As an adviser to young accountants and accounting practices seeking to expand, the replies of others to this question appear to accurately reflect employment conditions. The job market for accounting is hot mostly for recent grads who are CPA candidates. Large accounting firms want fresh graduates who they can work excessively. Some corporations want lower cost non-CPA employees for their finance staffs, but these jobs are not always secure.
One promissing area is smaller local accounting practices that have difficulty filling staff accounting jobs. Most of these entities focus on tax, but also handle general accounting. The work isn’t too difficult and you maximize your income with an ability to prepare tax returns under supervision. If you don’t have any work history in tax preparation, local accounting practices will hire people with no experience as long as they have some proven skills. You can develop tax expertise by studying for the Enrolled Agent exam.
Passing the EA exam is much easier than the CPA exam. However, you need a course that focuses on tax subjects. A free test bank of sample questions is available at
Enrolled Agent Exam Review and Study Guide With a quality review course you'll have all the knowledge needed for preparing every type of tax return. A small accounting practice will then train you with software and file documentation procedures.
I’ve advised several accountants to take this avenue in the past three years – including some CPAs who thought they would not like tax jobs. They all ended up enjoying the work at a smaller operation where they had contact with a multitude of interesting clients… despite some long workdays for about six week per year.