If you are a fresh CA accountant or just any type of accountant looking for ways to develop your career, you may be in a grey zone as to how to actually handle this.
This article will give you solid advice on how to improve your accounting career.
How to Improve My Accounting Career? There are many ways to improve your accounting career. A way many people do it is taking on degrees giving you a higher title, making you eligible for higher-paying jobs and in various industries. General networking and social skills can also be greatly beneficial for advancing your accounting career.
There are many tricks to improve your accounting career, read on as I dive into different areas where you can improve to advance your accounting career.
So, How Can You Improve Your Accounting Career?
As an accountant, there are many ways to better yourself. An accounting career generally evolves around having good attention to detail, good communication, good decision making and judgment among many other things.
To give you an easy overview I will display a list of areas where you can improve to stand out and brand yourself among other accountants.
Education & Networking
Generally, in most work types, there are two easy ways to advance: education and networking.
Achieving a higher degree can help you advance your career. Depending on which main area you have chosen to be an accountant in, you can take added degrees that fit it.
It is not unusual for accountants to take on degrees in business to help them understand the business world and not just the financial part of things. You can also take on an economics degree to understand why and how the financials change.
Networking is and will probably always be a great way to improve your career in any type of job.
I can’t stress enough the importance of networking. Make that LinkedIn profile right now if you haven’t and start networking.
Building a strong network is a large part of landing a good job, or getting a promotion as well as just building a strong brand around yourself in general.
Books on networking can be found here on Amazon!
Research & General Computer Skills
Improving your speed in general when handling a computer can really improve your work performance. This goes hand in hand with knowing how to research efficiently and transferring your research into the designated spreadsheet, presentation, etc.
Depending on your firms’ general area of work, it can be important to understand market trends, as it can explain the financials you are handling.
Always have credible sources and make sure your findings are 100% valid, making assumptions simply aren’t acceptable, your job is to provide solid data that your firm can use in the belief that it accurately displays the financial situation of whatever you have analyzed for them.
Make yourself familiar with sites that are considered completely factual, like government websites, trusted business sites, and others.
Be efficient when doing basic everyday computer handling, speeding up your work can improve your overall output and put you in the spotlight for a promotion.
If there is one thing your employer will look out for, it is the output you can generate for the firm. Speeding up your processes when making spreadsheets, presentations, research or any other thing you work with can substantially increase the number of projects you can take on and complete successfully.
If you haven’t already, learn how to develop spreadsheets with specific formats and formulas that will save you time when making similar sheets in the future.
Making templates is a good overall way to save time when doing number-crunching accounting work, so make sure you save those sheets!
Attention to Detail
As an accountant, you are handling data, and often rather sensitive data. It is extremely important to have an attention to detail, since making mistakes when handling financial data can be quite costly for the business you are doing it for.
Minimizing errors and flaws in your everyday work is a large part of what makes you a good accountant, and trust me, the people looking to hire an accountant will lookout for this as a top priority.
Presentation Skills
Having attention to detail is part of your presentation skills as well. Make sure you present your data to the relevant people in a way they can understand, and a way that is the simplest possible.
Make it a habit to understand who you are presenting to, and make sure the data and terms in the presentation, whether it be verbally or a digital presentation, can be understood by the specific audience.
Being a good presenter is an important part of your job, make sure you are clear in your tone when you present, and make sure you know your presentation in full so you don’t make mistakes.
Amazon has a variety of literature on advancing your presentation skills, check them out here!
Decision Making
The data you gather and the process can be used for pretty high-up executive decisions depending on which firm you are working on.
Decision making often concerns choices of which data is the most relevant to analyze depending on the situation your specific work project concerns. Always understand what financial data is relevant depending on the situation.
Check out books to help you advance your decision-making abilities here!
Social Skills
The general stereotype of accountants is being a nerdy, dry and boring data grunt.
In reality, this isn’t really the case, but if you are an accountant that tends to be a bit of an introvert, opening up to social interactions can be very beneficial for your accountant career.
This is especially important if you have a senior role, where you have people working under you. Being well-spoken and open will help you establish a good relationship with people working with you in general.
You don’t have to be the funny quirky guy or gal in the office, but try to be socially active in the workplace, this can not only benefit your accounting career but may also benefit your self-image.
In conclusion, improving on these overall areas will help you improve your accounting career and get you that job, or promotion.
»Check out books on career building on amazon here!
5 Tips to a Solid LinkedIn Profile
Here are some solid easy ways to make your LinkedIn profile stand out and help you improve your career.
1. Get a Professional Photo
People have a tendency to judge a book by its cover, the same thing goes for your LinkedIn profile. Make an effort to get a professional picture taken, and wear clothing that makes you look professional in the line of work you work in or wish to work in.
2. Complete Your Profile
A common error people make when doing their LinkedIn profile, is not actually completing it in full. Make sure you fill out ALL the boxes, as this will rank you higher in the eyes of recruiters.
3. Custom Url
Making a custom Url for your profile will make it look more professional when you link to it. LinkedIn gives you a random range of numbers in your URL if you don’t change it, so make sure you do this.
4. Search For People Working With Your Target Job Description
A good way to make sure you put the right keywords in your summary is to search for people with the job you are aiming for. Analyze what words they use in their job description and summaries, as this is often what recruiters are searching for.
5. Display Your Achievements
Recruiters first and foremost look for people with higher performance levels. Make sure you display whatever achievements you might have done for the jobs you’ve been in. This can be a good research project you made or really anything that has been beneficial for the firm you completed the task for.
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