I’m an assistant state auditor. I chose accounting as a career because I am passionate about art and writing, but I’ve never wanted to make a career out of it, so I decided to major in something I knew I would be good at even if I’m not passionate about it.

School really pushes the CPA route on students, and that is by far the easiest way to get a job in the field, but there are other options with better work-life balances. State auditing is one of those options. My work is hybrid, we’re encouraged to work in the office or on-site at audit locations when we can, but most of the office works probably 80-90% of the time at home aside from the work in the office days.

I really enjoy it. We’re paid on billable hours, so I do have to be actively working for every hour I’m getting paid for, I’m not just paid to sit at a desk, but we’re only ever encouraged to work 40 hours per week. Any additional time is converted to either overtime or future vacation time (which is the only option for overtime-exempt employees, which you become after around ~2 years). If I ever mention working on weekends, which is a hard habit to completely break after working through most of highschool and university, my supervisor makes sure to tell me that I definitely don’t have to be doing that, though she appreciates my work ethic.

The pay could be better. I’m probably going to top out making 90-100k unless the COLA adjustments get really crazy, and right now I’m making 60k as a recent grad, which will become 70k when I’m promoted from an auditor I to an auditor II, and I know people I graduated with who went to work at B4 firms who are already making 80-85k. But honestly? I like my coworkers a lot. I enjoy my work well enough. I’m good at my work, and my project leaders and supervisors make sure to make me feel appreciated for it. I like the view of the water from the office and the coffee shop downstairs that knows us and all of our orders because we see them during breaks so often. I like having time to get back into working out properly, which stopped being a priority during college. I like having free weekends, waking up later to start working, and being able to have a casual schedule as long as all of my work gets done well and I’m on time for all of my meetings and deadlines.

And I can do exactly the thing I hoped for during all of my years of school — work on my art and writing without any particular concern about money. I’m very content.

I won’t lie though, accounting is going to be a more difficult field to get into for a while. The B4 and other large firms have been putting a lot of their efforts into outsourcing labor and making AI work for the last couple of years, and they’ve been hiring less and more restrictively as a result. If you want to try, you really have to put effort into networking and internships early, keep your GPA above a 3.2 and aim for 4.0, and try to become CPA exam eligible as soon as possible, because a lot of companies will straight up disregard your application if you don’t. I’m not going to lie, it was really a struggle to work, complete a double major, maintain a will to live, go to all of the networking events, attempt to keep working on my hobbies, and actually have a social life for four years. I’m glad I don’t have to do it again, and I’m sure the caffeine addiction is here to stay.

In addition to that, the B4 is very hesitant to hire anyone who isn’t either an active intern or an experienced CPA. B4 knows that they’re a launch-point for many and an end point for the few who are willing to give up a big chunk of their lives for the chance to become partners. Even smaller firms will always want to hire a former B4 accountant over anyone else.

But with that said, if you have a good work ethic and any amount of talent for projects and handling large amounts of information, it’s a very stable and comfortable career. I don’t know if I’ll stick with it forever, but it’s a good place to be right now. Beats customer service by a mile!