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Pretend you're a techie: Someone offers you a raise or even just an opportunity to work with a product that's new and cool. You'll probably happily leap to the new job. But you're an accountant. Someone offers you $10,000 more a year, and maybe - maybe - you'll consider their offer. What's up with that? Recruiters say accountants, more than other professionals, seem married to their positions. Public accounting is steeped in tradition and careers there follow a set path, observes Glenn Dubiel, vice president of professional services at recruiting firm Spherion in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. "You start as a staff accountant and two years later you're a senior accountant and then you're promoted to accounting manager," he says.
It's understandable that accountants, whose jobs revolve around applying rules and regulations and having the correct pedigree, often get jumpy at the idea of moving to a new job at the wrong time. "People want to ensure that if they make a change, the new position will be the right match for them both personally and professionally," says DeLynn Senna, executive director of North American permanent placement services for Robert Half International. "Individuals are being very thorough in their decision-making process and weighing all of their options carefully."
On the private company side of accounting, Jonathan Claggett, president of DellBridge, a Columbia, Md., search firm, sees two wrong-headed schools of thought on changing jobs: "There are those that change jobs every year, and they're not as desirable in the marketplace," he says. "Then there are those that stay until they get kicked out. They're the stereotypical accountant personality and they're not open to taking risk."
Recruiter Jennifer Laxton, a senior partner at Executive Search Associates in Santa Rosa, Calif., offers another explanation for accountants' reluctance to part ways with their current employer. "It's the nature of the beast that financial and accounting people are extremely busy," she says. "As far as searching for a new position, they don't have time."
When is the right time to move? The answer depends upon where you work.
The Right Public Moves
One of the challenges employers face is distinguishing themselves in the minds of prospective candidates. When an accountant moves from one firm to another, the work itself remains essentially the same. Only the company culture will change, points out Dana Schneider, recruiting manager for LarsonAllen LLP in Minneapolis. "Once you learn the way a firm does something, you get used to that. Another firm might handle things differently, but ultimately, it's the same work," she says.
Yet, in public accounting, there are certain times where moving can be the right thing to do.
The first occurs when you're two or three years into public accounting with a Big Four firm. You've picked up the experience needed to qualify for your CPA credential, but you've found that the Big Four lifestyle - with its pressures and travel - doesn't suit you. Moving to a regional firm can give you a more localized client base, though you may not be paid as well.
It's also a good time to make the switch to private accounting. "There are people who say 'I've worked hard and the public audit travel isn't for me,' and they make their career in the private sector," Dubiel says.
Another time to consider moving is if your peers move on to the next level without you. "There are people who think they can make partner and don't," Dubiel says. "Some are happy being a manager or director. Others make the jump to become a chief financial officer or controller of a public company."
Whatever the opportunity, it's true that changing jobs carries with it a certain amount of risk. "I would tell the job seeker to think long and hard about making moves because it's important to make the right move," Dubiel says. "You can't make as many moves in accounting."
The Right Private Moves
Public accounting firms may like employees who stay with the same firm for decades, but in corporate accounting, companies eye that kind of loyalty with suspicion. "Organizations don't want someone who's been with the same company for 20 years," Claggett says. "They see them as someone who's not going to be open to new ways to solving a task."
To corporations, the most appealing accounting job candidates are those that have been promoted several times during a stint with a single company. "They don't want someone who's sat in the same seat for seven or eight years. Individuals who change jobs or get promoted within three to four years are seen as more eager people, who go above and beyond expectations," Claggett says.
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