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+--- Thread: 109 credits in 10 months (/Thread-109-credits-in-10-months)
RE: 109 credits in 10 months - Jenniferinfl - 10-24-2019
(10-24-2019, 09:08 AM)lacussucceed Wrote:(10-24-2019, 09:03 AM)Jenniferinfl Wrote: I haven't managed to land a single accounting interview here. Even an accounts payable role where you aren't even doing real accounting still wants three years of experience and a degree and pays $12 an hour. Realistically, I would have to move to break into accounting. It's not for lack of trying- I've applied to 236 jobs in the last 3 months. I'll keep applying- but, there just isn't a place for me.
Wow, crazy job market! That is a huge number of applications and a very low pay.
It seems like everybody wants to live in Florida, so we have a bunch of people move down who have already been successful elsewhere and they just want a job for the health insurance. They have retirement income or savings and so on so they literally will take a job that they were being paid $30 an hour for up north at $12 an hour just to live near the beach and have some sort of health coverage. There's just no reason to hire someone without experience here when you can get someone who ran their own firm at a huge discount. Additionally, there's a lot of schools in Florida. UCF is huge and churns out thousands of accounting students. At least my degree was cheap! I previously worked for the county and our accounting department had Stetson grads making $12.66 an hour. They had to owe $50k in student loans to make $12.66 an hour; no raises and very limited upward mobility. Heck, when I supervised the overnight stock crew at a Walmart, I had three stockers with MBA's.
(10-24-2019, 09:16 AM)InsomniacCat Wrote: Congratulations! I wish you luck on your job search.
Did WGU charge you for the capstone extension?
I don't believe they did, I actually went and double checked.. lol It looks like the one month extension is free- if you go over than you are paying a prorated term. Additionally, your capstone must already be pulled into your term before the 15th of your last month. On the 15th of your last month, you can apply for the capstone extension if all your other classes are done and that's the only class left and it's already in your term. I BARELY squeaked by because I had Cost and Managerial and only had a week to pass it and that's a brutal class. If I would have failed that, I would have had a prorated term.
RE: 109 credits in 10 months - dfrecore - 10-24-2019
It's hard to believe that FL is that difficult - plus jobs are not state-based, but more regional, so you must live in a small market. I live in CA, there are WAY more schools here than there, way more accounting job and people to fill them, and yet I've not heard any accounting students complain that the job market is terrible for accountants - quite the opposite. I don't think it's FL as a whole, but maybe just your city.
RE: 109 credits in 10 months - Jenniferinfl - 10-24-2019
(10-24-2019, 10:12 PM)dfrecore Wrote: It's hard to believe that FL is that difficult - plus jobs are not state-based, but more regional, so you must live in a small market. I live in CA, there are WAY more schools here than there, way more accounting job and people to fill them, and yet I've not heard any accounting students complain that the job market is terrible for accountants - quite the opposite. I don't think it's FL as a whole, but maybe just your city.
Possibly, I'm applying up to 50 miles out from where I live, so the entire Orlando area. I'm applying as far north as Ormond Beach and then down to Kissimmee. So, I'm applying in a pretty decent sized chunk of Florida. There are tons of jobs- if I search accounts receivable within 50 miles of me, there are 41 jobs at the moment on Indeed and I've applied to almost all of them. I skipped any that looked extra scammy and I've already applied through a bunch of temp agencies- so I'm not applying to anymore temp agencies. I've already applied through Robert Half, Kelly Services, Adecco, Randstad and a couple local ones.
RE: 109 credits in 10 months - davewill - 10-25-2019
Have you tried public accounting firms? They do hire new grads who are working on their CPA, and that experience is gold for moving into private companies later. In the worst case, I'd suggest taking one of the administrative assistant positions and parley it into the accounting dept. At small companies, the admin staff gets to know EVERYONE, and once the accounting manager becomes aware of your background, you might find it easy to move.
RE: 109 credits in 10 months - PrettyFlyforaChiGuy - 10-25-2019
Just something else to consider: What does your actual resume look like? Did you get a second opinion on it from anyone else? Despite the other factors at play, it's possible that it isn't conveying you effectively.
RE: 109 credits in 10 months - Jenniferinfl - 10-25-2019
(10-25-2019, 09:07 AM)davewill Wrote: Have you tried public accounting firms? They do hire new grads who are working on their CPA, and that experience is gold for moving into private companies later. In the worst case, I'd suggest taking one of the administrative assistant positions and parley it into the accounting dept. At small companies, the admin staff gets to know EVERYONE, and once the accounting manager becomes aware of your background, you might find it easy to move.
I haven't been picky- I've been applying anywhere that had even an accounting contingent position. I've gone to a few administrative assistant interviews and been told I didn't have adequate experience. My resume is pretty clear, if they'd read it at all they would see that the library job I did for 5 years was essentially an administrative assistant position with pretty much the same duties. I know I've applied to a couple public accounting firms, but, even though there are a lot of jobs, there are even more applicants. For a brief while I had Linkedin platinum where you get to see how you compare to others applying for the same job. There were often 700+ other applicants for the same accounting clerk job and 20 of those people had masters degrees. I'm going to need a masters degree to be competitive for a $12 an hour accounting clerk job.. lol
I've been very non discerning about my first accounting role. I've even applied to truly terrible places with really bad culture issues. I've applied to part time accounting jobs with no benefits that paid $9 an hour. I understand that to get in I've got to start at the bottom. I apply to jobs like billing clerk, AP, AR, admin, secretary and so on. Spouse and I keep talking and the more we talk the more we agree that we probably have to move. The lowest job I've applied to so far was with Belk, a retailer who was offering $7 an hour for a cash office clerk and the job was 2 hour shifts 6 days per week- which is funny because minimum wage in Florida is $8.46 and they used to have to pay your for at least 4 hours if they made you drive in to work. But, maybe that's not a thing anymore and you can work a 2 hour shift. Anyhow, irrelevant because there was a better candidate than me for even that job.. lol
(10-25-2019, 09:52 AM)PrettyFlyforaChiGuy Wrote: Just something else to consider: What does your actual resume look like? Did you get a second opinion on it from anyone else? Despite the other factors at play, it's possible that it isn't conveying you effectively.
I do think I could do a lot better with keywords- the fact of the matter is that there are so many applicants that a human isn't even seeing my application. Even the lowtech county job I had reviewed resumes through a computer program to weed 95% of them. When we posted positions for library assistants, we got over 1200 applicants. I've been trying to keep my resume down to one page because some of those programs discard long resumes, but, I need to imbed the keywords where they don't take actual space on my resume but are there for the scanning program.
I was actually being sort of cheap and hoping one of the recruiting firms would offer to do that for me.. lol But, they've all been happy with it in the current form.
But, I have been mulling that over- my current rendition of my resume has gotten me more interviews for other positions then previous renditions, but, not accounting positions. I feel like it's a solid resume- as soon as I move away from accounting.. I just sent it to a recruiter a couple days ago who supposedly has a resume writer on staff- so I'm going to give it a few more days in the event it gets rewritten for me.. lol
I've shown it to a few people- nobody had any real feedback on it either way. But, realistically, I don't exactly run in a social circle that knows anything about this stuff. I'm the only person in my immediate family who even has a resume.. I might hunt down a resume writer who knows accounting and see what they can do with it.
RE: 109 credits in 10 months - sanantone - 10-25-2019
I just scanned over the posts, but did you apply to the IRS? They're still on a hiring spree. The Revenue Agent, Revenue Officer, and Tax Compliance Officer positions would be valuable experience. Also, consider becoming an Enrolled Agent and apply for jobs during tax season.
One-page resume advice is outdated. I keep my resume at two to three pages, which is acceptable for anyone who has been working 10+ years.
RE: 109 credits in 10 months - davewill - 10-25-2019
(10-25-2019, 10:25 AM)sanantone Wrote: One-page resume advice is outdated. I keep my resume at two to three pages, which is acceptable for anyone who has been working 10+ years.
I keep mine right at two pages. That way I can print it on a single sheet double sided.
RE: 109 credits in 10 months - Jenniferinfl - 10-25-2019
(10-25-2019, 10:25 AM)sanantone Wrote: I just scanned over the posts, but did you apply to the IRS? They're still on a hiring spree. The Revenue Agent, Revenue Officer, and Tax Compliance Officer positions would be valuable experience. Also, consider becoming an Enrolled Agent and apply for jobs during tax season.
One-page resume advice is outdated. I keep my resume at two to three pages, which is acceptable for anyone who has been working 10+ years.
Yes, I've applied to the IRS, every position that has opened in Maitland and I also picked a northern Michigan location just in case. There hasn't been a pathways position posted- so I've just applied for regular positions.
RE: 109 credits in 10 months - sanantone - 10-25-2019
(10-25-2019, 11:03 AM)Jenniferinfl Wrote:Did you apply to the Florida Department of Revenue?(10-25-2019, 10:25 AM)sanantone Wrote: I just scanned over the posts, but did you apply to the IRS? They're still on a hiring spree. The Revenue Agent, Revenue Officer, and Tax Compliance Officer positions would be valuable experience. Also, consider becoming an Enrolled Agent and apply for jobs during tax season.
One-page resume advice is outdated. I keep my resume at two to three pages, which is acceptable for anyone who has been working 10+ years.
Yes, I've applied to the IRS, every position that has opened in Maitland and I also picked a northern Michigan location just in case. There hasn't been a pathways position posted- so I've just applied for regular positions.