FOCUS

   

Career Success Begins 

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few years of full-time work experience are crucial. Successful young accountants are those who take action and make the most out of these formative years. Tough everyone’s path is unique, networking and seeking mentors and real-time feedback from your supervisors are fundamentally important to a rewarding accounting career. Here are some tips that can help you get started down the path to success.

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 Learning how to network takes time and practice, but once mastered it becomes an extremely valuable tool. Networking should not be limited to an exchange of business cards at a cocktail hour. Be deliberate, purposeful and genuine in your networking efforts. Do not be afraid to follow up: say hello with a quick refresher about the conversation you had during the initial meeting and offer regular updates. Some more diligent networkers create a spreadsheet that has contact information, a short comment about how they met and some common themes in regular communications. You do not need to be this formal in maintaining your network, but use the method that best works for you as a tool to meet people, identify mentors and build a portfolio of lasting and meaningful business relationships and friendships.

Te ability to identify mentors will help shape

your professional development. Mentors should be people you look up to, respect and want to emulate. Many companies pair experienced staff who want to serve as mentors or coaches with younger staff. You may have expanded your

hether your professional journey has taken you to public, private or corporate accounting, the first

network enough to identify a few individuals who you think can serve as mentors and role models outside the confines of your work environment. Younger CPAs may find it intimidating to ask questions, communicate career aspirations or ask for candid performance feedback from work superiors. Mentors serve as an intermediary sounding board and assist in generating ideas on how to have difficult conversations with your direct supervisors. It is especially helpful if a mentor has strong, diverse work experience about which he or she can share insight. Teir experiences and skills can contribute to successful choices, or at least learning experiences, in your career.

 Improvement does not occur overnight. It

requires time to develop skills, effort to continue to push yourself to work through difficult situations and humility to take a step back for an accurate assessment of your performance. A key factor in this development process is the ability to have open and honest conversations with coworkers and superiors about your performance. Similar to a quarterback talking to his

receivers throughout a game or a pitching coach making a visit to the mound, receiving real-time feedback in the office is invaluable. It enables you to become self-aware and make immediate changes rather than waiting for a year-end review. Tese feedback touch points not only benefit you as a person and make you a more valuable employee, but they also improve your company’s performance. As difficult as it might seem, having conversations that are candid, up front and focused on your performance will better enable you to make changes and adjustments in

20 CPAFOCUS

May/June 2015