Caturano Drops Vitale Name

Vitale, Caturano & Co., Ltd., Boston, is changing its name to Caturano and Company effective May 1st. The move to drop the name of partner Richard Vitale comes after a Suffolk County grand jury indicted Vitale on 10 charges, alleging he lobbied his friend, House Speaker Sal DiMasi, without being properly licensed as a lobbyist and violated campaign finance laws.

Caturano spokesperson Joe Grillo said: “Due to challenges we have faced over the past year regarding our firm name, our partners and shareholders have voted to change the name of the firm to Caturano and Company...We want to underscore that our mission has not changed: provide outstanding service to our clients, grow our business, and create opportunities for our staff to advance and enjoy rewarding careers."

The state attorney general’s office said Vitale, Caturano cooperated with its investigation and added that Richard Vitale is no longer affiliated with the firm. The allegations against Vitale involve a separate firm that Vitale owns, WN Advisors LLC, the AG’s office said.

The company will also change its Web site from www.vitale.com to www.caturanoandcompany.com.

Your Options In Negotiating Severance

As the number of layoffs has risen, the willingness of companies to negotiate the contents of severance packages has fallen off due to fears of creating inequalities among classes of employees and the necessity to hoard cash.

Our story.

How Long is Too Long to be Unemployed?

In the current economy, being out of a job for an extended period may not carry the stigma it once did for top managers, according to a new survey.


Executives polled felt that, on average, a senior manager could be out of work nine months before his or her career prospects were adversely affected.


The survey, developed by Robert Half Management Resources, asked 150 senior executives from the nation's 1,000 largest companies: "How long, in months, can a top manager remain unemployed before it hurts his or her career?"



The mean response was nine months, but there were differences in responses based on industry segments. Among the 24 finance industry professionals in the poll, 37.5 percent felt a four-month stint of unemployment was enough to hurt your career. Nearly a third, 29 percent, felt it would take 10 to 12 months of unemployment before you were stigmatized.


"Despite pockets of opportunity, the job market remains challenging, and extended searches aren't unusual," said Paul McDonald, executive director of Robert Half Management Resources. "Most hiring managers recognize the economy has sidelined many outstanding people. In fact, some companies are taking advantage of the current employment environment to hire experienced workers who would not have been available one year ago."

An Accounting Student Meets the Job Market

Kim Kaemmer thought for sure she wanted to earn her CPA and work in public accounting. But as she readies for her May 2009 graduation from the University of St. Thomas, a regional Catholic school in St. Paul, Minn., she's beginning to have second thoughts.

Here's the full story.

Are Green MBAs Appealing?

A new Bright Green MBA program at the Marshall Goldsmith School of Management at Alliant International University, San Diego, is tapping into demand among experienced workers looking to move into federal stimulus-funded green jobs fields.

Alliant officials say students should choose a Green MBA because the $80 billion Recovery Act will create a green industry in need of executives, professionals and entrepreneurs.

A Green MBA could lead to work in fields such as building design, alternative energy and energy efficiency, as well as green consulting.

And, as green grows in popularity, corporations will want to promote their operations as socially and environmentally responsible and to green up their supply chains.

Alliant also argues that a green career offers positive karma. In the green business world, you get financial rewards and the personal satisfaction of making a positive contribution to the environment.

Other schools running Green MBA programs include Dominican University and Presidio School of Management in San Francisco, and Bainbridge Graduate Institute, Bainbridge Island, Washington.

Colorado State University, Ft. Collins and the University of Michigan , Ann Arbor offer MBAs in sustainable enterprise.

Our Take: Be Visible, Not Desperate

Was Joshua Persky ahead of his time? Nine months ago, the laid-off investment banker made his pitch to passers-by in midtown Manhattan wearing a poster that read, "Experienced M.I.T. Grad For Hire." His out-of-the-box tactic brought encouraging words, worldwide media attention and many a contact - but few concrete job opportunities, and no offers. Persky found a new job in October, a full four months after his week inside the sandwich board.

Here's our column.

Grant Thornton Launches Services for Hedge Funds

Grant Thornton is launching a Hedge Fund Internal Control, Governance and Regulatory Compliance Services unit, designed to help funds attract investors who might be wary of alternative investments. The group will also assist funds in preparing to face new regulations that are all-but certain to come out of Washington.

In addition to developing the internal control, compliance and governance facilities to comply with the new rules, firms may also be required to establish an anti-money laundering program and report suspicious activities, Grant Thornton notes.

The company says its new services will include:

• Assessment of a hedge fund firm's readiness to address new investor and regulator demands regarding internal controls, financial reporting and governance.
• Development and testing of internal controls.
• Development and review of regulatory compliance programs
• Independent pricing and classification verification; develop and test valuation policies and procedures.
• Independent attestations and opinions on internal controls

Here's the press release.

Changing Jobs? Leave Bad Habits Behind

People with experience in accounting bring a great amount of knowledge and skills with them when they move to a new job. But they also bring their old habits, including some harmful assumptions about how work should be done.

Here's our story.

New PwC Web site Advises Student Job Seekers

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) has created an online job-hunting toolkit for college students.

Recession-Proof Your Job Search: How to up your chances in a down economy features short video vignettes with career tips, a video Q&A addressing students' career questions and downloadable career planning worksheets.

The online videos feature advice from Lindsey Pollak, author of Getting from College to Career: 90 Things to Do Before You Join the Real World. Pollak is also hosting a blog where students can post questions about the recruiting process.

PwC expects to hire approximately 3,000 college graduates in 2009 - roughly the same number as 2008.

From LinkedIn to Facebook, and Back

Many an electron has been unleashed comparing and contrasting Facebook with LinkedIn. The latest take comes from a pair of McKinsey analysts who worry that LinkedIn's refusal to police spamming will injure the Facebook ethic of open networking once more people start using the latter for career and business purposes, instead of pure friendship. Here's our story.

MBA Grads Looking Beyond IB

The job market is so bad these days that even top MBA program graduates are being forced to take corporate finance positions because they can’t find jobs in investment banking – or so says a feature in Financial Week.

The era of aggressive recruitment by bulge bracket firms is over and this year’s graduates are snapping up jobs just to pay back loans, hoping to move into investment banking later in their careers.

Financial Week reports:

As big banks including Citigroup, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs cut tens of thousands of jobs, MBA students who just a few years ago would have been aggressively recruited by companies now expect to fight for the handful of positions available…

While companies are still sending recruiters to campuses, they are not hiring as many people. MIT [Sloane] officials estimated that recruiters on its campus were offering 20% fewer positions this year.”

With fewer spots open, career counselors are suggesting students look beyond the traditionally popular choices of financial services, consulting, venture capital and hedge funds.

And while American students are considering emerging markets as potential job targets, international students are thinking their home countries could offer more opportunities, the paper concludes.

Speak Up and Speak Better

"Hi. Okay, you guys, hi. How's it goin'? I'm your presenter today, so just, like, open your packets and, like, follow along with the PowerPoint so we can jargon, jargon, jargon, gobbledygook, thirty-six million four hundred twenty-nine thousand eighteen point one percentage points and more, you know, like, jargon. Okay?"

Sound like any presentations you've attended - or, worse, given - lately? Read on.

Is HR About to End Your Overseas Assignment?

International assignments are expensive, so when economic times are tough, they’re an easy target for cut-backs.

That’s why 42 percent of 100 human resources professionals recently surveyed by the International Executive Services (IES) practice of KPMG said they were reviewing those programs with an eye toward cost reductions.

If you want to live in Paris at some point during your accounting career, take heart in the fact that companies are still just thinking about the issue. KPMG found 51 percent had not made any substantive changes to their programs in the last six months and 46 percent did not plan to make any changes within the next year.

"HR professionals need to underscore the value of international assignments to leadership and remind organizations that they continue to have legitimate reasons to invest in their people and their business,” said Achim Mossmann, managing director of Global Mobility Advisory Services in KPMG LLP's IES practice. “They play a vital role in illustrating how quick decisions to cut costs may have a negative impact on the long-term business goals of an organization."

Other key HR areas that organizations are reviewing for both potential budget cuts and cost savings include recruiting (45 percent), and bonus pools (43 percent).

Of the organizations that did make changes to their international assignment programs in the past six months, 23 percent said they had recalled existing assignees. Within the next year, 15 percent said they plan to take similar action.

If your company is considering recalling you and you’d like to stay, make your business case. Point out the short-term cash impact of paying to bring your whole family home, the cost of covering any tax liabilities that repatriation would incur, and the cost of sending you back overseas when the economy improves.

Also, consider arguing that the company needs you where you are. "They [companies] need to maintain contact with assignees to keep them informed of any program changes and swiftly address any rumors they may hear, while also working to determine that the international assignment program's compensation philosophy remains intact," Mossmann says.

Deloitte China Orders Staff to Take Voluntary Unpaid Leave

Different country, different company, same strategy -- have everyone take a little unpaid leave to avoid layoffs -- executed differently.


In China, Deloitte just told its staffers that everyone is going to take four days of unpaid leave starting April 1st to save money, the China Daily newspaper reports.

Last month, the majority of KPMG’s United Kingdom staff agreed to work, and only be paid for, a four-day workweek. There, the company gave employees a chance to vote on the issue.

Ernst & Young, China, put in place a similar program in January, “which required staff members to take up to four weeks of voluntary unpaid leave by June 30,” China Daily reported.

A Painless Route to Tailoring Your Resume

Here's our handy step-by-step guide for customizing your resume to match each job opportunity, without starting from scratch each time.

Freidkin, RAFFA Merge in DC

Two Washington, D.C.-area women-owned accounting firms are merging. Freidkin, Matrone & Horn PA, Rockville will merge into D.C.-based RAFFA PC.

“The merger is combining two top-tier firms,” says Freidkin Principal Susan B. Hepner “Our firm is in the for-profit sector and RAFFA is a niche business in the non-profit sector, so we expect the synergies to create demand where we will be hiring.”

Freidkin, a member of the BDO Seidman Alliance, specializes in high net worth families and their businesses. RAFFA, meanwhile, offers accounting, consulting and technology advice to about 500 non-profits .

The combined firm will have 16 partners and about 250 employees.

Watson Survey: Worst of Layoffs May be Past Us

The worst of the layoffs may be behind us, as companies realize they can’t slash their way out of trouble, according to a new survey from Watson Wyatt.

They survey of 245 large U.S. employers conducted in mid February found that while more than half of companies (52 percent) have already made layoffs, the number of companies planning new layoffs has declined from 23 percent to 13 percent.

"Companies have come to terms with the fact that this recession is going to last and that they can't slash their way out of it," said Laura Sejen, global director of strategic rewards consulting at Watson Wyatt. "Many companies are putting the drastic cuts behind them and are now focusing on smaller, more sustainable cost-cutting actions."

Those actions include hiring freezes (56 percent), salary freezes (42 percent), salary reductions (7 percent), reductions in 401(k) matches (12 percent), a shortened workweek (13 percent), raising employee health care contributions (22 percent), reduced training (35 percent) and travel restrictions (69 percent).

A whopping 69 percent of companies revised merit increase budgets in the past few months, with median increases declining from the 3.5 percent they originally planned to 1.5 percent.

86% of CFOs Put Away the Ax

It says something about the economy that one could view as good news Robert Half International’s (RHI) announcement that 86 percent of CFOs want to maintain current staff levels in the next three months.

In an economy that’s expected to lose half a million jobs for the fourth straight month when unemployment figures come out later this week, having 86 percent of the 1,400 CFOs interviewed for the Financial Hiring Index say they’re not laying off in your industry is comforting.

Another five percent of respondents said they plan to add full-time employees, while 7 percent expect staff reductions. The other 2 percent don't know what they're planning to do.

What’s driving those figures? Curiously, 40 percent of the CFOs said rising workloads were the reason for additional hiring, and another 38 percent attributed it to business growth.

RHI slices and dices its data by region, industry, company size and other factors. So, if you want to see survey results for Boston, mid-size firms, or finance, insurance and real estate (all of which were showing positive demand), scroll to the bottom of the firm’s press release on the survey.

A Handy - Even Fun - Way to Track Trends

Let me start by confessing that I should have posted this blog quite awhile ago but I’ve been having too much fun tinkering with the trends tracker at Indeed.com.

Earlier today, Indeed posted a press release saying online job postings for accounting are down 53 percent from last year, but the number of clicks by job seekers looking at accounting postings is up 79 percent.

I called CEO Paul Forster, who coincidentally used to own JobsintheMoney, to get a little color commentary on the numbers. Indeed.com is a search engine for jobs, so it picks up listing from all sorts of site, including ours.

“You’re seeing two tendencies,” he said. “One is for the number of jobs to decline and the other is for the number of job seekers and their activity to increase. You could look at it like a supply and demand change - the amount of job-seeking and clicks-per-job has increased dramatically.”

Couldn’t you also make the assumption that accountants are worried about their jobs, so they’re checking out the employment market just in case? And that companies, meanwhile, are filling more jobs simply by posting them on their own Web sites?

He then lured me over to the Trends button. This tool calculates the popularity of any search term or the relative popularity of two terms (just put a comma between them).

Inquiring minds need to know: Who’s posting more listings, KPMG vs. PWC? Which is the more popular designation, Certified Public Accountant or Certified Fraud Examiner? PeopleSoft versus Oracle?

Be forewarned. It’s way too much fun given how useful it is to see trends in demand for skills and for employees.

How to Do Unto Others

A recent blog post by corporate consultant Richard Skaare serves up a fresh slant on networking: the best ways to help a friend who is unemployed.

You can learn a lot from - and give a lot to - a friend or former colleague who is unemployed. This is an opportune time to do unto others as you might someday want others to do unto you,

writes Skaare, a communications and change management expert, in his Pocket Change blog.

First, he ticks off what not to say: Don’t constantly bring up your friend's transitional state. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver. And, don’t pretend to have the answers.

To avoid being a constant reminder of something unpleasant, Skaare advises starting conversations with your friend as if she is employed like you are. If and when she brings up the unemployment issue, only then ask questions and show your support. But let her initiate it.

I wonder about that. During my last nine-month transition between employers, I would have appreciated more direct, unsolicited expressions of concern from people in my personal circle. Because all my friends and relatives seemed to approach me as if I was employed like they were, I came to feel stigmatized, like a cancer victim whose illness is too awkward to mention. So, you might be sticking your unemployed friend with the unwanted burden of reaching out to ask for your concern, if you leave it to him to raise the difficult subject first.

In the "Don't promise what you can't deliver" department, Skaare wisely advises selecting only the most relevant contacts to refer your friend to, and calling each to ask them to devote a little face time to her. "As a result of the meeting, your unemployed friend now has someone who will remember her," he observes.

With those few "don'ts" out of the way, Skaare then details five good ways to support an unemployed friend:

• Devote at least two hours each week to talking with him (not necessarily about the job search).
• Listen closely, and mirror your friend's emotional flow.
• Help with the truth. Let your friend voice her frustrations and fears, once she's comfortable doing that.
• Prepare to stick with your friend for however long it takes him to get re-employed. The worst time for the unemployed is three months after losing a job, according to Skaare.
• Make a sacrifice. Skaare suggests offering to look after the friend's kids, lend your extra car or even offer to lend money (as a good friend of Skaare's once offered to do for him).

I don't know about that last suggestion. Sacrifice, yes. But lending money to a friend is fraught with peril, even if it's the dearest of friends (or even a close relative). Remember the words of the Bard: "A loan doth lose both itself and friend."

Helping Your Unemployed Friend [Pocket Change]

Speaking the Language of Financial Reporting

Do you speak XBRL? Now that the Securities and Exchange Commission has set a June deadline for the 500 largest companies to start filing financial reports using eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), demand for accountants fluent in the interactive business language is growing.

“It’s hot,” says Mitchell Feldman, President of A.E. Feldman Associates, Inc., a Great Neck, N.Y. executive search firm, who recently wrote about the move to XBRL in his blog. “I’m getting calls from clients for this. It’s steady work.”

What else is going on in Feldman's shop? He’s seeing a lot of former partners these days. “There’s a musical chairs going on,” he warns. “The key is to make sure that your CPA partner practice is strong and some of them aren’t.”

How to Manage an Exit Interview

For whatever the reason - maybe you've been let go, maybe you're leaving for another firm - you're facing a human resource officer on your last day of work.What do you do?

Read here, to start.

RSM and McGladrey & Pullen Open NY Life Science Practice

RSM McGladrey and McGladrey & Pullen LLP are opening a Life Sciences Practice Group to serve New York and New Jersey clients.

Managing Directors John Lanza and Patricia Baldowski will lead the practice. “The group is a new team formed from the manufacturing, wholesale and distribution group,” explains McGladrey Spokesperson John Ryan. “They’ve been in place and focusing on this area for quite some time and we’re making it an official group.”

At present, the firm is running the group with existing staff, but that could change. “We’re anticipating growth and with that growth we’ll keep an open mind about adding staff,” Ryan said.

The group provides audit services for public and private entities, public equity offerings, FAS 109 and FIN 48 support for public companies, industry-specific tax planning and compliance, merger and acquisition guidance, transfer pricing, and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance support.

Work Life Issues Still Alive at Deloitte

They may be telling you to hunker down and work harder at your shop, but over at Deloitte, they’re still thinking about work/life balance despite the economic challenges of today’s business environment.

Stan Smith, national director of Next Generation Initiatives at Deloitte LLP explains what the economic crisis will and won’t change about Millennials' workplace expectations in a podcast posted at Total Picture Radio.

Listening to the 17-minute podcast on your iPod won’t get you the whole way through a decent workout on the elliptical at the gym, but it will make you feel like there’s hope for accountants who want to see their children or grandchildren during daylight hours.

Some Common Resume No-No's

People who look at a lot of resumes - recruiters, frequent hiring managers, some HR professionals, career coaches and yes, job board staffers like ourselves - often remark that elementary, even comical errors (like misspelling the name of a past employer) crop up far more often than one might think. So a list of 25 things a job-seeker should never include in his or her resume is well motivated, even if many of these no-no's sound like no-brainers. Here's our story.

Two NYC Mergers Announced

Two New York City mergers were announced today. Parente Randolph, LLC, has combined its practice with New York City-based, Lazar Levine & Felix LLP. Crowe Horwath LLP is merging with Hays & Company LLP and admitting six partners to open a new Crowe New York City office.

David Lifson and Ed Kuczmarski of Hays & Co. will lead a 50-person Crowe Madison Avenue team. “This is another step to accomplishing our vision of becoming a national firm that is globally recognized and will firmly establish Crowe’s entry into the New York market,” said Chuck Allen, Crowe’s chief executive officer. Crowe already has offices in Livingston, N.J., and Philadelphia, Pa.

The $16 million Lazar Levine & Felix and Parente Randolph merger will create a firm with 650 team members and 82 principals.

“We do expect this to provide growth opportunities and that will lead to an increase in staff,” says a company spokesperson. Parente’s not able to define how large that increase might be.

“Our services complement each other and their location ties in directly with our growth plan,” adds Robert J. Ciaruffoli, chairman and CEO of Parente Randolph. “Having solidified our footprint in New Jersey and expanding into New York City, we look forward to the new business development opportunities and attraction of talent this merger will bring.”

Parente Randolph provides assurance and tax services, corporate finance, governance and risk management, forensic accounting, and business systems, human resources and healthcare consulting.

Lazar Levine & Felix will add matrimonial services and a family office practice to the service list. Both firms already offer business valuation and litigation support services.

Joining Parente Randolph as Principals are Paul Adams, Eric J. Barr, Amiram (Kiki) Bielory, Ted M. Felix, Jay B. Goldberg, Lawrence Gotfried, Henry B. Guberman, Moshe Levitin, Joan Lipton, Nazeleen Sataur, Thomas R. Vreeland. Retired partners O. David Fischer, Melvin Lazar and Spencer Wissinger, III, will continue to provide services to the new entity.

The Lazar Lipton Valuation Services LLC affiliate of Lazar Levine & Felix, will become a division of Parente Randolph

Working Without a Net

During recessions, many laid-off professionals shun a return to traditional employment, opting instead for careers as independent contractors or consultants. Here are some things to consider.

Economy Pressures Smaller Firms

If the economy continues to crash, accounting firms may find themselves forced to lay off employees to balance the books after the busy season.

Here's Dona's story.

Big Four Make Training Magazine's Top 125 List

The Big Four dominate this year’s Training Magazine Top 125 companies list, with PricewaterhouseCoopers coming in at number one, followed by KPMG in the number two spot.

Deloitte enters the magazine’s Hall of Fame, after making it into the top ten for four consecutive years. Ernst & Young was already a Hall of Fame company.

Companies enter the competition, which ranks organizations based on their financial commitment, training programs offered, metrics measured, workplace surveys, turnover and new employee referrals.

Training Editor-in-Chief Lorri Freifeld says companies in the top ten are known for providing quality, innovative, excellent training programs. “If you chose any company in the top ten you’re guaranteed a good training experience,” she says.

But why do so many accounting firms make the list? “Compliance,” Freifeld answers. Given the expertise required of accounting firm employees and their need to comply with so many rules and regulations, it makes sense that accounting firms would put time and effort into training.

Where 'Son of TARP' Could Create Jobs

Here is our initial read on potential direct jobs impact from the detailed financial stability plan unveiled today by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Grow Professionally Online

Looking for career guidance or growth? Want to share your wisdom with others? Then consider becoming an online mentor or protégé and let the coaching begin.

Here's our story.

Almost Half of CFOs Still Plan to Retire on Time

Economic conditions have led about a quarter of chief financial officers (CFOs) to delay their retirement – bad news for those who were hoping to move up when the boss stopped working.

That’s the news from Robert Half Management Resources’ latest survey of 1,400 U.S. CFOs. In addition to the 27 percent of CFOs who said they’re “extending their working years,” another 25 percent said they had “more uncertainty and cannot predict” when they would retire.

If you’re a glass-almost-half-full kind of person, look at it this way: 43 percent said their retirement plans hadn’t changed and another 5 percent planned to spend “fewer years” working than they had intended to five years ago.

When asked why they planned to work longer, 62 percent of the CFOs said the economy, 9 percent chalked it up to family concerns. Only 2 percent selected the best of all possible reasons to stay on the job: “Renewed desire for the stimulation work provides.”

Bottom line: there's a nearly 50/50 chance that instead of getting promoted to CFO you’re going to be working for a boss who would rather be playing golf.

Good Background, Strong Skills - And No Job?

Despite a perfect resume, flawless references and years of experience, some finance professionals are finding it difficult to land a job suitable to their skills. Even people who've put in time at Big Four accounting firms or well-known investment banks have sometimes gotten less-than-receptive reactions from prospective employers.

Here's our story.

Majority of KPMG UK Agrees Cut Backs Better than Layoffs

KPMG's United Kingdom operation is close to succeeding in its plan to avoid layoffs by convincing the majority of its 11,000 employees to potentially work a four-day week or take a short sabbatical at reduced pay.

More than 60 percent of staffers have agreed to the deal, says KPMG EMA Director of Communications Gavin Houlgate. "But, we have not passed the closure of the voting system yet," he adds. "That’s next week, so the final figure may change."

London's Financial Times reports the firm is telling staffers they'll only lose 10 percent of their pay in the deal and that they will have the option of switching back to full time work at the end of the year.

The firm estimates that it will need 75 percent of the staff to agree to avoid cutbacks, the Times says.

Firms Still Hiring, But More Slowly

If there's an unwritten rule not to change public accounting jobs during tax season, plenty of accountants are ignoring it. And despite the emergence of some interesting staffing options, hiring in accounting and finance has slowed.

Here's Dona's story.

E-Mailing Thanks? Look at the Clock First

This is what I call a really good point. It comes from Ingrid Goldbloom Bloch, a career counselor and career development trainer from Massachusetts:

Here’s a tip for everyone writing electronic thank-you notes after networking meetings and actual interviews. (If you aren’t writing a thank you note within a day of meeting someone who’s helping in your job search, you should be!)

Leslie Warner, director of Alumni/ae Career Services at Tufts University recommends you only e-mail your thank you notes, or any other communication, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.) unless you know your recipients don’t have their Blackberrys turned on 24/7 for their clients and other work requirements.

I recently heard from a financial services guy who says folks earnestly send him thank you letters after he meets with them - and they do it at 1 a.m. He has to get out of bed and check what it is because it might be a client issue to address. When it ends up being a request for information or a thank you note, it makes him cranky.

So don’t sabotage your job search efforts with a well-meaning but mistimed correspondence. Compose your letters at 2 a.m., but don’t hit the send button until the next business day.

A Career Change Road Map

Changing careers requires intensive research, self-knowledge, and passionate commitment to a goal. Ultimately, getting hired may rest on devising a marketable idea you can present to an employer in the field you’ve trained your sights on.

Our story's here.

Coping With Difficult People At Work

Vicky Oliver's book, Bad Bosses, Crazy Coworkers & Other Office Idiots, comes at the right time. Until a year or so ago, "retention" was a mantra for HR officers. Now the shoe is on the other foot: It's employees who obsess about retaining their own jobs. So a tool kit for coping with difficult workplace personalities falls on fertile soil.

Here's Jon's review.

Friedman Merges with Chortek & Gottschalk

David Friedman, CPA, has merged wtih Chortek & Gottschalk, LLP, Waukesha, Wisconsin, giving the firm new offices in Northbrook, Illinois and Beverly Hills. Five professionals who, like Friedman, specialize in forensic accounting, will also join Chortek & Gottschalk.

In addition to forensic work, Friedman specializes in accounting, tax planning and financial consulting for those in the entertainment industry. The bulk of that work is done in the firm’s Beverly Hills office, but Chicago is actually a pretty active market for entertainment, especially live theater, and a lot of talent hails from the Windy City, Friedman says.

They’re not looking to add any staff at this point, but he suggests you keep them in mind for future employment. “Both firms have a strong dedication to quality, we’re not churn-and-burn accounting shops,” he says, adding that the firm's accountant with the least seniority has been there seven years.

Big Four Plus Plante Make Fortune 100 Best Cos. List

The Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list is out and all four of the Big Four, plus Plante & Moran, Southfield, Michigan made the list.

The rankings are based on the opinions of 400 randomly selected employees at each firm who respond to a 57-question survey, plus a Culture Audit of demographics, pay, benefits, corporate philosophy and communications. To be eligible a company has to be at least seven years old and have 1,000 employees.

In agreeing to be on the list, the Big Four each had to release some interesting statistics about their firms.

Wondering how many new jobs the firm has created, the percentage of voluntary turnover, the most common job salary, how many job applicants they had, or how many hours of training the average staffer receives? It’s all there in the Fortune ranking.

You’ll also find information about the percentage of minorities and women at the firms and whether they offer same-sex partner benefits.

KPMG Wins Catalyst Award for Diversity Initiative

KPMG has won an 2009 Catalyst Award for its Great Place to Build a Career initiative, which includes programs, resources, and benefits aimed at making KPMG an inclusive employer.

In choosing its annual award winners, Catalyst considers several aspects of an organization's diversity program including business rationale, senior leadership support, accountability, communication, replicability, originality and measurable results.

In 2008, 18.2 percent of KPMG partners were women, up from 12.9 percent in 2003. Also, women of color represented 10.2 percent of managing directors, directors, senior managers, and managers, up from 5.7 percent in 2003.

Turnover among KPMG’s women and men decreased over the course of the initiative, dropping 36.3 percent for women and 24.5 percent for men between 2003 and 2008.

Just how hard is it to win the Catalyst award? Corporate award skeptics would say that far too many prizes are given to companies based on their ability to fill the tables at awards dinners.

However, Catalyst is pretty well respected and it only passes out a handful of Awards each year, even though the group has over 400 members globally.

KPMG is the fourth of the Big Four to earn the award. Ernst & Young won in 2003, PricewaterhouseCoopers won in 2007 and Deloitte won way back in 1995.

80% of UK KPMG Partners Want 4-Day Work Week

More than 80 percent of United Kingdom KPMG partners have said yes to a company offer that would allow them to either work a four-day week or take a short sabbatical, Accountancy Age reports.

That figure means around 400 out of 550 UK partners have applied, the paper says, adding:

Eight other countries within the KPMG group are thought to be considering similar schemes.

Rachel Campbell, the firm’s head of people, said: "Like many other firms as part of our forward planning we said: 'What would the situation look like if the market worsens?' We simply didn’t want to be in the position where we would be contemplating large scale redundancies."

KPMG’s announcement comes amid a wave of job cuts in the profession. [UK] Firms including Deloitte, Grant Thornton and PKF have announced plans to cut hundreds of jobs in expectation of slower revenue growth this year.

Other [UK] firms, including Ernst & Young and PwC, said they already offered a limited number of staff the option of working a shorter working week or sabbaticals. But they added that they had no plans to offer a scheme on the scale of KPMG in an effort to avoid job cuts.

SEC Could Add Enforcement Jobs

The SEC might add as many as 120 new slots for enforcement lawyers and accountants later this year. That's how many new bodies one securities law expert believes the agency will need to restore its reputation as a market watchdog.

Here's our story.

Revenue Growth Modest in Year Ahead

Growth rates for global accounting networks will likely be in the single digits in the year ahead, and most firms will look for creative ways to re-assign staff to avoid layoffs, according to Arvind Hickman, editor of the International Accounting Bulletin (IAB).

Combined 2008 fee income for major networks was $130.2 billion, up 16 percent from 2007, while association total revenues rose 15 percent to $22.6 billion, IAB says.

However, since many accounting firms use a mid-year date as their year end, the economic downturn had not yet hit when results were reported.

“What we’ve been hearing from global leaders and from leaders in the U.S. is there is definitely a slow down in certain areas affected by the credit crisis and an increase in other areas. That traditionally occurs when economic downturns happen,” Hickman says.

What's ahead? “You will see a lot more emphasis on restructuring and business recovery services while corporate finance work will continue to decline. There will also be a further investment into the emerging markets, especially India and China,” he says.

As firms look at different ways to manage their staff, we could see more initiatives like the United Kingdom KPMG’s four-day work week offer, or Singapore KPMG’s 5 percent to 7.5 percent pay cuts for middle and top management, Hickman adds.

In comparing revenues, IAB says PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) was still the largest network, with 2008 fee income of $28.2 billion, followed by Deloitte at $27.4 billion. Deloitte’s consulting business was particularly robust. It grew 22 percent and contributed $6.3 billion to the company’s bottom line, IAB says. E&Y posted $24.5 billion in fee income, and KPMG generated $22.7.

SEC Nominee Inclined to Go Slow on IFRS

SEC chair-designee Mary Schapiro says she might take IFRS implementation off the fast-track "road map" established by departing Chairman Christopher Cox.

During a confirmation hearing last Thursday before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, Schapiro said in response to a question, "I will take a big deep breath and look at this entire area again carefully and will not necessarily feel bound by the existing road map that’s out for comment."

According to media reports, she expressed three concerns about moving from U.S. GAAP to international accounting standards: the cost burden for U.S. companies to make the switch, lack of detail within IFRS opening the door to inconsistent application, and the independence of the International Accounting Standards Board.

In one media account, the cost issue appeared to take center stage. According to Dow Jones newswire, Schapiro

told the committee that the SEC needs to "think carefully" about imposing these changes on the industry, saying that some estimates suggest it could cost up to $30 million for each company to convert to the IFRS.

However, a separate report in the Journal of Accountancy says Schapiro referred to questions about IASB's independence from politicians as her "greatest concern" about IFRS.

To be sure, the existing rulemaking structure for U.S. GAAP is hardly fully "independent," either. FASB pronouncements can be and sometimes have been overruled by the SEC, a government regulator whose purse strings are controlled by Congress.

These issues were neatly summed up by AICPA in a recent post on its IFRS Resources blog:

The more serious risk to adopting IFRS is not the quality of the standards, but the accountability and independence of the International Accounting Standards Board. The second milestone in the SEC’s roadmap discusses accountability. National accounting setters have traditionally been accountable to national regulators. In the U.S., the SEC oversees the Financial Accounting Foundation, parent of the FASB. Historically, the International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation has not had a similar link with national securities regulators.

The IASC Foundation Trustees have proposed amendments to its constitution that would create a Monitoring group composed of securities authorities. The Monitoring group will work with the IASC Foundation on oversight of the IASB and areas for consideration by the IASB in its ongoing work.

Even if a monitoring group is established, will an international accounting model be strong enough to fend off political pressure from governments around the world and are we in the U.S. ready to give up our direct regulator relationship with the accounting standards setter?

Several AICPA members' comments in response to that Jan. 7 post argued against adopting IFRS for U.S. companies. None argued in favor.

Schapiro is the current chief executive of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. She is also a former SEC commissioner and also served as head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Strategic Career Change

Since Change is the national theme of the week, we thought we'd look at a recent article in Psychology Today that, while it focuses on personality change, can apply to the idea of career change, as well. If nothing else, it's a helpful guide to taking stock of your position and whether it's really the right one for you.

Here's our take on it.

The Special Agent Train Pulls Out of the Station at 36

After reading our stories about working for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a few folks wanted to know why those employers don’t hire agents older than 36.

We went straight to the source for a response and here’s how Navy Communication Director Paul O'Donnell explains the situation: “There is an entry age limit because there is a mandatory retirement age for the 1811 job series in federal law enforcement.” For those outside the Beltway, the 1811 series is fed-speak for criminal and non-criminal investigators.

The FBI and NCIS aren’t the only agencies that hire 1811s. So do the Department of Agriculture, the Centers for Disease Control, the State Department, Treasury and really, the list goes on.

The reason there’s mandatory retirement is because the agencies want a “young and vigorous law enforcement officer (LEO) work force.” LEOs get to retire at age 50 with enhanced annuities, as long as they have 20-years of LEO-covered service or at any age after 25 years of service.

For NCIS, the Department of Defense gets to set the maximum age for original entry into the special agent job. “Persons not appointed by the last day of the month in which that individual reaches their 37th birthday cannot be originally appointed or assigned to the LEO position,” O’Donnell explained to us in an email.

There is a loophole. “For NCIS, the Secretary of the Navy may approve the original entry of an individual who has passed the entry age limits,” O’Donnell writes. “The Secretary of the Navy may also exempt a LEO from automatic separation until the employee becomes 60 years of age if in their judgment the public interest so requires.”

If you’re 37 or better, you may not be shut out of service completely. There are positions that fall outside the requirement because they’re not 1811 series jobs. You can check the http://www.usajobs.gov/ Web site to see everything an agency has open, then click on the qualifications tab to see whether a particular federal job has an age limit.

KPMG Offers 4-Day Week to United Kingdom Staff

The London Mail today reported that KPMG’s United Kingdom operations put an interesting proposition to its partners and staff: How about you cut back to working four days a week to help us cut costs?

The Press Association says the firm is offering a second option, 30 to 120-day sabbaticals for 30 percent pay.

The Telegraph said the plan will be finalized in mid-February.

I can’t imagine they’re going to get too many takers. I’d be too worried to take the three-day weekend for fear that the move would be interpreted as a lack of commitment to (and desire for) my job.

In the U.S., where KPMG is legally a completely separate firm, officials declined to speculate when we asked them if a similar move might be ahead for their employees.

How to Interview - Discreetly

Should employees be fired for interviewing with another company?

Sports pundits were buzzing when Boston College Athletic Director Gene DeFilippo fired head football coach Jeff Jagodzinski for interviewing with the New York Jets. While the practice might be a revelation in the sports world, DeFilippo’s actions probably didn’t surprise many in the private sector, where employees regularly risk termination if they’re caught interviewing for another job. In fact, some managers start recruiting for a successor if they happen to overhear an employee talking to a recruiter on the phone or spot an employee’s resume posted online.

Considering the lack of job security and growth opportunities these days, it hardly seems fair to be let go simply for interviewing. But if you think you might be laid off or your compensation has changed for the worse, you may have to take the risk. If you do, follow these tips to keep your search a secret.

A New Way to Injure Yourself Online

Job-seekers are often urged to ramp up their use of online tools like personal Web sites, social networking, live-blogging and mobile, Web-based email. Just as with physical tools, however, using any relatively new product poses a risk of self-injury.

Here's Jon Jacobs's story.

It Doesn't Hit You...Until it Hits You

Until the ax crashes through the wall of the cubby next door, most people don't worry about being laid off. That's the conclusion of a survey which found only 12 percent of those working at layoff-free firms are concerned about losing their jobs in the next six months. That figure rises to 45 percent among those working at companies where jobs have been lost.

"A lot of it is the 'not me' syndrome," says Robert Hohman, CEO of Glassdoor.com, a Web site that hired Harris Interactive to survey some 1,300 people on the subject. "People view this as someone else's problem, except when it happens to their company and then people get a hard dose of reality."

Even then, folks tend to see layoffs as something that happens to other people. While 45 percent of employees think they could lose their own job after a layoff has occurred, 87 percent think other people are going to be the ones let go.

The survey also examined what people are willing to do to keep their jobs as safe as possible. It found workers are willing to work harder, forgo pay increases and bonuses and take on more responsibility when they work for a company that's had layoffs in the past six months.

What fascinates me is how very few people are willing to take a pay cut to keep their job. To save their own job, people said they were willing to:

• take on more projects/responsibility - 74 percent
• work longer hours - 60 percent
• give up benefits such as the on-site cafeteria or day care 46 percent
• accept a reduction in health or dental benefits - 32 percent
• take a cut in salary - 30 percent
• give up paid time off/vacation - 24 percent

So, more than half of those surveyed wouldn't brown bag lunch to save their job? More than half would rather by laid off than pay for their own trips to the dentist or contribute more to their health insurance tab?

But wait, there's more. Given the current need for corporate cost-cutting, you'd think people would scale back their bonus expectations. Not so much. Forty one percent said they expect their bonus to remain the same, and 15 percent expect their bonus to be larger. Only 28 percent expect a shrinking bonus.

Catch Bad Guys

Accounting and financial analysis skills figure highly in the FBI's new push to hire more than 2,100 professional staff and 850 special agents. Posted on the bureau's careers Web site, current openings include financial manager, financial analyst, supervisory budget analyst, accounting analyst, accounting and budget technician, and auditor. Most require an accounting degree and/or accounting or auditing experience. Pay grades range up to GS-14, with a published salary range of about $85,000 to $110,00. Application deadline is Jan. 16. Here's our story.

Accounting IT Trends for 2009

CPA Technology Advisor’s Richard Oppenheimer says 2009’s most important technology trends for accountants will be:

• Virtualization
• Tax document automation
• Streamlined sales tax
• Mobile access — smart phones, Gobi, 3G
• Cloud computing — mesh, etc. and
• Portals

“The emerging reality is that accountants have to know about technologies — ones they use along with planning for ones they are about to use,” he says.

For those who don’t mesh from mush, the column is a quick read that covers some of the biggest trends going on in accounting IT.

Brathas Joins McGladrey

Chris Brathas has joined McGladrey & Pullen LLP as an audit partner in the firm's Boston office. A former KPMG senior manager, he specializes in serving colleges, universities, private schools, research entities, foundations and membership organizations.

"Chris enhances our ability to serve educational and other not-for-profit organizations in the Boston marketplace," said Steve Dooley, executive managing partner of McGladrey & Pullen's Boston-based offices. "Given the current pressure on colleges and universities to manage costs and implement efficiencies, primarily due to the dramatic decline in endowment funds, the addition of Chris to our team makes McGladrey & Pullen a strong alternative for institutions seeking depth of expertise and competitive fees."

WS+B Picks up Serluco

WithumSmith+Brown (WS+B), Princeton, New Jersey, has acquired Serluco & Co., LLC, a Red Bank, New Jersey firm with a client base that includes on health care providers and not-for-profit organizations.

“Serluco & Co. have a niche expertise that we are looking to expand upon,” says Andy Vitale, CPA, Partner-in-Charge of WS+B’s Red Bank office.

Richard Serluco was a partner with Deloitte & Touche prior to founding Serluco & Co. and is chairman of the New Jersey Society of CPAs (NJSCPA) Auditing and Accounting Standards Committee. Serluco will join WS+B as a Partner-Emeritus.

His son, Michael Serluco, CPA, a partner at Serluco & Co., will be a partner at WS+B and Serluco Director Joseph Denuto will be a Senior Manager at WS+B.

Wield New Tools, But Wear Protective Gloves

Job-seekers are often urged to ramp up their use of online tools like personal Web sites, social networking, live-blogging and mobile Web-based email. Just as with physical tools, however, any relatively new product poses a risk of self-injury.

A candidate relates this harrowing tale: Scanning a mailbox he rarely used, he was shocked to find an employer's invitation to interview for a dream job languishing there. Worse, his Web hosting system had routed that incoming email to a "Junk" folder. The candidate discovered the message eight days after the prospective employer had sent it – and less than 48 hours before his system would have automatically deleted it.

The lesson: It's easy to get euphoric while watching your online presence grow before your eyes. Free personal Web sites and blogs, a custom domain for yourself, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, and a multitude of separate mailboxes and email addresses -- all give job-seekers ever-greater leeway to tailor job inquiries to the perceived preferences of particular employers. But those same tools also give you more ways to lose control - of both the messages you put out about yourself (falling victim to "digital dirt"), and incoming messages from contacts or even potential employers.

What's the answer? Telling every job-seeker to confine all search-related correspondence to a single email address is probably too simplistic. Instead, each professional should administer personal Web and email accounts in a way that he or she is comfortable with, but that makes it easy to review all information frequently so that critical messages won't be missed.

One obvious possibility is to set every mailbox to automatically forward all incoming email to your primary address. If some mailboxes and other communication tools lack full Outlook functionality (automatic forwarding, reminders, calendars and the like), you might set your Blackberry or PC to send you alerts by other means. Or, you could create a document or spreadsheet that lists each domain you use and each employer you contacted through that domain.

The bottom line: expanding your online toolbox requires a bit of planning and extra care, especially at the outset, to maintain control over the edifice of new communication tools you've built.

Deloitte Creates IFRS Course Materials

Students coming out of school in the next few years may be learning about International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) courtesy of Deloitte.

The accounting firm has released a complete set of IFRS course materials to its 150-school IFRS University Consortium. While only Consortium member schools can access the full set of materials, anyone can access Deloitte’s IFRS Resource Library of white papers, industry and tax publications, articles, IFRS tools, newsletters, podcasts and IFRS Q&As.

With IFRS looming, now is a great time to make sure you know at least as much about the subject as next year's graduates.

Resolved: Check Credit Before Job Hunting

If your New Year's resolutions include finding a new job, be sure you find out what’s in your credit report before potential employers do by pulling your credit report from the three big repositories.

Looking at your credit report tells an employer how you manage money, and also reveals where you shop (think twice before you open a store account at a lingerie shop), how much you charge, what mortgaged properties you own, and shows your delinquencies, bankruptcies, judgments and liens.

Employers will also see prior employment information, so be sure your credit report matches your resume.

You’ll also see a list of just who has ordered copies of your credit report, which may include your current employer (if the stack of paperwork you signed when you took your current job included a form giving your employer permission to check your credit).

If your credit report has a mistake, you'll find information about how to correct it at the Web sites of Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

If your credit report is bad and it’s also accurate, during interviews be prepared to exhibit extreme contrition about your past mistakes. Keep your explanation short and include a statement about how you’ve corrected the problem. Then turn the interview back to the real issue – what you can do for the employer.

Be Prepared!

Job security can't be taken for granted these days. Being able to launch a job search on a moment’s notice calls for ongoing preparation. So if proactive job search and career advancement techniques haven’t been part of your regular routine, add them to your New Year's resolutions for 2009. Our story fleshes out five essential tactics.

More Pain On the Way For Early '09

Job opportunities and compensation are set to contract further after the New Year, leading consultants predict, and finance departments probably won't get a pass this time around.

The media gave boatloads of ink last week to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas' prediction that more than 1 million jobs would be cut in 2009. While the figure is dramatic, the U.S. already lost well over 1 million jobs during 2008. A separate report from Watson Wyatt found that 23 percent of employers surveyed in early December said they plan layoffs in 2009.

More interesting, however, are various granular details in the Watson Wyatt report. As related in a CNNMoney story, 19 percent of respondents planned to freeze salaries in the the next 12 months, and another 13 percent had already frozen salaries. Three months ago, those figures came in at just 12 percent and 4 percent, respectively.

A majority of employers, 61 percent, planned to "revise" budgets for merit raises – nearly triple the number from October's survey. While CNNMoney's story is doesn't specify direction, it's probably safe to take "revise" as a euphemism for "reduce."

These changes are expected to play out in coming months. And the broad swath of cost-cutting measures is a strong indication that employees in corporate treasury and finance departments will bear their share of pain.

Unhappy new year: More layoffs '09 [CNNMoney]

When Your Name is Kennedy...

If we're all supposed to be adapting to an ever-changing marketplace by re-purposing ourselves to fit each new engagement, why shouldn't those engagements include some time home with the kids or three years in the Peace Corps?

That's the question raised by Anne Glusker in a Washington Post opinion piece about Caroline Kennedy that's more about the way companies view parents than it is about politics.

As the column points out, after law school, Kennedy co-wrote two books on constitutional issues, edited some poetry anthologies and lately has spent three days a week raising funds for New York City Public Schools.

So how would that translate into a saleable resume for someone with a different last name? Glusker suggests:

Rather than a privileged aberration, I prefer to view Kennedy as a bellwether, a case study in how things could be if only the workplace were more accepting of an unconventional CV, one that may brim with great experience and skills and talent but is also peppered with gaps and one-off projects and volunteering. After all, if workers can no longer expect the security of a 50-year career with IBM or Procter & Gamble, then maybe employers should stop expecting each and
every job applicant to present them with an old-fashioned sequential résumé. Maybe now's the time to change our thinking about what constitutes the ideal CV.

Glusker is on to something here. Companies want to be able to hire and shed employees at will, but prefer their hires to have resumes unblemished with long gaps of unemployment -- be it voluntary or involuntary.

In the real world, smart people do take career detours. If you're one of them, and you hope to someday return to work full-time, you've got to do your part to stay connected to your industry. Meanwhile, here's hoping the industry is ready to bend a bit, too, when you're ready to come back.

Employers Strive to Avoid Layoffs, Too

Surprising as it might appear at first glance, many companies, institutions and even employees are bending over backwards to avoid eliminating jobs.

That sounds like a stretch, given that the U.S. economy lost a net 533,000 jobs last month and more than half a million new claims for unemployment benefits are filed each week.

Yet, Sunday's New York Times reports that a notable minority of employers are cutting labor costs in a variety of unconventional ways, as an alternative to the ultimate step of cutting staff. The alternatives include shortened workweeks, unpaid vacations and other "furloughs," wage freezes, scaling back or suspending pension contributions…even voluntary salary reductions. At Brandeis University, 90 out of 300 professors volunteered to give up 1 percent of their pay to help the university avoid laying off workers. In the manufacturing world, notes the Times,

Companies nipping at labor costs with measures less drastic than wholesale layoffs include Dell (extended unpaid holiday), Cisco (four-day year-end shutdown), Motorola (salary cuts), Nevada casinos (four-day workweek), Honda (voluntary unpaid vacation time) and The Seattle Times (plans to save $1 million with a week of unpaid furlough for 500 workers). There are also many midsize and small companies trying such tactics.

One such smaller firm is Hot Studio, a San Francisco Web design company. Instead of giving the usual year-end bonuses, gave its employees paid time off over the holidays.

Besides looking to maintain morale, employers want to avoid getting caught short-handed if business recovers quickly and avoid ejecting workers who have proven highly productive based on modern-day performance metrics that many businesses now use.

The movement is not with out nay-sayers, however. Yale University professor Truman Bewley, an expert on labor economics, told the Times,

If the sacrifices look as though they are going to continue for many months, … some workers will grow frustrated, want their full compensation back and may well prefer a layoff that creates a new permanence. “These are feel-good, temporary measures,” he said.

More Companies Are Cutting Labor Costs Without Layoffs [New York Times]

Your New Job "To Do" List

Starting a new job?

Use this handy checklist of things you'll need to do:

1. Make a good impression on new co-workers.
2. Send your new email address to everyone in your network.
3. Start looking for your next job.

No, we're not crazy, just reading the latest survey from MRINetwork, which finds that 15 percent of people look for new opportunities as soon as they start a job.

The survey also found that 16 percent of people try to wait a year or two before looking again. The rest of you wait until you're dissatisfied.

Wait. Even in a horribly nerve-wracking economy, we wait until we're unhappy to start looking? Yes, the same survey, conducted in September 2006, statistically showed the same results.

"Conventional wisdom has always said that in a shaky economy, workers will be extremely hesitant to changing jobs, fearing that if layoffs occur after the jump they'll be the first to go," says Tony McKinnon, president of MRINetwork.

But he doesn't think that's really the case. The economy hasn't made candidates any less likely to consider new positions than they have in the past, he contends, "and getting an employed candidate's attention can be the hardest part."

Facing Behavioral Interviewing Questions

Interviewing for a job can be nerve racking. Even experienced professionals can have a hard time demonstrating their capabilities and expressing themselves effectively, given the tension of an interview situation. The best way to reduce your anxiety and increase your interviewing proficiency, is to eliminate the element of surprise by anticipating the questions you’ll be asked, and preparing some answers.

Here's how.

Communication: Important and Often Overlooked

Like breathing, communication is so second nature, it’s often overlooked as a skill to develop. So, let’s take a look at the job cycle to reveal where we need these skills to be strong.

The Resume

To get your foot in the door, a well crafted resume is essential. This is a medium that requires the writer to take the facts of work history, and weave them into a concise narrative that is free of spelling and grammatical errors.

The Interview

The interview is a verbal dance that draws on your ability to communicate value in response to sometimes unknown questions, and also to ask probing questions yourself. Being articulate and concise is necessary to make a good impression.

The Job

E-mail: It can be a colloquial medium, but writing skills still need to be applied to your e-mails. As in any other form of composition, you should be able to get your point across in a concise (there’s that word again) and error-free way.

Meetings: Depending on your role, a meeting requires verbal ability to get your points across. You may also have to provide documents, which again will draw on your ability to use the written word.

Presentations: These are the symphonys of communication. You have to be verbally engaging, your slides need to be concise and well-written, and you must convey concepts with images.

Performance Reviews: The annual review is an area of communication that can affect your pocketbook for a whole year. Many companies use a boilerplate form, but it’s always effective to bring your own supplemental materials. By doing a little salary research for your ZIP code, you can create documents that list the year’s accomplishments and what the local marketplace will bear for your position. Good verbal and persuasive writing are a must to make your case.

In addition to some of the more typical training, next year, plan to hone your communication skills. Pick up a copy of Strunk’s and White’s The Elements of Style, get a copy of Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds, or join Toastmasters International. It will be time and money well spent.

Submitted by Chad Broadus.

Deconstructing 'Time Theft'

Are you stealing your employer's time when you take your spouse's call at your office and remain on the line longer than, oh, 30 seconds?

That seems to be the premise behind "time theft," a phrase that crops up in HR circles now and then. A recent post on george's employment blawg discusses "time theft" in the same breath as embezzlement, stealing office equipment and pilfering an employer's products. Ominously, that post also defines time theft to include "employees fearful of layoffs play(ing) it safe by looking for their next job while at their current position."

Employees who have survived layoffs and are required to work longer hours still have to take care of the personal business they used to take care of on their off time. And the more pressure people feel, the more enticing an Internet break can become,

writes the blog's author, St. Louis attorney George Lenard – indicating that many employers view such actions as forms of employee theft.

The whole concept of time theft by employees has always struck me as somewhere between insulting and deluded. Employers – pretty much all of them, from what I can tell – routinely steal such huge quantities of personal time from employees of all levels, that it's hard to imagine anyone seriously asserting that a worker commits an infraction of any sort (let alone a crime) by conducting some Christmas shopping while not on an official "lunch break." (Not that anyone working in an office gets official time off to have lunch, anyway. If you're not one of those talented producers who usually lunches with clients, you very likely eat at your desk, working all the while.) If the employee will be working until 8 or 9 in the evening, isn't it the boss who benefits if they shop at their desk rather than bolt while it's still light out to hit the stores?

I relayed these thoughts to George Lenard, and here's his response. First, he drew a vital distinction between hourly and salaried workers. With the former, "it is entirely reasonable for employers to expect full attention to job duties." Courts and contract arbitrators, he adds, are "highly likely" to uphold decisions to fire an hourly worker caught violating company policy on what's permitted during work time.

With salaried workers, Lenard says it's more a question of "whether they are properly performing their job duties to expectations." However, many salaried jobs do require personal presence and/or unbroken attention to specific work functions during set working hours. A teacher in a classroom is an obvious example.

Addressing the more typical white-collar role, in which the employee's responsibilities extend far beyond what an earlier era defined as business hours, Lenard states:

It (the potentially 24-7 nature of the work) is not a matter of employers "stealing time" from employees, unless the expectations were not made clear at the time of hiring or promotion. It is simply part of the bargain for which the employer pays the salary.

I'm not sure I buy that. "Continuous improvement" has long been the norm for most workplaces – factories and offices alike. Ideally, that means working smarter by the day, generating ever greater output thanks to continually rising productivity. In reality, though, it often translates into ever-longer workdays for increasingly stressed employees. That goes double in times like today, when mass-layoff survivors get the workloads of their ejected colleagues piled on top of their own.

However, Lenard does offer this consolation:

Managers who do not learn to give salaried employees more freedom (how to allocate their time), while also learning how to carefully monitor their performance and productivity, will have great difficulty managing younger employees who are used to multitasking and 24-7 communications that blend personal and business time….In the medium-to-long-term, companies that don't "get" this will suffer a talent loss that will substantially affect the bottom line, IMHO.

The Recession and Increasing Employee Theft: Understanding and Preventing Employee Theft [george's employment blawg]

Creative Ways to Get a Firm's Attention

People are starting to do some pretty crazy things to get the attention of prospective employers. (In case you - somehow - missed it, one job seeker wore a sandwich board advertising his availability in New York. In the end, that didn't get him a job, but the blog he created sure helped.)

So when would a job seeker cross the line and get labeled a loon? It’s hard to say, but it's probably at the point when you go from assertive to aggressive, or when your innovative marketing idea starts registering on the "strange" scale. In the case of sandwich-board man Joshua Persky, he at least wore a shirt and tie under his ad, and so maintained a professional image.

Street corner advertising not your style? That's okay. Definitely don’t go beyond your comfort zone, but here are a few things that might get the attention of prospective employers:

1. Send a business improvement idea: Don’t give a prospective manager the entire solution, but say just enough in your note or e-mail to catch his attention. For example: “I had to click through five screens before I could place an order on your company’s Web site. Imagine how much business you’re losing. I can fix that problem for you.” Blog about ways to solve technical problems and e-mail links to your postings to prospective bosses, with a note saying: “Give me ten minutes and I’ll tell you how this solution can help you.”


2. Send something catchy: Drop off a stress ball in a package with your resume and a note saying: “You won’t need one of these if you hire me.” Or mail a prospective manager a bundle of play money with a note: “Potential savings on your next project-if you hire me.”


3. Suggest a meeting: Leave a message for a prospective manager confirming when you’ll be by to drop off your resume and introduce yourself. She might - might - surprise you by popping out to meet you. If not, leave your information in an envelope with a note saying, “Sorry I missed you. I’ll call Friday at 10:00 to discuss my qualifications.” Be sure and write it down so you'll remember to call at the promised time.


4. Send a short presentation validating your qualifications: Maybe it’s the outline for a business plan, two slides highlighting the business outcomes from a recent project you managed or an old west style wanted poster describing your skills and attributes. E-mail the piece to a prospective boss and then follow-up with a phone call.


5. Host an online meeting: Draw attention to yourself and create networking opportunities by organizing a Web conference on a technical topic, or host a user’s group and send out invites to prospective managers. Line up an expert speaker to make sure managers are interested in participating.


6. Be consistent and persistent: One call or e-mail is probably not going to do it. You’ll have to keep up your campaign until you get hired. But if it’s done professionally, a unique, personal marketing campaign will have a positive impact on your target audience.

Submitted by Leslie Stevens-Huffman, who writes about careers from Irvine, Calif.

More Choices For NY-Area CPAs

Accountants who work in the New York / New Jersey area are blessed with plenty of career options, since demand continues to exist among area accounting practices, consulting firms and local and federal government agencies. Options for balancing workload with life needs also are evolving. In particular, telecommuting for part of the work week has become an increasingly acceptable choice, that can mitigate the impact of accounting's notoriously long work hours and the region's often overly long commute distances and times. Here's our story.

Crisis Seen Lifting Accountants' Status

The financial crisis is raising public awareness of the value of professional accountants, a global accounting body concludes after surveying the leaders of accountants' associations in 73 countries.

In its report issued early this month, the New York-based International Federation of Accountants states:

Many respondents report that the crisis has actually benefitted the profession with professional accountants -- including those in public practice and in business – being viewed as professionals who can help to turn the economic tide…The value of their core services is more highly regarded as clients and stakeholders recognize the need for strong governance and high quality financial information.

More specifically, accountants are being asked to help clients and employers cope with crisis-related challenges, such as business restructuring and insolvency issues. They also report getting requests for information about fair value accounting.

The crisis has not had the same impact around the globe. In fact, the IFAC says that leaders of professional accountancy organizations in some developing countries or regions "indicate that the financial crisis has not yet affected their jurisdictions."

While some of the 130 leaders who responded to IFAC's survey feared that demand for accounting services may fall as economies falter, most predicted that demand for accountants' services will continue to increase in the coming years.

Which specialties will enjoy the strongest demand in the near term?

Survey respondents expect their members in public practice to be more involved in the next year in forensic accounting, corporate recovery and insolvency services, assurance services (other than audits), as well as risk and compliance related work. They see their members in business being more involved in the areas of corporate social responsibility and sustainability, risk management and internal control, as well as governance and compliance.

Channeling Sarah Palin?

If this post on the Web site of Baruch College's the Ticker reflects the communications and reasoning skills of the next generation of accountants, we are surely in trouble.

The question is simply logic would any company pay you 60-100 thousand dollars to analyze and interpret the same books that they can pay an Indian student 30- 4 thousand to do the same thing you do, its not a surprise that all the big four accounting companies support this because it severely cuts costs for them in the next 8- 16 years. What I do hope for is that our government and professors can come up with viable solutions for the many accounting students who these events will affect.

Three Havens of Hiring Growth

Last week we posted about Manpower's latest quarterly employment outlook survey, including a couple of tidbits about which industry sectors expect to do the most hiring in next year's first quarter. (Mining topped the list, followed by professional and business services.)

A CNNMoney story takes another bite at the apple, drawing on sector data from the monthly U.S. non-farm payrolls report issued by the Labor Department. That article spotlights accounting as one of three sectors that enjoy hiring momentum. The other two are education and health care.

With tax season looming, the calendar is an obvious short-term reason for accounting firms to staff up. But the story also says heightened scrutiny of financial firms will pump demand for audit work. It even suggests accounting is a counter-cyclical profession, citing John Challenger, chief executive of global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas:

Especially in a recession, "accounting is a great field," Challenger said. "Companies are trying to cut costs and not over spend, that puts more importance on good financial controls which requires accountants."

Challenger also is bullish on hiring by pharmaceutical companies, biotech firms and makers of medical equipment. Health care products and pharmaceuticals were among only nine industries that announced hiring plans in November, according to data on layoff and hiring announcements Challenger compiles each month. The industry's steady growth means finance departments are expanding, too.

The broad health care industry added 369,000 jobs in the past 12 months, including 34,000 in November, Labor Department data show. Says Diana Fitting, vice president of Adecco, a staffing company:

The healthcare industry continues to be the healthiest sector in the U.S. job market. The Baby Boomer generation is aging and it's helping to keep healthcare growing.

The third area of job growth is education. A net 9,800 education-related jobs were created in November – not just for teachers, but a variety of support roles, including financial. Here, too, there is a counter-cyclical aspect: People laid off or looking to change careers swell the pool of students in degree programs, certification programs and training classes. What's more, voter support for education is expected to keep government funds flowing.

Where the jobs are [CNNMoney]

When to Accept Lower Pay

Dice writer Sonia Lelii filed this item.

It’s a trend to be aware of, especially if you’ve been laid off and are looking for a comparable job and salary: Companies are starting to drive down wages by lowering salaries for new hires. This means candidates will have to make a choice on whether to accept a an offer below where they’ve been in the past, or risk being unemployed for a while longer.

Those who accept lower pay have to find a way to do it without appearing desperate. And there are ways to negotiate tradeoffs that can help you save face. The Wall Street Journal offers some helpful advice:

"Excess eagerness to toil for fewer bucks sends the wrong signal. Such applicants often “are really desperate,” says Niki Leondakis, chief operating officer at Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, a boutique chain in San Francisco.

Rather than immediately reject or accept a lowball deal, you should mount a careful counterattack, experts recommend. You could improve your chances of winning a satisfactory compromise, with tradeoffs ranging from a faster pay review to extra perquisites.

If you decide to hold out for a better offer, it’s important to understand the longer you’re unemployed, the harder it will be to negotiate a higher salary. You have to assess the job market in your chosen profession and, perhaps, adjust your expectations. The recession is a reality that can't be ignored.

How to Handle the Job Offer You Can't Afford [WSJ]

Sandwich-Board Banker Lands Job

Having a tough time landing a job after being laid off from investment banking? Make a cardboard sandwich sign to hang over yourself as you walk down Park Avenue handing out your resumes.

It set Joshua Persky down the road to a new position, even if it didn't actually seal the deal, according to a profile in yesterday's New York Post. Laid off from Houlihan Lokey a year ago, Persky walked Park Avenue passing out his resume while wearing an MIT-graduate-for-hire sign, The Post reports.

Publicity led Persky to drop the sandwich board and create a blog, which a recruiter passed along to the accounting firm that eventually hired him as a senior manager, Weiser LLP.

Almost as amusing as Adam Nichols' feature are the comments following the story, including charges that Persky stole his advertising ideas from homeless people in New York, who apparently walk around with sandwich boards on all the time.

Steady as She Goes

The first quarter 2009 job market in accounting and finance is holding steady, with 82 percent of CFOs saying they won't be making changes in staff size, according to the Robert Half International's Financial Hiring Index.

Just 9 percent of the survey's 1,400 respondents said they planned to add staff, but only 8 percent planned cuts. That creates a net increase of 1 percent, explains Robert Half Finance and Accounting Manager Kathy Downs, who adds that some big differences showed up based on company size.

The survey says 18 percent of the CFOs at companies with 1,000 or more employees expect to hire in the first quarter, while 8 percent plan to downsize. At firms with 20-49 employees, an equal proportion of CFOs, 8 percent each, planned to increase or decrease staff.

She suspects the credit crunch may be creating the difference. “Larger companies are not struggling as much with credit facilities as small companies,” she says. “If you’re reliant on bank lines of credit, you’re anticipating the market being more difficult in 2009,” Downs says.

It’s also possible that larger companies are running leaner than they like to so they can hit year end-numbers. They’re realizing they’re going to have to make a move to add staff in the first quarter, she adds.

In particular, companies are looking for employees who can identify cost efficiencies or know other ways to enhance profitability, adds RHI Chairman and CEO Max Messmer. The most in-demand niches: credit and collections specialists, public accountants and staff and senior accountants.

By region, the hottest markets for accounting job-seekers are the Middle Atlantic states (a net 9 percent of CFOs looking to hire) and the Mountain and West South Central states (a net 7 percent of CFOs looking to hire). You can check local results for the survey at the RHI Web site.

By industry, manufacturing looks good (a net 6 percent increase), as does professional services (a net 5 percent increase).