Any Work is Good Work for New Hires

If you are or will soon be a new hire at a public accounting firm, there is one thing you need to understand above everything else: You have a lot to learn and as a result, you can learn from practically everything. I say this because I see a lot of young professionals starting at public accounting firms that aren't happy with the clients they are working on. While I can understand the sentiment, new hires should not be the ones complaining about working with a certain type of client, outside of requiring egregious working hours and unreasonable deadlines. Today, we are going to talk about why new hires are able to benefit from pretty much any client they get put on in their early years. 

Exposure to Different Industries

Professionals tend to specialize in a certain industry or group of industries after a few years because they understand that specialization will help them advance their career. However, it is often overlooked that those same professionals who chose to specialize after a few years often started as generalists, working with clients from multiple different industries. In the world of public accounting, it is possible to gain large amounts of knowledge quickly by working with clients in different industries because each industry has its own set of standards and challenges. Technology companies and startups tend to have more stock option related work, non-profits have specialized reporting requirements, and real estate lends itself to unique investment structures and tax treatments. Regardless of what you want to specialize in a few years down the road, gaining a baseline understanding of multiple industries is essential to accelerating your growth as a young professional. Personally, I chose the route of being a generalist and I can confidently say that having that baseline industry exposure has helped me immensely over my many years, and it can help you too!

Exposure to Different Types of Work

Not all clients are the same and every engagement is going to look different. After a few years in their career, some professionals choose to specialize in a certain type of engagement because it will help them further their career. For tax professionals, that might mean specializing in clients of a certain size, location, or organizational structure. For audit professionals, it may mean specializing in public or private companies as well as mainly performing a certain assurance service such as an audit, a compilation, or a review. Regardless of your long-term goals, electing to only Work on a certain type of engagement or specifically avoiding a certain type of work in your early years can be incredibly harmful to your career growth. This is because the most seasoned and specialized professionals still understand the basics of the work they don't perform often. As a young professional, you should try to get as much exposure as possible to help round out your skill sets and have a better idea of what you want to specialize in when the time comes. Even if it's not part of your long-term plan, take the opportunity to roll up your sleeves and get those 1040s done!

Exposure to Different Working Styles

If there's one thing that you will learn in your early years of public accounting, it's that every manager and partner has a different way of working. Whether it's their communication style or the way they format their work papers, there is some noticeable difference and there's probably a reason for it. Part of becoming a strong and well-rounded professional is learning how to work with different people and create different deliverables. During my first few years, I learned multiple ways of formatting certain work papers and why those differences mattered. No single manager or partner I worked for was always 100% right or wrong, but I can confidently say that some had a better way of doing things than others. The best thing you can do as a young professional is gaining exposure to all these different ways of doing things and keep the best for yourself!

The Underlying Theme 

As you can probably tell by now, the underlying theme is exposure! Young professionals have a unique opportunity to gain exposure to many different people, industries, and types of work because of their role in the firm. Associates aren't expected to know much and are meant to be trained on the job, which allows them to have a variety of work at their level. The same cannot be said for professionals a few years into their career. My advice to young professionals is to get as much exposure as you can as early as you can so they can leverage that experience to shape their future!