Is Phoenix A Good Place For CPA Professionals/Are there jobs in Phoenix? (lawyers, job market)

[zeta_male]

Hi,

I really think I like Phoenix as a city, but people have told me that there isn't a whole lot of business opportunity there. This concerns me since I hope to be a CPA, and thus would like to have ample businesses (I'm not just talking F1000s but even startups and smaller companies) to give advice to as a career. Plus, I hope to eventually move into controller/CFO type position within a company, and this would obviously be difficult if jobs in finance/accounting are hard to find.

So I'm wondering how bad Phoenix is, if my friends don't know what they're talking about (it seems strange to me that the 5th largest city would have virtually no jobs in finance and esp accounting), and how you think Phoenix will do in the future?

thanks

[las vegas drunk]

Definitely not....My uncle was a CPA for Revlon years ago. They phased out middle management and he found out how bad the job market was for CPA accountants. He could not find another job for even close to the same pay, and ended up opening his own business in an unrelated field. This was well BEFORE the economy tanked.

[smokemaster]

www.aicpa.com

http://www.ascpa.com/Content/Home.aspx (broken link)

[yukon]

A lot of CPAs from big companies and big regional accounting firms retire or sell out, and relocate to PHX and start their own practices. Seems like it would be a good place for a newly graduated accountant or new (or aspiring) CPA to get their feet wet before making the leap to something larger. Same goes for Central and South FL, now that I think about it.

[Steel Ovaries]

I have 2 friends who are CPAs and another that is an accountant preparing for her CPA exam. They cannot find decent paying jobs. They can find jobs, to be sure, but they pay squat. After months of searching, one friend ended up so desperate she took a bookkeeping job at an HOA. They recently moved out of state after suffering long enough here.

Check out the job boards. Personally, my favorite is indeed.com. See what is out there, just be sure to keep in mind that this is a big city and you will have alot of competition, so you'll have to make sure there are alot of postings in order to increase your chances of landing something decent.

[DRCR]

I am a CPA and applied for only two jobs when I moved here and received offers for both at higher pay than I was making in Chicago. I might have just been lucky, but I have several years of experience also so that probably helped.

[Zippyman]

Like any other field in a bad economy, employers are "cherry picking" recruits now. I'm a nursing student and overheard a conversation at clinicals a couple of days ago - all of the "wound care" nurses at this particular hospital are Nurse Practitioners. That's an awful lot of school for someone to go through just to change dressings & inspect skin.

It's great for the hospital - and the patients, but those folks will be walking out the door at warp speed when the economy improves.

A CPA is a solid career choice and I doubt you'll ever go hungry, but you may not make what you deserve right now (in Phoenix or any other city) . It is what it is...

[azriverfan.]

Traditionally, I think the term professionals used to refer to certain jobs like accountants, lawyers, physicians, dentists etc. The Phoenix market is excellent for this group because the Valley is so spread out so there is always a demand for these services in various parts of the Valley. And despite the economic woes, nearly 100K still moved here so Phoenix is still growing (During the peak of growth in 2006, 160 K people moved here)

[Zippyman]

Originally Posted by azriverfan.

Traditionally, I think the term professionals used to refer to certain jobs like accountants, lawyers, physicians, dentists etc. The Phoenix market is excellent for this group because the Valley is so spread out so there is always a demand for these services in various parts of the Valley. And despite the economic woes, nearly 100K still moved here so Phoenix is still growing (During the peak of growth in 2006, 160 K people moved here)

If you dig a little deeper, you'll see the population numbers were inflated because they were calculated from housing starts and not from driver's licenses. Not to quibble, but those population numbers are not accurate.

[azriverfan.]

Originally Posted by Zippyman

Like any other field in a bad economy, employers are "cherry picking" recruits now. I'm a nursing student and overheard a conversation at clinicals a couple of days ago - all of the "wound care" nurses at this particular hospital are Nurse Practitioners. That's an awful lot of school for someone to go through just to change dressings & inspect skin.

It's great for the hospital - and the patients, but those folks will be walking out the door at warp speed when the economy improves.

A CPA is a solid career choice and I doubt you'll ever go hungry, but you may not make what you deserve right now (in Phoenix or any other city) . It is what it is...

If a Nurse Practioner is doing wound care because he or she couldn't find another job that means he or she is an idiot! I'm sorry but that Nurse Practioner could hang up a shingle and see 10 patients a day and make more than doing wound care after expenses. A lot of people simply lack the intelligence to be resourceful. And there are a lot of physicians especially specialists who would love to hire a nurse practioner because they don't require supervision like a physician assistant and are better trained than physician assistants as well. I know a lot of nurse practioners that are doing primary care or psychiatry in the Valley and have no shortage of patients