-in-Charge, Advisory – today is the best day ever to be a young accountant.

A bold assertion to be sure – one that he is prepared to defend. Not with a handful of reasons. Not with a mere half-dozen. But with a full-fledged, David Letterman style, top 10 list. (Full disclosure: He had 14 points up his sleeve but edited it down out of respect for the Stupid Pet Tricks master.) 

So here it is. [Cue theme song.] The Top 10 Reasons Why Today is the Best Day Ever to be a Young Accountant – and (if that were not enough) Tomorrow is Going to be Even Better.

10. The Profession Is Evolving Faster Than Ever

After riding the audit-tax horse for 100 years, the profession is waking up. There’s a lot more that CPAs can do than just compliance. There’s a lot more value we can add. As a result, there are more career path options available today than ever. 

But if you just look around on Google, you might not get that feeling. The stereotypes about buttoned-up bean counters aren’t easy to wash away. We need to do a better job at telling young people why today is the best day ever to be a young CPA, or we’re never going to fix the profession’s pipeline issue. 

A CPA firm can be a perfect home for talented IT, HR, or marketing professionals. It can be a place to specialize in a niche industry, like cannabis, law, or transportation. 

And, Dave says, if you get started in any of those, and you enjoy the culture of the firm, but you want to try something else, you can switch to the other 999 options. 

So many of our colleagues at Anders share the sentiment of my co-host, Hannah Hood: “This is the first firm I've ever worked for. I'd never considered a firm before, so I love that there's a place for everybody here.”

9. CPA Firms Are Becoming More Employee-Focused

Ah, the CPA dress code. Suit, tie, and coat, even on a blazing summer day. Even on a feedlot in New Mexico. That’s what CPAs did. That’s what people expected from us. 

Now, Dave says, firms have figured out: “We'll do great things for our clients if we have the best people, and our people really are doing their best work.” That means trusting that if we create that kind of environment, everything will take care of itself. 

Our clients don’t want us in suits and ties, Dave says, “Our clients want us to be empathetic to where they are in the maturity of their business and what their problems are and help them solve it.”

8.     Salaries Are Increasing

After years of stagnant salaries, compensation for CPAs is on an upward trend. Supply is down, demand is up, and CPAs are getting better at charging their value to their clients. 

Recognizing the pipeline issue, firms are more attentive than ever to employee retention, including things like a monthly technology stipend that we can spend as we wish – for example on a 49-inch Death Star mega screen TV. 

Leadership also takes greater care than ever to make sure that employees want the benefits they offer, giving us more of a voice than we’ve ever had before. A new employee isn’t coming into the bottom of the food chain and being told what to do. We have a voice from day one.

7. There’s Room for And

Becoming a CPA takes a lot of effort. Getting that designation is a major accomplishment. But none of us is just that. 

Today, there’s more focus than ever on empowering people to be their authentic selves and bringing that self to work. Dave likes to describe this in terms of a person’s “and” (a concept he learned from John Garrett). 

“We should all be saying to each other, "That's great that you're a CPA or a tax professional but what's your and? Well, I'm a CPA, I'm a tax professional, and on the weekends, I climb mountains and I do half marathons and I play the tuba and I write music and I write poetry.” 

Back in the 1990s, when Dave started, “You jumped in the mold, you did the work, and then you went home and could be yourself. Now it’s just completely different. Now it’s ‘That's great that you're a tax professional, but you're also a whole person and we want to see that whole person in the workplace. It makes work so much more interesting when you're working with the team that you genuinely connect with.” 

(If you want to know Dave’s, Hannah’s and my ‘ands,’ you can find out at the end of our podcast episode.)

6. More AI = Less Drudgery

The workday is long, our plates are full, and a good portion of those hours has always involved cranking through some grunt work.

Now, AI and other technology is going to eliminate the drudgery and let us get to those valuable things faster, so that more of our day is spent on things we enjoy.

That means that young accountants will need to find other ways to show their value – like through soft skills – rather than just getting comfortable with the mundane. It also means that leaders will need to offer opportunities for their junior teammates to get client face time and experience a taste of what’s to come, after they put in the legwork.

5. CPAs Are Important, Trusted and Respected. Time to Add ‘Fun’ and ‘Innovative’ to the List

The CPA is more valuable than ever before, thanks to the level of complexity of business and the speed of change. 

CPAs have always been trusted. We’ve got that base covered. We need to hold onto that pillar and work on being perceived as innovative and fun as well. Those categories are not mutually exclusive, and it’s our job to go out there and prove it.

4. Social Media Has Increased the Number of CPAs to Learn From     

On the subject of going out there, there are more of us out there than ever, thanks to social media. Early in his career, Dave could point to maybe 10-20 people who had influenced him, between colleagues and coworkers. 

Now, there are more positive role models, industry conferences, podcasts, and YouTube. More diverse voices are being heard in our industry, which means good things for the future of our profession.

3. The CPA Pipeline Is Down, So Job Opportunities Are Up  

If you’re a CPA, you can find a job. The pipeline is down: bad news for the profession but good news for you. 

If you’re in a job and you don’t feel like it’s the right spot, you’re not stuck. If you hear about things happening in the industry, and you’re not experiencing that in your current position, go out there (literally anywhere) and explore.

2. Improve Lives Anywhere Thanks to Technology

You, as a young CPA, have never had the opportunity to make a greater impact than you do today. 

Imagine you want to be a CPA for the local coffee shops in your town, Dave explains. You get really good at KPIs for coffee shop owners. Now, instead of being limited to the three in your town and five in your area, there's no reason you can't be the coffee shop expert for the entire world. Your addressable market just went from 10 to 10 million potential businesses. 

“You have the opportunity to improve lives anywhere, not just limited by your local community,” Dave says. “Your ability to touch people is tremendous today. It's going to be even better tomorrow.”

1. Flexibility Over When You Work and Where

In the 1990s, an auditor had to go into the office, day in and day out, even in two feet of snow, because that’s where the documents were. 

Now firms are offering flexible work arrangements, both in terms of when you work and where. That means you can live in Taos and work with colleagues in St. Louis and Tupelo. You aren’t just limited to the one local CPA shop. 

“At Anders we are fully embracing flexibility,” Dave says. “We see some firms turning their back on remote work, and I sit back puzzled. I don't think they know how to do it, and that’s why it’s not working for them. They’re still using the old way of managing the company. If you’re truly going to do remote or hybrid work, you have to do it differently.” 

“The opportunity for us to have the absolute best employees from all across the country who understand our vision and want to be a part of it, it’s just such a strong pull.”

Stay Tuned for More Reasons

It’s easy to be impatient with certain limitations and restrictions in the industry. But, as the orchestra plays their closing tune and we look back at the changes in accounting from the 1990s to today, it’s clear how far we’ve come. 

“Are there areas for improvement?” Dave asks, “Absolutely. Are there issues? Absolutely. But we'll work on those, and we'll make tomorrow even better and the day after that, even better.” 

Today’s leaders are not interested in pushing new accountants through the ringer because that’s what it was like for them. Today’s leaders own the problems and commit to working with their employees to fix them. 

But it’s really the areas of growth that Dave invites us to hold onto. “I hope every high school student or young professional takes a bit of inspiration from this reminder of all the positive things. Think about it, process it, hold onto it for a day or two, and start to make it a pattern.” 

If we do, the future of accounting will only get brighter.