10 Good minutes!!!

10 Good minutes is a great website for any young professional want to improve him/herself through 10 minutes interviewing with professionals coming from big companies in different industries:D:D:D


Check out this website and gain many lessons and make yourself better:)

Some useful accounting links:D

1) American Institute of Certified Public Accountatnts (AICPA)
2) Official CPA Exam website
3) National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA)
4) Association of Latino Professinoals in Finance and Accounting (ALPFA)
5) Association of Government Accountants (AGA)
6) American Society of Women Accountants
7) International Federation of accountants
8) National society of accountant (NSA)

There are tons of accounting information that is very useful for students to do research or look for accounting scholarship opportunities:D:D:D

Opportunities for accounting major

It’s great idea to start your accounting career as soon as possible. I am currently sophomore in a four-year university. I love accounting so much that every day I sit in front of compute screen looking and reading accounting news for at least 2 hours. Accounting is nothing more than rules and rules that the best way to master accounting is practicing and practicing everyday just like playing music. Of course for me accounting is somehow a little bit tedious than music ‘cos accounting are rules while music is an entertainment. However, according to me, accounting and music have two common things: passion and patience. You need passion because like I said accounting has too many rules to remember that without any interest you will easily get bored with accounting. You need patience for the same reason. Some people say you also need talent but for accounting I don’t think that is as important as for music. (I have learnt guitar for 7 years and now accounting:D)

We are living in a competitive world; if you want to succeed you have no choice but be good at one thing and only one thing (you can be good at more than one but that’s really rare). Businesspeople are good at making money; auditors are good at examining financial statements; accountants are good at preparing financial statement, etc. The “good” here doesn’t mean you know all the accounting rules but understand how and where to apply them. It’s like when an experienced musician improvises; he doesn’t know the song he plays in advance but the melody keeps coming to his mind while performing. Good accountant is the one who knows how to prepare complete and error-free financial statements, record business transactions fast and properly or reconcile bank statement with company’s cash balance with ease… To achieve such high level we- accountant majors need to start our goal soon. Especially, within the next few years there will be more and more accountants due to increasing demands from new government laws; we need to be better than other accountants if you want to get a good salary at a famed company. My father usually tells me “be distinguishable from a crowd”; employers only recruit you if you can contribute something exceptional for them.

Here are some useful sources that can help you practice accounting knowledge and help employers recognize your accomplishments:

-     IMA 2010 National Student Case Competition by Institute of Management Accountaunts: Teams of students respond to a published case by preparing and submitting a videotaped presentation to judges selected from IMA members. The 2010 finals competition will be held at IMA's Annual Conference and Exposition in Baltimore, MD on June 5-9, 2010. This very exciting competition presents students with real life challenges and the opportunity to:

• analyze a case
• develop a solution
• present it to an audience
• receive recognition for their efforts

-          Project Management Institute (PMI): has a wide range of scholarships for both undergraduate and graduate students; the amount range from $1,000 to full tuition at a particular graduate school. For more information click here.

 -          Federal Reserve Board: The Divisions of International Finance, Monetary Affairs, and Research and Statistics, offer paid internships for graduate students to conduct research at the Federal Reserve Board.

Internships are offered in the spring, summer, and fall.

Interns work on a topic of their own choosing, usually furthering dissertation research begun before the internship. Preference is given to Ph.D. candidates whose topics are in macroeconomics (broadly defined), international economics, finance, banking, and econometrics. Applications are also welcome from students working in other fields of economics.

-                       IBM extreme blue: The Extreme Blue™ program is IBM's premier internship program for top-notch students pursuing software development and MBA degrees.

Once selected into the program, you will become part of a team working in one of the 14 Extreme Blue labs worldwide. Your team's challenge is to develop the technology and business plan for a new product or service that addresses an existing market challenge.

Through the program, interns have submitted more than 360 patent disclosures and have made more than sixty open source contributions to the open source community. They helped create solutions for key clients and bring-to-market the next generation of IBM products. Not bad for just 12 weeks of work.

Unlike other intern programs that may relegate you to work on outdated technology, the Extreme Blue teams work on leading technology that helps grow your skills and evolve you into a more attractive candidate in the technology field. Interns in this high-performance environment get to roll up their sleeves and work with "hot" technologies such as Linux-, Web 2.0, Web services and Virtualization.

Click here for more information.

I will keep updating more internships as well as scholarships information in future posts! Good luck on your accounting career:D:D:D

Accounting career (continued)

Accounting career overview (from Accounting Careers by WetFeet)


For an industry that plodded along fairly unchanged since the turn of the century, the world of accounting has experienced some tectonic shifts in past decade. As the memories of Enron, WorldCom and Arthur Andersen begin to fade and the industry, especially the portion occupied by Big Four, rebuilds investor trust, accounting doesn’t appear to be returning to its staid, old-bean counter roots. Well, at least nor entirely-auditing is auditing and tax season will surely outlive us all. But the face of accounting has changed. Its role in business, particularly big business, is much more complex. The industry is being forced to redefine itself and not just to satisfy the new federal regulations.
One upshot of accounting scandals from the early part of this century is a new realization of the critical role accounting practitioners play in business decision. New security regulations now reach directly into boardrooms, dictating certain requirements about how companies operate- a place no one thought securities law could go. While this gives most executives the jitters, it reveals an incredible opportunity for the accounting profession to carve out a new identity. Accounting has now become a basis for corporate behavior, decision-making, and ethics, and the skills demanded of accountants are much broader as a result.
From 1989 to 2002, a series of consolidations and closures transformed what had been the Big Eight into the Big Six (Ernst & Whinney merged with Arthur Young to form Ernst & Young and Deloitte, Haskins & Sells merged with Touche Ross to form Deloitte & Touche), then the Big Five (Price WaterHouse merged with Coopers & Lybrand) and finally the Big Four (Arthur Andersen, following the Enron and WorldCom accounting debacles, lost all of its clients, saw many of its state licenses revoked and started winding down its operations). Toward the end of this period, all of the accounting firms except for Deloitte & Touche also spun out or sold their consulting practices, which in some cases had grown as large as their accounting practices and more lucrative, but also represented a potential conflict of interest.
Beginning in 2001, ethics became a central industry focus as Enron, WorldCom and Arthur Andersen collapsed. Tougher government laws under 2002’s Sarbanes-Oxley Act (“Sarbox”) were imposed to stop misleading and faulty financial reporting and gave birth to a new regulatory entity, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).
The years following Sarbox have been tumultuous to say the least. Opening the books of the nation’s largest corporations has revealed layers of disorder, haziness, and fraud. Executives have loudly bemoaned the expense in both services and time of the new regulation, while accounting firms have struggled to interpret the new laws and keep up with the increased demand for their services. In May 2007, the SEC relaxed certain requirements to allow more efficiency and reduced costs in reaching compliance, but any significant changes to the new laws seems unlikely.
Despite this tumult, it’s the great time to be pursuing an accounting career. Firms are not only ramping up staff to deal with increased business resulting from economic reforms and shortages due to job cuts earlier in the decade, but also in response to predictions of an impending talent crunch in coming years. The Economic Policy Foundation estimates that the U.S economy will suffer a shortfall of 6 million workers by 2013, and 35 million workers by 2035. Deloitte & Touche estimates that between 2011 and 2014, only about 5.4 million college graduates will enter the workforce, and based on surveys measuring the interest of high-school aged kids in accounting careers, the number of people entering the accounting profession could decline by as much as 43 percent within five to ten years.
Competition for top candidates is fierce and will only become fiercer, meaning firms will have to do more to recruit and woo their candidates of choice. That puts you, the fresh new talent, in an enviable poison.
But don’t think you’ll be handed a plum position just like that. As the business world becomes more global and diverse, accounting must adapt to keep up. Age-old professional practices are converging with newer methods, such as principal-based accounting and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Accounting professionals today need a wider range of skills than ever before to survive in an industry that grows more technical and international every year. Interpersonal and analytical skills- the kind typically required in demanding fields like consulting- are becoming increasingly important in accounting as well. Recent graduates armed with the most current knowledge should have an edge in the job market.
Licensing is also a must if you want to move higher in the ranks. Along with the traditional CPA (Certified Public Accountant) license, more accountants are obtaining additional licenses such as CMAs (Certified Management Accountants) and CIAs (Certified Internal Auditors). An increased focus on hiring accountants with real-world business experience in addition to formal accounting education also exists, so be prepared to talk about the impact your experience will have on your job performance. And new and experienced accountants alike are being required to expand their knowledge base to include accounting regulations updates associated with Sarbox.
When you enter the industry, don’t expect to be handed big decisions and cut-edge projects right off the bat. The accounting profession will always contain a certain dose of tedium. There’s simply no way around that in the practice of auditing and many other standard accounting procedures. But put your nose to the grindstone early and keep an eye out for opportunity, and you should begin climbing the ladder in no time.

Career in Accounting

Opportunities overview:

The establishment of Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2001) with more stringent accounting rules plus an aging accounting workforces and increasingly globalized economy has made accounting one of the hottest career (auditor is the hottest job in 2009 with average yearly salary of $64,914 according to Yahoo!). Many firms that fell under scrutiny of new government regulations have paradoxically benefited from those same rules: facing less competition while reaping hefty fees for government-mandated services. Add to this a relatively healthy economy and opportunities abound for entry-level and midcareer types in both public and management accounting:

- most industries hire recent graduates of college or university accounting program

- growth is projected in government, corporate and public job markets

- by far the most hires are for audit positions (especially senior-level audit specialists), but specialty areas such as financial analysis and forensic accounting are also experiencing increased growth

- Big Four accounting jobs are highly coveted and offer a predictable career path

Major advantages:

- The Big Four and other firms give you exposure to a wide range of companies and industries and a lot of responsibilities. You will develop an impressive skill set that you can take elsewhere, whether you want to hang out your own accounting shingle, go into financial industry or pursue an entirely different profession. In a short word, you will be more likely to succeed in this more and more competitive world.

- You will use top-flight technology if you go to work in the Big Four. These firms have been among the most savvy and aggressive users of intranets, extranets and e-commerce technology

- Now more than ever, corporations and other institutions need accountants, and it remains de rigueur for Fortune 500 companies to use the Big Four for accounting services.

- In general employment opportunities at every level can be found across the country. Specifically, senior-level skills are in demand, with abundant vacancies in the northeastern and southeastern regions.

Major minuses:

- Internal politics play a big role when it comes to staffing at the Big Four.

- Bureaucracy central: accounting involves myriad rules, regulations, reviews, and checklists, and some insiders complain that a feeling of administration overload often creeps unnecessarily into other aspects of their professional lives.

- Accountants are notorious of working late, especially during tax season. There are always client demands to be met and numbers to be checked- and double-checked. Thankfully life is often relatively sane during the off-season.

- Lack of both creativity and daily work variation are often associated with the industry

Recruiting overview

The good new is that accounting firms are hiring- some are nearly desperate for talent. Thanks to new accounting rules, increasing merger and acquisition (M&A) activity and an aging workforce, public accountancies are staffing up. These and other factors are creating increased opportunities for management accountants who work in-house for companies of all kinds.

The Big Four and many second-tier firms recruit on college campuses across the country (other second-tier firms may recruit regionally). The on-campus recruiting process begins with a campus presentation by firm representatives, followed by first-round on-campus interviews. After the initial round, recruiters will invite selected candidates back for second-round interviews. Some firms conduct one or two big office interviewing days for second round; other spread out the office visits. Many jobs offers are then made in as little as two weeks after the second interview.

Students at schools where firms of their choice don’t have a presence-including candidates interested in smaller public accounting firms-and midcareer candidates should contact the firms directly. This is also true for experienced hires; those in high demand have a CPA and three to four years of experience. Job postings, upcoming career events, informational seminars and internship programs, along with special postings for experienced hires, are usually provided on the firms’ websites. Remember: the best way to make this MO work is to network and find a personal contact within the firm of your choice.

Skills needed to succeed in accounting:

• Analytical ability
• Leadership skills
• Written and oral communication skills
• Attention to detail
• Ability to work independently
• Team skills
• Multitasking ability
• High ethical standards
• Computer literacy

I am back!!!

We can't live without music!!!

Let imagine if this world lacks music. Just one word: BOOOOOOOOOOOORING! Music can heal your soul? RIGHT Music can get us closer? RIGHT Music can make us relaxing It also make us crazy and want to "act"? Absolutely. What do you think if music can change our world? Do you think human beings ever made a world-changing song? Let start to discuss about this very special and possibly unreal song? WE CAN MAKE IT! TELL ME YOUR IADEA!!!