How To Become An Accountant

Posted on Oct 29 2018 - 8:09pm by Editorial Staff

To become a professional accountant, you need to be committed to the industry as soon as you know it is the career for you. There can be no half-hearted actions or moments of indecisiveness — it is a profession to which you completely devote yourself to learning and working in the trade of finance.

What you also have to do is accept assistance along the way, as nobody has ever become a Certified Public Accountant without a bit of help. Such help can be found below in the form of advice on what it takes to break into the world of accountancy.

Obtain your degrees

There is no way you can step into the world of accountancy without having obtained a number of degrees first. At the very minimum, you should have an undergraduate bachelor’s degree. Preferably, this degree will be in accounting, but it can be in another related field, such as finance, business management or even HR. You can’t rest on your laurels once you’ve earned your bachelor’s, however, no matter what subject it was in. After that, you have to go one step further. You have to go down the postgraduate route, this time taking a degree that very much focusses on accountancy. The NYC Master’s in Accounting is one such course that you could enroll yourself in. Doing so will see you learn about everything that is crucial to accounting success, such as accounting theory, reporting, taxation, and auditing.

Focus on your specialty

If you don’t focus on a specific area of practice in accounting, you won’t find your own specialty in the field. If you don’t have your own specialty, you won’t have something to help you stand out to potential employers when they come to choosing the perfect candidate. For this reason, focusing in on the area of accountancy that you have a proclivity for, and then turning that into your specialty, is essential.

When you come to choosing the sub-specialization of accounting that best suits you, you should be familiar with what is involved in all of them so that you are fully aware of your options. Some of these general areas include internal auditing, taxes, and managerial accounting.

Get an internship

Either during your time in education or directly after it, you should be getting yourself on an accountancy internship program. By doing so, you will boost your resume in a way that’ll make you impossible to ignore, and you’ll well and truly have momentum behind you when you apply for entry-level jobs. What’s more, an internship will give you your first taste of what it’s truly like to be working in accountancy.

From obtaining the right degrees to gaining entry into an internship program, when you chose to become an accountant you set yourself up for a long path of learning. Such a high level of focus will pay off when you are as primed for your profession as you possibly can be, standing out amongst competitors due to your diligence and commitment to pursue your career in the accounting world.

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Editorial Staff at I2Mag is a team of subject experts.