Career Change to Accounting

Switching to an accounting career took about 4 to 5 years before it started to go in the direction I wanted. I went from unemployed and almost losing everything, to restarting at an income less than 1/3 of my former, and to finally to around $11x,xxx year from employment + $2x,xxx/year from business.

I spent the first 7 1/2 years or so of my working life as an oilfield and road construction worker. I started a business later on in those years in same industry.

Then the Canadian economy (especially our more local one) tanked and I separated from business partner. COVID came shortly after and as you probably know, most of us suffered.

I spent much of the remainder of my savings on school and whatever it took to either become an accountant or lawyer. Accountant was my 2nd choice; law did not work out because of COVID, the Canadian law schools decided to “accommodate” and NOT count the academic performance during certain period of COVID… which was when I did well. I also started doing others’ taxes to learn, to help them, and to make some pocket $$$.

I went to employers in person and called even firms outside my town. I had the 1st job offer (public accounting firm) for 1st accounting job, timed to start the Monday following the Friday I graduated. Another oilfield services company called me for a job for fluid hauling (trucking). It was either I do that until I tried again for law school. I pandered but ended up choosing to go to my new accounting job the next Monday.

Getting the 1st accounting job was absolutely nerve wrecking. If I did not pick up the phone and actually talk to people, whether by that or in-person, it would have likely taken much longer to get that 1st job. It felt like looking for the right cult to fit into, as in this profession, especially in the beginning stages with limited experience – if someone merely didn’t like the look of you, didn’t matter how good or bad you were. I had bad experiences with local Grant Thornton and one Big4 office for example. The managers liked me, but the recruiters didn’t.

I eventually got my CPA at this firm and met lots of awesome people. Unfortunately this firm split and many people went their own ways. I ended up in a business-to-business financing arm as a controller.

One of the biggest challenges there: to convince the prospective employers why I wasn’t the next stereotypical Canadian CPA happy to make $80-90K/y in the beginning years, “stability”, and a slow, gradual ascension (or stagnation). As another accountant put quite bluntly to me:

It is sad how truly spineless many accountants are. They are truly walked over and extremely risk adverse.

Fortunately I did find employers who mainly wanted to recruit me to help them make money instead of filling some ideological need.

I also started my own practice on the side. The first clients were those I worked with in oilfield/road construction. We liked to follow each other – these are geographically vast, but relatively closely knit industries.

Today, I am still at this same controller job and doing above side practice. I just got a $1X,XXX raise (can’t say exact number for confidentiality reasons in case someone who knows me is reading this).

I could go a lot more in depth in all the BS I had to go through, but that’s the summary.