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Career Exploration

Accountants and Auditors

Also called: Accountant, Auditor, Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Financial Auditor

What they do:

Examine, analyze, and interpret accounting records to prepare financial statements, give advice, or audit and evaluate statements prepared by others. Install or advise on systems of recording costs or other financial and budgetary data.

On the job, you would:
  • Prepare detailed reports on audit findings.
  • Report to management about asset utilization and audit results, and recommend changes in operations and financial activities.
  • Collect and analyze data to detect deficient controls, duplicated effort, extravagance, fraud, or non-compliance with laws, regulations, and management policies.
On the job, you'll need:

Business

  • accounting and economics
  • customer service

Arts and Humanities

  • English language

Math and Science

  • arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, or statistics

Safety and Government

  • law and government

Basic Skills

  • listening to others, not interrupting, and asking good questions
  • reading work related information

Problem Solving

  • noticing a problem and figuring out the best way to solve it

People and Technology Systems

  • thinking about the pros and cons of different options and picking the best one
  • figuring out how a system should work and how changes in the future will affect it

Math

  • add, subtract, multiply, or divide
  • choose the right type of math to solve a problem

Verbal

  • communicate by speaking
  • read and understand what is written

Ideas and Logic

  • use rules to solve problems
  • notice when problems happen

Conventional

People interested in this work like activities that include data, detail, and regular routines.

  • Attention to Detail
  • Integrity
  • Dependability
  • Analytical Thinking
  • Cooperation
  • Stress Tolerance

Accounting software

  • Intuit QuickBooks
  • Sage 50 Accounting

Word processing software

  • Google Docs
  • Microsoft Word

Financial analysis software

  • Oracle E-Business Suite Financials
  • Tropics workers' compensation software

Video courtesy of CareerOneStop.

Job Outlook

The job outlook for this position is Bright.

New job opportunities are very likely in the future. This career will have large numbers of openings.

Median Annual Salary: $78,000