How to Find the Right Career for You

Posted on October 31, 2018October 31, 2018 by Edna Crane

Isn’t it just a lit bit cruel, that so many youngsters are asked to effectively study for the career they want, when they haven’t even begun to live yet? As a result, many people end up in jobs that they’re not all that happy with, purely because they’ve changed so much from when they “chose their career” and by the time they actually begin it. Other people have no clue what they want to do, or even if they’ll ever have a job. But rest assured, there’s a job for everyone. Below, we take a look at some useful tips for ensuring you find the job that’s right for you, no matter whether you’re 22 or 42!

Try a Career Quiz

If you don’t know where to start in your hunt for the perfect career, try a career quiz like Career Fitter or Career Key. Career Fitter is one of our favorites because not only does it give you career suggestions, it gives you statistics, videos, and other helpful information about your career choices. It’s always our first suggestion when someone is stuck in their career path.

What Do You Like Talking About?

The usual job advice you get is that you should follow your passion. That’s not the worst advice in the world, but it can be a bit tricky to put into practice. For starters, there’s a level of wisdom needed to identify what your own passions are, and that wisdom is normally beyond most youngsters! So instead of identifying your “passions,” make a note of what subjects you always get fired up about when that conversation is steered that way. If you can talk about it for hours, it’s usually a pretty big sign that it’s one of your passions. From there, it’s all about looking for jobs around that interest.

Try Out Jobs

You don’t need to commit to just one career, and then set about finding work. You can “try jobs out,” so to speak. You might have an inkling that you’d like to work in the newspaper industry, but how could you know for sure unless you’ve lived in that world for a bit? Before saying “I want to be [X],” look at getting an internship in a related job for a while. It might confirm your dreams, or make you realize that it’s not for you. Also, don’t worry if you’re past the “usual age” for an intern – there’s no age barrier for these types of things, so don’t overthink it.

Work With Experts

You don’t have to battle through life alone. If you don’t know what you want to do and have no clue about how to go about finding the answer, then get help. There are experts who can help you find the right job for you no matter what circumstances you’re in. If you’re just looking for advice, then speak with a careers advisor. If you’re struggling to figure out what you can do because of a physical injury or disability, then contact disability employment services. It’s possible that there are many more options for you than you previously realized. Alternatively, you could also speak to a mentor, if you have one in your life. If you trust them and they know you, then they’ll steer you in the right direction.

Think Outside the Box

When we’re growing up, we tend to think that there are only a set number of jobs out there. All of them seem to take place in an office or otherwise corporate environment! But this isn’t true. While the bulk of work might be office-based, the economy doesn’t run on corporations alone. There are thousands upon thousands of jobs that need to be done, and the majority you won’t have heard of. So think outside the box. You might just end up with a job that’s way more interesting than anything you might have fallen into if you pursued office work.

Avoid the Big Decisions

If you’re really unsure about the work you want to do, then you’ll be well-served by avoiding any big decisions and commitments. There’s no law that says you have to pick just one career! Instead, why not job-hop a little? You’ll be trying out a host of different jobs. In time, you’ll have a better understanding of the industries and tasks that you like.

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It’s Never Too Late to Change

Of all the lessons to take from this article, make it this: it’s never too late to change your job. You might feel obliged to stay in a profession because you’ve built up so much time there, but don’t be. You’re free to do whatever you want, at all times. It’s possible that we’re not supposed to stay in the same job for years on end as it is anyway – so mix it up if it doesn’t feel right anymore.

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3 Real Estate Career Paths for People who Love HGTV

Posted on October 29, 2018October 29, 2018 by Edna Crane

Do you have a passion for real estate? Perhaps you love watching property shows, and find yourself browsing home listings just for fun. Maybe it’s something you’ve always wanted to go into as a career but found yourself not knowing where to start, or maybe just talking yourself out of it. Here are a few different options for ways you can make money with real estate:

Develop or Renovate Property

Developing property is a fantastic way to earn money- and you really can earn a lot. You could buy run down houses cheap, bring them up to a good standard and sell for a large profit- otherwise you could rent them out if you want to create a long term income. Another option would be to buy a plot of land, get planning permission and build from scratch. There’s a serious amount of profit to be earned, but of course there are some drawbacks.

Firstly, you need to be knowledgeable about property and the market. Some areas will have a ceiling price, limiting the profit you can make. Other areas will be up and coming and others will be in decline, and you’ll need to know what kinds of properties are in demand in which places. If you’re new to property then it’s important to get clued up on the topic before spending your money. The second and the biggest drawback for most people when it comes to becoming a property developer is that you usually need money upfront to buy in the first place.

You do have the option of getting a buy to let mortgage if you want to purchase a property to rent, but to renovate and buy you will need the cash to do so. If you’re buying at auction, then this will require cash. If you’ve got savings, an inheritance or access to money then this could be a rewarding and fun way to earn a living. But be sure to go into things with your eyes open.

Become a Real Estate investor

If you want to earn money from property but don’t fancy rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands dirty, you always have the option to invest and become a ‘silent partner.’ If you have a business partner, family member or other trusted associate who wants to renovate or develop, you could contribute towards buying the property and then leave them to get on with the work. Decide on how the profits will be split, and then once it’s sold you have money in the bank without having to do a thing.

Become a Real Estate Agent

Another way to work in property in more of the traditional career sense would be to become an estate agent. There’s advice online on how to become a real estate agent, and it generally involves taking a course and gaining your license. From there, you can go on to specialist if you wish. You get to match up clients with their perfect home which can be really rewarding, and you can make good commission on top of your earnings.

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Should I be a Teacher? Questions to Consider before Committing

Posted on October 16, 2018October 16, 2018 by Katie Evans

Should I be a Teacher? Questions to ask before committing to the profession

Every semester a student asks me the question, “Should I be a teacher?” The answer isn’t a clear “yes” or “no.” It’s a hard profession where you’re under constant ridicule from parents, students, other teachers, and society at large. Most days, you will go home exhausted. But, when you truly touch a student’s life in a meaningful way, suddenly it all seems worth it.

Are You Ready to Work Hard?

When I started teaching 20 years ago, the statistics were daunting. More than half of all K-12 teachers stayed in the profession less than two years. No one is sure of the reason. Some think it’s because new teachers underestimate the amount of work it takes to teach effectively.

Sure, you might get to go home at 3 p.m., but you have to be at school around 7 a.m., and chances are, you’ll spend your evenings at home grading papers and preparing lesson plans. You’ll spend your weekends binge watching Netflix while grading essays. You’ll spend holidays planning for your next semester. Every new teacher underestimates the amount of planning it takes to teach effectively.

In truth, even I left K-12 teaching after three years. I finished my first master’s degree and became a community college professor and instructional designer. I didn’t want to leave teaching—I wanted to leave parents. College teaching is just as hard and don’t let anyone tell you differently. But, I can stand behind FERPA laws and avoid talking to parents, at least, most of the time. I did have a 30-year old’s mother yell at me for flunking her daughter for plagiarizing Wikipedia in a final essay.

These days, teachers need specialized teaching courses to land the best jobs. Competition is high in some areas, and low in others. If you choose to teach in a rural or high-need area, there are benefits like student loan forgiveness. Still, it’s hard work, and if you’re going to survive, you need to have clear expectations.

Why Do You Want to Teach?

Teaching is not an escape hatch you jump into just because you can’t figure out what you want to do with your career. It’s not a “just pay the bills” job. Those who are successful at teaching do it because they can’t see themselves anywhere else.

Some people come into the profession because they like being students and don’t know what to do outside of academia. Just because you’re a good student doesn’t mean you’ll be a good teacher. It’s a labor of love. It’s an uphill fight to do what’s right for your students in the face of all adversity.

If you think you’ll retire rich as a teacher because you read in The Millionaire Next Door that the largest group of self-made millionaires is teachers, you are delusional. Those who retire rich pick up side jobs in the summer, publish books, and hire financial advisors to make sure they’re saving all they should.

As for me, I have other skills that I’ve been able to use to supplement the ridiculously low wages teachers are paid. When you read statistics about how teachers are paid $30,000 per year or less in a lot of areas, believe them. Don’t buy into the BS about how teachers “only work 9 months per year, so their salaries are fair.” Teaching is a year-round job, even when you’re not in front of your students.

While I’m on my soap box, shame on every politician who doesn’t work to raise salaries for teachers and improve the conditions of schools for students.

The right reason to want to teach is because you want to become the champion for your students’ education. You want to inspire your students. You want to support them through the challenging days and rejoice with them through the victorious ones. You have to want to put your students first, even when standardized testing, pushy parents, burned-out colleagues, and administrators who have never taught a day in their lives do everything possible to distract you from your purpose.

It’s not for everyone. For most of us who do it well, it’s a calling.

Can You Explain Things Well?

Teaching means finding new ways to explain tough concepts. When a student doesn’t “get” something, you have to find alternate ways to explain and demonstrate a concept until you find common ground that the student can grasp.

This is especially tough in black-and-white subjects like math. Math teaching jobs are some of the easiest to find because they are tough, and not everyone loves math. Think about what you’ll do when a student doesn’t understand a math problem. How many different ways can you find to explain it? You will need real-life examples for a lot of learners.

Never forget: Everyone learns by doing. Never be the teacher who just stands up at the front of the room and talks. You have to engage your students and challenge them to try what you’re explaining. This can take unbelievable patience.

Do You Have Patience?

You will need more patience than you can imagine. You will need the patience to listen to your students when they come to you with a problem. You will need the patience to not to scream at parents when they tell you their child doesn’t have time to do your homework because they have baseball practice, cello practice, or have to water the plants when they get home.

You will need the patience of a saint when the principal pulls you into his office to discuss why your test scores are lower than the national average, when your class came to you with reading scores two years behind where they should be.

I’m not going to lie to you. There will be days when you go home angry. There will be days when you can’t do anything at all to help a student in a bad situation and you will cry.

Are You Empathetic?

If you teach K-12, your teaching job is far more than imparting knowledge. Teachers spot health problems and anxiety in their students. You have to be on the lookout for signs that things at home might be putting your students in danger. You have a legal responsibility to report signs that your students may be abused. So, the question is, can you recognize signs that things aren’t quite right with your students?

Beyond our legal responsibilities, empathy is important for watching the room when you’re teaching to try to gauge how well your students are grasping the lesson. You should be able to spot when a single student is struggling so you can reach out to him individually.

Can You Juggle it All?

The final question you should ask yourself before committing to the life of a teacher is, “Can you juggle all it takes to be a good teacher?” At school, you are mentor, confidante, champion, shield, endless grader, endless planner, and yes, sometimes you are a babysitter. But what about at home? Can you juggle all that being a teacher entails on top of your home roles like mother, father, wife, husband, and child taking care of elderly parents?

Some teachers have an innate ability to turn off their teaching role outside of the classroom. I never found that, and honestly, the best teachers I know never find that either. If you’re thinking about committing to the life of a teacher, you might do best to find a partner who understands the demands of your career.

Should I be a Teacher?

If you feel called to be a teacher, realize that it comes with a huge weight of responsibility. The good days are the best of your life, and the bad ones are some of the worst. It won’t make you rich. But, about ten years into your career, you’ll start to see the impact you have on other people’s lives. Your former students will thank you at their graduations. They’ll credit you as their inspiration. You’ll watch them step into their careers as strong, beautiful people that you had some part in creating.

The best part will be the former students who, inspired by your passion and dedication, follow in your footsteps to their own classrooms, where the cycle starts all over again.

If you’re still not sure, try a Career Fitter personality and career test to see what careers would work best for you.

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Career Key: Career Test Review

Posted on September 7, 2018September 7, 2018 by Katie Evans

If you aren’t sure what you want to do with your life, career tests are a great way to get ideas. This week, we tried Career Key, and while it’s a good tool, it might not be the right career test for everyone. Our Career Key review walks through the entire experience so you can decide for yourself whether it can help you.

Getting Started with Career Key

Career Key Home Page

Career Key is a career test that evaluates your personality and abilities and allows you to explore careers that fit your personality. The website claims that the test is used by schools and corporations all over the world. It’s listed on What Color is Your Parachute? author Dick Bolles’ list of career tests, so we certainly thought it was worth $14.98 to try it.

The link to take the assessment is about halfway down the Career Key home page, so it’s not in the most obvious place possible, but I found it without too much effort. The sign up form allowed me to link a Google account, but still required me to enter all of my mailing address information. It’s everything you expect in a sign up form—name, address, email, billing address, credit card info.

The sign up form does have one surprise, though: It asks where I am in my “Discovery Stage.” Obviously, I’m “working,” but it’s clear that the Career Fitter test is suitable for even the earliest stages of figuring out what you want to be when you grow up. It’s even recommended for middle school students!

Career Key’s Personality Assessment

Career Key has six assessment sections in their personality test, each with six questions or less. They advertise that you can complete the test in about 10 minutes. It took me about 7-8 minutes to complete, even with taking screenshots for this review.

The first section asks six questions about the things you like to do. You decide if you like to work with animals, solve math problems, or pursue creative activities. You don’t have to choose just one; instead, you rank how true it is that you like to work with each activity.

The second part of the assessment looks at your abilities—or rather, what you think your abilities are. The questions are similar to the first part of the assessment, only instead of asking what you like to do, the test is asking if you have “good skills in working with” the same activities.

The third part of the assessment gives you a list of jobs and asks you to select the ones that most interest you. You can select as many or as few as you wish.

The fourth part of the assessment asks you how interested you are in each job you selected in the last part of the assessment.

The fifth part of the assessment asks how you see yourself. Are you practical? Creative? Some of both? Once again, you rank each personality component based on how true they are for you.

Finally, the assessment asks about your values. The questions aren’t the strong moral questions we expected, but values based on the activities we’ve been ranking throughout the assessment. Again, do you value animals and mechanical stuff? Or do you value creativity?

Personality Results

The assessment then produces a report about your personality. For those of you who read this blog regularly, you probably already know that I am an INTJ who is more introverted than 98% of the population. I am a writer, a teacher, and an instructional designer, but I’m not a salesman. So, imagine my surprise when these were my results from the Career Key test:

That’s right—me, who would rather send an email and wait a week on a response than pick up the phone and get an answer immediately—gets “social” as a “promising environment.” The recommended jobs include social worker, nurse, and athletic trainer! I’m starting to wonder if my evil twin took this test for me…

The problem comes in with the personality explanation: Personalities are ranked from 0-33 based on your assessment answers. Well, if you look back at my results, I didn’t score anywhere close to a 33 in any of the suggested environments. I’m not strong enough in any one area for the test to give an accurate output, so the best it can see is that I am sorta artistic, and sorta social and realistic.

As an INTJ, I know very little of that is true. This doesn’t mean your test won’t be more accurate than mine. I’m probably a bad test subject for this particular assessment.

Pick Your Own Careers and Finish the Career Key Profile

After the personality assessment, Career Key gives you a big list of careers and majors that you can select and start a list of what interests you. Bookmark the ones you like to complete your profile.

Overall Impressions of Career Key

Career Key has a nice database of potential careers and majors at the end of the assessment. Since the assessment uses Dr. Holland’s theory of career choice,it may not feel like the right “fit” for people in the middle of their careers.

Dr. Holland’s theory relies on generalities, and to be fair, most personality and career tests do. These generalities can help you when you feel “stuck.” Dr. Holland’s theory, though, believes that there are only six personality types. He arranges them in a hexagon, and if you have one personality, the personalities listed beside it on the hexagon are complimentary, so they might work for you too. The personalities that are directly opposite are just that: opposite. So, they probably aren’t a good match for you.

Yet…if you go back to my test results…the two “promising” environments for me are “realistic” and “social”—polar opposites on the Holland Hexagon!

So, I guess that makes me a walking contradiction. In that case, this test might be quite accurate! If you’re interested, here is my full profile report: Katie’s Career Key Profile Report

If you’re at the beginning of your career, or in college and not sure of what major you should choose, Career Key would be very helpful. The list of suggestions it provides is comprehensive, and it is definitely worth $14.98 to try it.

Try Career Key and let us know what you think about it in the comments! I’d love to see your results.

4 Dos and Don’ts for a Career in Hospitality

Posted on August 31, 2018September 4, 2018 by Edna Crane

A career in hospitality can be rewarding—if it’s your calling. If you love working with people and you’re good at making sure everyone around you is having a good time, it may be a good career fit for you. Here are a few dos and don’ts from experts in the field:

Do: Expect to Work Long Hours

There is a joke in the hospitality industry about what chefs eat. The punchline is that they have a chocolate bar and a red bull for dinner because they don’t have the time to make anything else when they are working, and they need the energy. While this might not be true of every chef, every night it’s is a reasonably accurate representation of the dedication and commitment that those in the hospitality industry are required to make on a regular basis.

In fact, even if you are hoping to get into management in hospitality, you can expect unsocial hours and long shifts that combine both physical and emotional challenges. Something to bear in mind if this is a career you are considering.

Don’t: Forget the Value of Education

Next, when it comes to hospitality is essential to remember that while experience is crucial to success, so is formal education, especially if you want to reach the higher echelons.

In fact, by taking a specialized course like this hotel management degree, you can gain both. Something that can help to put you in a fantastic position when it comes to your career and moving through the ranks as quickly as possible.

Do: Play to Your Strengths

Also, when it comes to making a successful career for yourself in hospitality, it’s vital that you play to your passion and strengths. What we mean here is that you need to choose a position which allows you to use the skills in which you naturally excel at.

For example, folks that are amazing with people and interpersonal relationships can do very well in front of house positions and even in HR within the hospitality industry. However, those that tend towards the creative but are less at home in front of a crowd may wish to focus on roles such as being a chef, event management, or event facilities work.

Don’t: Aim for Perfection

Lastly, and perhaps contrary to what you hear a lot of people in the hospitality field say, is that you can’t aim for perfection and complete customer satisfaction every time, if you want to survive in the industry in the long term. Instead, you need to play the numbers game.

Of course, we don’t mean that you shouldn’t be focused on the customers’ needs and wants, after all, they are the ones that ultimately pay your wages. However, perfection can be detrimental in two ways. Firstly, it can get you too caught up in the details to make a useful difference for all of your many customers, and secondly, it can become an impossible goal to try to attain.

With this in mind, remember that success in the hospitality industry comes from providing excellent but not perfect service to the maximum number of people possible. A goal that may be challenging, but is definitely within your power to achieve.

What it’s Like to Drive as a Job

Posted on August 31, 2018August 31, 2018 by Edna Crane

The world is changing in many ways, and one of the areas impacted by modern change is driving. In cities, roads are busier than ever before and there are new opportunities for drivers as well. Whether it’s in the trucking sector or ride hailing; what it means to be a professional driver in 2018 is different to what it was just a decade ago. So what is it like? That’s what we’re going to discuss right now, so read on now.

You’re Alone But Never Alone

When you’re driving as a trucker or a delivery person, you’re technically alone during that time, but there is always a point of contact. The same applies to taxi drivers too. Everyone is connected to someone back at the head office whose monitoring them and feeding orders. The ability to focus on driving and nothing else is therefore lost a little, which is a shame for many people who love that aspect of being on the road.

Strong Road Safety Standards

The safety standards are higher than ever, and the responsibility for upholding those standards is usually handed to drivers themselves. Long-haul drivers are only allowed to drive for limited amounts of time before taking breaks and sleeping. This is massively important because the risks associated with people falling asleep at the wheel are huge. Standards across the board are generally stronger too.

The Stress of the Road

Stress is a major problem for many professional drivers nowadays. With roads getting busier and more congested than ever before, it makes the job of the professional driver more difficult than ever before too. Many people find themselves having to get help with their stress. Being able to control emotions and stay in control even during the most stressful situations is essential.

Efficiency is Increasingly Important

Drivers are now also expected to get their jobs done in the most efficient ways. It’s about coming up with routes that maximize time and ensure that the client is kept happy. In a way, it puts more pressure on the driver. For delivery drivers, making the space they have available in their van more efficient via things like van shelving is very important as well. Efficiency is king.

Greater Emphasis on Freelance Work

It’s harder today to achieve permanent full-time employment as a driver. That’s not to say that those kinds of opportunities aren’t out there because they are. But there aren’t as many of them. Instead, we’re seeing a greater emphasis on freelance driving. And this stretches right across the spectrum from contractors who work for delivery companies to people who drive for companies like Uber and Lyft. That’s where the emphasis is right now.

Driving for a living is getting more difficult in certain ways, but the appeal remains for many people. And there is also more flexibility in this career than there ever was in the past. This comes with its costs and benefits, but many people still manage to have fulfilled careers as drivers.

Career Fitter: Career and Personality Test Review

Posted on August 29, 2018September 3, 2018 by Katie Evans

If you’ve ever struggled to figure out what you want to do with your life, a career or personality test can help you see your options. However, not all career tests are created equally. Most give you 3-5 potential job titles that may work for you, or they give you a general personality type that you then have to research on your own. Career Fitter is much different than any career or personality test I’ve ever tried, and I’ve tried a lot!

Career Fitter advertises that they’re both a personality and a career test. Instead of relying on Myers-Briggs or your job skills, it combines what you like to do with how you prefer to react in work-related situations, then takes that information and recommends careers in medicine, academia, corporations, and general career fields. Even more, Career Fitter does the research for you. For each recommended career, they provide an analysis and video. You also receive detailed information about your test results and what you should look for in a career to meet your individual needs.

The Test

It’s free to take Career Fitter’s career and personality test. It’s 60 questions long, and it takes about 5-10 minutes to complete. The questions are straight-forward, either/or type questions about your preferences in the work place.

Career Fitter test questions about work personality

I had a hard time answering some of the questions. On Myers-Briggs, I’m an INTJ, so I already know that I’m strategic and a “big picture” person. One question asked me whether I get the most satisfaction from creating or completing a project, and that’s a tough one. I usually have a love/hate relationship with creating a project; as in, I love to hate it. It’s an intense process for me and I feel overwhelming relief when a project is done. So, I chose “completing” but I’m not sure that was really the right answer.

But then, with this kind of test, there isn’t really a “right” answer so much as a “most right” answer. If you’re stuck between two choices, just choose the one that is true for you most of the time. Human beings are complicated, and this test knows that. That’s why there’s 60 questions instead of 6.

Initial Career Fitter Results

Career Fitter’s free analysis briefly describes your test results. They tell you about your personality, and tease that they’ve found dozens of jobs that will fit your personality and preferences.

My results showed that I’m (surprise!) a “big picture” person, who is “calm, confident, and analytical.” I’m not sure about the “calm and confident”—it’s one of my daily struggles not to go through life as a stressed-out hot mess—but I’m definitely analytical. I’ve been told I project confidence at work, so that’s probably true. I’m cool-headed in a crisis, so that might be the “calm.” Either way, it’s an interesting teaser.

My strength is supposed to be “strategic system design,” which makes sense since I’m both a college professor and an instructional systems designer. They’ve hit the nail on the head!

The teaser continues as career fitter tells me they’ve found 32 jobs that fit my profile, and one of them had an average salary of $208,000 last year! If you’re interested in my complete “free” results, I’ve saved them in a PDF for you: Katie’s Free Career Fitter Test Results

Career Fitter Full Results Review

At the end of the free report, Career Fitter offers to show your full report for around $12. That’s less than two cups of coffee at Starbucks, and I was impressed with the sample report on their website, so I bought it. It was totally worth it!

The full report is HUGE! It’s well organized, too, with a table of contents on the left side of the screen. It gives you a label; mine is “Developer.” From there, it walks you through a summary, career suggestions, personality details, your ideal business environment, and famous people like you, and more.

My summary includes a line that I’m “Skeptical, Independent, Original, Logical, Non-Conforming, Rational, Analytical, Objective, Aloof, Ingenious, Inventive, Resourceful, and Enjoy Complexity.” I truly don’t enjoy a lot of complexity, but I do seem to attract it. It’s a great joke of the universe. Everything else is dead-on true.

After the summary is a C-FAR chart showing my work personality characteristics.

Then, Career Fitter gives the most comprehensive list of career possibilities I’ve ever seen in this kind of test. Three of the jobs on the list are jobs I actually do, too. There’s great suggestions that I wouldn’t have considered on my own. It’s the career personality test results I wish I would have seen when I was in college. It would have saved me a lot of strife.

Each career has a link to information about the career field, and a video telling more about the career. It’s a good basis for your career research, and a great way to identify possible dream jobs.

Most helpful for career seekers is a section on the report called “Occupational Factors.” Here, you’ll see the traits a job needs to have in order to bring you satisfaction. So, if you’re ever in the position of deciding between two jobs, or figuring out if a job is right for you, here’s a list of exactly the factors a job must have for you to set yourself up for success.

Overall Impressions of Career Fitter

While the free Career Fitter report is very general, the full report is a major asset at any point in your career. If you’re feeling stunted in your career, taking the Career Fitter test will help you see possibilities, which is invaluable. At $11.98, Career Fitter is a steal, and I highly recommend it.

If you aren’t sure if Career Fitter is right for you, check out my full report before you make a decision. Rest assured that Career Fitter’s report looks much better than my PDF!: Katie’s Career Fitter Full Report

Try your own free Career Fitter report, and let me know what you think about your results in the comments below!

So You Want to be an Accountant

Posted on August 28, 2018August 28, 2018 by Edna Crane

There’s no shame in pursuing a career for its high salary. After all, we work in order to be able to support ourselves and to provide ourselves and our loved ones with a comfortable lifestyle. So, if you’re looking for something lucrative, you may want to pursue a career in finance.

These careers not only offer great starting wages, but they also tend to have plenty of opportunity for advancement and promotion, and many individuals in the field find themselves taking home huge bonuses at the end of the year. There are all sorts of roles in the field, from investment banking to trading, analytics, financial advisory positions, and jobs in the financial media. But for now, let’s focus on one of the most accessible financial job roles that tends to always be hiring: accounting.

What Does an Accountant Do?

An accountant’s primary role is to prepare and examine others’ financial records. They take the information provided to them by self-employed individuals and business owners and ensure that these professionals know exactly how much tax they owe, allowing them to make sure that it is paid on time and that they avoid any fines for late submission. They may also be employed by a company to work out the tax that should be deducted from its employees’ salary too. If you do follow a career in accountancy, you will find yourself carrying out various tasks on a day to day basis to ensure that this all goes to plan.

You will give advice regarding how to maintain comprehensive financial statements. You will also examine financial statements, making sure that they are both accurate and comply with current laws and regulations put in place by the government. You will work out taxes owed and draw up tax returns on others’ behalf. You can also find yourself giving advice in regards to where and how a business or individual can save money and become more profitable.

Expected Salary

As we have previously mentioned, accountancy can be an extremely lucrative job. It is estimated that that average accountant makes around $68,150 a year. However, the best paid ten percent of accountants took home an average of $120,910 in 2016, so there’s plenty of room to make a lot more money per annum.

Competition

When a job role offers a good salary, there’s bound to be plenty of competition for it. This can be off putting to many of us, as we don’t want to invest time, money, and effort into developing a particularly skillset and pursuing a particular career, only to never land a job in the end. However, accountancy as a profession is expected to grow by around ten percent and it is estimated that around 140,300 new jobs will be established in the field by 2026. This keeps in line with the ten percent increase in financial job in general over the next decade.

Educational Requirements

The accounting industry is strictly monitored, and to engage with it, you will have to stick to a strict code of practice. Accounting is regulated by three main bodies – the Institute of Public Accountants (IPA), CPA Australia (CPA), and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Australia (ICAA). You will need to be sufficiently qualified in order to enter any of these bodies, with the CPA and ICAA requiring a minimum of a bachelor’s degree in accounting, and the IPA requiring a diploma or advanced diploma of accounting. Without these qualifications, you will not be allowed to create and sign off financial reports.

Management

If you become successful in your field, you may find yourself becoming overwhelmed by the number of clients you are dealing with. But not to worry. You can make use of management services for accountants. These services free up your time by taking care of the administrative work that you will otherwise spend extended periods of time carrying out yourself. They can take care of your schedule, allowing you to get on with your work rather than dealing with phone calls and emails, and maximizing the number of clients you can fit into your working week.

Progression

The more experience you gain in the field, and the better reviews and recommendations you get, the more people who will seek you out as their accountant. Now, you will not be able to maintain all of the clients you have ever dealt with. A good way to progress is to slowly increase your fees. This will help you to maintain the best-paying clients and make the most profit from your work. You will slowly make your way up the ladder, until you have a client base of notable and affluent individuals who will pay you generously in return for your work.

As you can see, becoming an accountant will require a fair amount of hard work and effort, and you will have to dedicate an extended period of time to studying and building up a good base of clients. However, the pay that you take home at the end of the day will all eventually be worth it!