You guys have it pretty good, you know. While the Big Law kids are graduating from college a hundred thousand dollars in debt with no job in sight and it takes a college degree for a barista to get a job slinging burnt coffee, finance and accounting professionals have plenty to go around. Plenty. So much so that you can be kind of a lazy dick at work and know you'll have a job tomorrow as long as you don't do something huge like steal $60 from your employer.
According to a survey by staffing agency ManpowerGroup, nearly 40% of employers across all industries are having trouble filling open positions with qualified candidates (for the stupid, this means you in all your surfing-Going-Concern-during-work-hours, wrinkly-blue-shirt-wearing, awkward-social-skills-having glory).
“Talent is elusive, and the reason is there is a great divide between the talent available and the talent desired by employers,” said ManpowerGroup VP Melanie Holmes. “To put it simply, there is a talent mismatch.”
Accounting might appear on the list because an unemployed individual can't just show up at an interview and start number-crunching. Office workers can easily pick up basic accounting skills but not everyone can just be an accounting professional. Even with CPA exam pass rates up and more future CPAs than ever taking the exam, the need for qualified accounting and finance professionals is so great in our post SOX, post Dodd-Frank world that you can basically be the worst accountant ever and still have a job as long as you have a pulse and basic skills employers are looking for.
So, stop worrying about networking, forget about making your cover letter look good and just show up. Apparently that's enough these days.
