To the OP: There's surprisingly some interesting discussion over at the RedFlagDeals career forum on accounting and designations. The primary users of the site are young and from the 416/905 where all of the action is.

If money really is a concern, aren't the first few years in a typical Big-4 firm hell anyway from a work-money ratio? In my mind, a safe profession is pharmacy. Sure it's hard work for those 3-4 years in university, but if you pass, you basically come out with offers from all over and a 70K starting salary.

^^^

yea, but you also need A+++++ and a kick ass extra curricular profile.

CA, CGA, designations are practically for everybody to "enter", but not everybody make it out successful.

well, i take it back, CA... you need to have some kick ass acedemics too. but not CGA, CFA, DAP, PAP, etc.

I can't manage anything - CMA :( Doing pretty well for myself. Scored a good job in the private sector working for an automotive company.

Thinking about doing my MBA next. We'll see.

Kev

In the end of it all, job security is good and all, but no risk no rewards. I rather be the the above in bold.

I rather HIRE then be hired.

i hear they're adding about 70 more seats into the pharmacy program in a yr or two....

and for all you saying you want to hire rather than be hired, you're probably still not gonna be making big bucks till many years down the road i would think

Wrongo. None of the three are limited to "signing off" on financials.

Any of the three can be certified for public accounting as well, as long as they meet the Accounting Standards Board requirements. CA's automatically qualify due to their training period under supervision, some CGA's get it, most CMA's don't but there's a bunch that went through the hoops.

Not exactly sure what you mean, as being limited to just signing off on financials is most definitely not true.

The Accounting Standards Board? Many CGAs go that route, as they're pretty prepped for it already. CMAs would have quite the hurdle to get over! Wouldn't they need to get a lot of training that strays into CA and CGA territory to get there?

I was a CMA at a public practice firm. They're rare, but they're out there. I ended up going over to the dark side and getting my CIRP. Auditors don't get to expense ATM receipts for taking clients out to Brandi's :thumbsup:

is a CMA something i could study for on my spare time?
is it something that you need to go to school for to get a grasp of?
i have basically no accounting background.

:p
You need post-secondary accounting courses to get into the program. Like all of them, it's expected that you work in an accounting-related position. CGA is more accessible as you don't need an accounting background to start it, but then in my opinion it's much harder to finish if you go that route. Somewhere along the line it would be wise to take a post-sec accounting course or two.

I believe BCIT offers a CMA-Fastrak program.. It's a gruelsome 18months.. Go look it up!

BTW, how are you guys coping with the new IFRS stuff coming into play soon?

I'm one of those who didnt like research & got into the DAP program. Couldnt get into CA firm & now kinda stuck. What shall I do?

The sports term is triple threat. The business term, CA Advantage.



you can guess where i'm going...
/thread

For those of of us who didn't learn the stuff before...."meh" :D

It's not going to be fun to learn new material....on my spare time......

Booournnsss....to IFRS

Better in the long run, I suppose. YAY FOR 2011. XD

You can try again next sept...
sometimes the firms also hire in jan or in the summer...

my friend got a job with a CA firm last July and started in Sept.