July 31, 2023
I received an email from a friend with a link to an article in Business Insider. The title of the article follows: “A shortage of accountants is pushing the industry to reboot its image to win over young talent: ‘You have to sell them.’”
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The awfully long title is pretty much all the substance in the article. It lacks any real usefulness when it comes to asking what really caused this problem. If you do a search for “accountant shortage,” you will find pages of these articles.
My friend sent me the article because he knows that I earned my bachelor’s in accounting and finance. He also knows the trouble I had finding work, even after passing the CPA examination in 1983. I could not get an interview.
The job market was very bad at the time. I attributed the fact that I couldn’t land an interview for two years to that bad job market. I decided to make the best of it by making myself the ideal job candidate.
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My high school accounting teacher told the class that the biggest demand for jobs for decades to come would be accountants with a strong computer background. Also, computer programmers with a knowledge of accounting. So I returned to college in 1983 and completed the equivalent of another bachelor’s degree in computer science by the end of the summer of 1984.
In the rare instances when I could talk to a person during my job search, I would explain why I returned to college. “I took advantage of a bad job market to do what my accounting teacher said in high school and get a strong background in computers to go with my accounting degree.”
Most of the responses I received were ridiculous. The most memorable was: “Don’t you know what you want to do? You got a degree in accounting, and then you go back for one in computers?” Another: “Why would we hire you if you’re not sure what you want to do?”
I recall seeing job ads that I immediately responded to with the understanding that they can’t possibly find anyone with my qualifications. Many jobs read ACCOUNTANT: Required B.S. in accounting or computer science, with one year of accounting or computer programming. I still could not get called in for an interview.
This was in the mid-1980s. Most people were terrified of needing computer skills or having to learn them on the job. Computer use was not ubiquitous then as it is now. I knew people who were afraid to use a computer that had a hard drive. They were used to a device called the five-and-a-quarter-inch floppy. The hard drive was a bridge too far.
So, you might ask, why couldn’t I get an interview for a job for which any fool who could read English could see I was the ideal candidate? My college placement director from the two-year business school where I earned an associate in accounting asked that same question of a human resources manager on the phone and in my presence.
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She repeated into the phone, “How can you say he’s not qualified? He has everything and more than you are looking for!” She followed it up with, “What do you mean, he’s a non-qualifying candidate?” “What’s the difference between that and ‘not qualified’?”
I left and returned a couple of weeks later, and the frustrated placement director asked again with the same result. I returned the next week to find out she had been fired. She learned why I was a non-qualifying candidate. I had two things disqualifying me: too white, too male. She made some threats, and the college fired her for it. They told me they couldn’t honor their lifetime placement service because I had a four-year degree.
I later learned from a relative who was a high school guidance counselor that being a white male with a degree in accounting was why I was unable to find work. It seems the establishment people who want to fix all that ails society decided that since women were starting to move from the profession of housewife to having a career, accounting would be the one. They could teach them and minorities on the job.
This was decided for a profession that is so intense that most students don’t survive the first year of college studies. In fact, it now is a five-year bachelor’s degree. There are no more additional accounting courses; they just spread the workload over five years and fill the courses with electives and mandatory courses like Diversity of This and That.
Looking back on it, the foolish responses I received in interviews made sense. They must have been trained to discourage white males. In fact, some told me they were trained to do that.
People who retired over the years began to explain that the reason they couldn’t hire me was affirmative action quotas. They were afraid to speak out while employed out of fear of losing their jobs. Some remembered the specific time I interviewed with them or the specific opening applied for.
I worked as a temp throughout most of the 1990s in accounting jobs alongside other CPAs who were also temps. More often than not, we were supervised by a woman or minority who lacked any accounting education. In some instances, such women admitted they hated their job because they had no skills in it but had been transferred into it from another department. These were large companies trying to meet government quotas. I can state for a fact that those companies are not the giants they once were.
So, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the University Accounting Schools, “You reap what you sow.” Why would anyone go into a profession that doesn’t respect him and requires more education than higher-paying jobs? That’s the real question. How many sons, and nephews saw their elders suffer from unemployment because they were accountants? How do you expect to attract anyone to a profession that put foolish restrictions on hiring?
For that matter, what has affirmative action done for any profession? The same needs to be asked of Diversity, Inclusion, Equity (DIE) as well as Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG). They have no business in the workplace or education systems. If there is anything that should be mandated, make it merit.
David Ennocenti is a retired accountant and graduate of the State University of N.Y. at Buffalo, School of Management with a degree in accounting and finance. He passed the CPA examination in 1983. His writing has appeared in The American Thinker, USA Today, The New York Times, and several other publications. His screenplay, “Sniper Queen,” was an official selection of The Artemis Women in Action Films Festival. He is a past winner of the Writer’s Digest Annual Competition. His essay “1984 Arrived: Now What? How Progressive Policies Decimated a Once Vibrant Community” is available on Amazon.
Image via Pexels.
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