Minorities in Accounting
I have gotten a few interesting spam comments lately, all saying that accounting jobs are only open to white females under 24. At first I thought it was a real person, who was angry at accounting from some personal experience, but then I got a few more comments using the exact same wording, so it seems to be spam.
What do you think the situation is like for minorities in accounting?
I know I have very few African-American classmates, and if they have the right scores, accounting firms are eager to hire them to increase their “diversity.” On the other hand, one of these top-scoring classmates told me that when he goes to career fairs, he gets them impression that people see the color of his skin an assume he’s stupid until he waves his GPA under their nose.
Another issue seems to be higher turnover among African-American and Latino staff at accounting firms. They may be happy to hire them, but they seem to have trouble keeping them. Perhaps because the firms don’t create an environment that is comfortable for people who look different?
Also, do you think it makes a difference if you’re a man or a woman during the hiring process? One of my fellow students and I had an interesting talk one night about whether women were expected to behave differently to men during recruitment. We thought perhaps women were expected to be more bubbly and excited about everything, while men could get away with being quieter, but confident.
I don’t know if any of these thoughts are true, and I would have to do more investigation before I stand behind them. For those of you who work in accounting, or who have gone through some of the recruiting process for accounting, do you have any observations on these issues?
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I’m still in school, will be on internship next spring, but here are my thoughts.
I think, once I got into my school’s professional program for accounting, I was the only black guy in my classes. Just thinking off the top of my head, I think I’m not the only one…just that the few others are dispersed throughout the other sections. But then, this isn’t necessarily endemic to the accounting department — at least, not for my school.
I was worried about the recruitment process (for internship), and I was surprised to have a process pull me aside to his office and personally tell me (as someone who had come from one of the B4 firms and who had communication with some of the HR people throughout the firms) not to worry, precisely because of what you say: firms are interested in diversity. His comments reminded me of Biden’s for Obama: “You’ve got great stats, great grades, and you’ve got the look. It’s a perfect package.”
I never got the impression of anything ill in the recruitment process, but then again, I have been accused of being a “know-it-all” by my friends, so perhaps I “led” with my GPA, so to speak.
The office visits were interesting. At one firm, one of my “interviews” was with a black lady who tried to (preemptively) assure me that certainly the firms didn’t have the race relations thing perfect yet, but that one should take his career in his own hands. So I think that if there is more attrition, then it’s because minority professionals know to take their careers in their own hands — even if that involves moving out of the firm or out of public accounting.
I think it really depends on what school/part of the country you are in. I go to UNO (Univ of New Orleans), and I think my classes are close to 40% minorities (predominantly Asian and African American). I also went to LSU for four years, and it was exactly the opposite. I can’t speak for the professional side of things, only that I would think it is just a general function of the career in B4.
I’m a 33-year old African-American woman and I’m not if the lack of diversity is from the turnover in firms or lack of experience. I started my career in my late twenties and for the last 5 years or so I’ve been playing catch-up. The best thing that has worked for me so far is learning as much as I can on the job, taking on extra projects, getting additional education (getting MBA in December) and talking to your manager or the person above your manager on what strategies they used to get to the next level. Yes, there are always “certain” people who believe in the same old stereotype and you can’t change them, however, for the people you are in contact with, just try to convience them with your knowledge of accounting with a lot of confidence and it should at least open a few more doors for you.
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Every office is different, but in my experience people’s backgrounds just contribute to our rich tapestry rather than work for/against them.
Of course, my point of view comes from the happy northern clouds of Canada where multiculturalism has been a national policy of sorts for the past 40 years.
Yeah my Canadian opinion is probably very biased. I have seen just about every segment of society represented in accounting firms, and they love it.
I have a ton of friends of different genders from different racial, sexual and cultural backgrounds that have found jobs at accounting firms, have grown to love it and have been warmly embraced.
This, and universal health care – what is there not to love about Canada, lol
Well, my experiences are probably biased by being located in the southern US. It’s comforting to hear that race is not an issue in many other areas though.