Fifty years ago, I was a 21-year-old kid who was trying to complete my bachelor’s degree in accounting. What transpired over the ensuing half-century exceeded my wildest dreams.
Although I had worked as a part-time bookkeeper while in college, I had no experience in public accounting. During the fall 1974 semester I interviewed with several major accounting firms, hoping to get a job offer in a difficult job market.
At that time, the accounting profession was dominated by eight large accounting firms, commonly referred to as “The Big 8.”
I was fortunate because I received offers from two of the Big 8 firms.
On Dec. 30, 1974, I commenced my career with Haskins & Sells. Today, after a half-century of industry consolidation, that firm is now known as Deloitte. Deloitte promoted me to partner in 1985 and I worked for them until I retired in 2015.
When I started my career as an auditor, calculators were just starting to come into vogue and most everyone used an “Addox” machine, which was a state-of-the-art, very noisy, mechanical adding machine that performed addition, subtraction, and if you were patient, multiplication.
After three years, I grew tired of auditing and I redirected my career to becoming a tax specialist. In those days, tax returns were manually prepared using three-part carbon forms. In many ways, it was the Jurassic era of accounting because prevailing technology was primitive.
As with many aspects of modern life, contemporary accounting is driven by technology. Technological advances continue to accelerate. I would not be surprised if we see technological capabilities expand more during the remainder of this decade than in the past 50 years.
I recently had the privilege of attending Deloitte’s bi-annual meeting of active and retired partners. The CEOs of Microsoft and Nvidia spoke at the meeting about artificial intelligence and robotics. Their commentary was undeniably thought-provoking. Clearly, accountants will play an enormous role in the development, implementation and use of this technology.
Back in 1974, a senior partner was quoted in the Haskins & Sells recruiting brochure as saying that people think accounting is a numbers business, but in reality, it is a people business. I certainly found that to be true over the past half century.
Accountants do more than keep track of data. Accountants are expected to provide their insight to help people use collected data objectively to solve problems and identify opportunities.
Many accountants enjoy the role of being a trusted advisor or have gone on to run businesses.
Until recently, accounting was a highly popular college major. When I attended Cal State Northridge, over half the students pursuing a business degree were accounting students.
Today, there is a critical shortage of accountants. Since the pandemic, the number of accounting students at my alma mater has dropped in half.
Looking forward to how society will evolve in the coming years, artificial intelligence will dominate that evolution. AI is all about managing data and recognizing patterns in that data to predict outcomes and to direct (or even automate) the decision-making process.
While AI will cast a much wider net than merely addressing accounting and financial matters, because accountants are good at accumulating and using data, they will play a huge role in determining how AI will be used across many venues.
For young persons who are contemplating a future career choice, a career in accounting could position them to be leaders of change instead of merely reacting to those changes.
I don’t expect that many Signal readers are at the life stage where they are envisioning a future career. But I believe that many readers play an influential role with younger family members or others who are trying to figure out what they want to do from a career perspective. For example, I know many readers are teachers who inspire their students.
I hope that, if you are in a position to influence younger folks, after reading this column, you might want to suggest to those contemplating career choices to consider a career in accounting.
Not only will an accounting career develop valuable skillsets, but it can also be a launching pad for numerous successful careers in other endeavors.
As I reflect on the past half century, I am fortunate because people who I respected over 50 years ago suggested that I consider a career in accounting. As a result, I made a career choice that took me places well beyond my greatest expectations.
Jim de Bree is a Valencia resident.
