Jenny Wang is an HBA2 who worked last summer as an Associate at PwC. She represented the accounting industry at our Careers in Business workshop. Our VP of Projects, Vedant Suri, got the chance to speak with her about her experiences and advice for aspiring accountants. Thanks Jenny for speaking at Careers in Business and agreeing to do this interview.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Vedant: What would you say is the most important trait that's gotten you to where you are today?
Jenny: I would say it's been giving 120% in whatever you promise to do. The reason for that is there are a lot of little things in life that people tend to ignore. But, if you're really passionate about something, make sure you do it well. Because that's what builds your personal brand. It builds your credibility and it builds your reputation. And that’s what carries forward with you. It portrays you as someone who's capable and reliable, and that's what your future network will know you for. Then, opportunities will come to you.
Obviously you're someone who's experienced success in accounting by landing a position at PwC, one of the Big 4 firms in the industry. What advice would you give someone who wishes to follow in your footsteps?
Try to find something that distinguishes you from the rest of the population. When I was 16, I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life. I didn’t know how to break into the corporate world. I decided to start my own business: I got a $3000 government grant to teach children piano, which covered a lot of my start-up costs. At that time, I just wanted to earn some money while doing something that was cool. I ended up making $8000-$9000 over the year, which was pretty good for someone who was 16!
I think the experience taught me a lot about starting a business, and even more beyond that. It's about selling yourself to potential parents of children who want to learn piano. It also put me in a better position when I was applying for Ivey, or even interviewing for PwC. They saw that I had experience with entrepreneurship at such a young age. It shows that you have that drive to step outside the box, challenge yourself, and do something that no one else has done before. So I think my advice would be: Try to not follow the path that everyone takes. Because it's really tough to compete in a route that everyone wants to go to. How do you distinguish yourself? Try to go around the other way. Have more experiences.
I've worked in a bank before. I've worked in a smaller accounting firm, which was very different from a public accounting firm. I've started my own business, I've done lifeguarding, and I've been a tutor for Business 2257. There have been a lot of experiences that I've gained that have made me realize the type of person I am. I think that's really helped.
Accounting is often mislabelled as a “boring” profession. But some of the most successful CFOs and sports executives have backgrounds in accounting. How can you help debunk that myth? Do you have any encouraging words for students who are considering a career in accounting?
I think the accounting industry has changed a lot over the past couple years. The reason behind that is, first of all, because of globalization, and secondly because of technology. So a lot of what we did in the past that used to be very boring - physically tallying the numbers - can now be done on Excel. At PwC, we actually outsourced a lot of these tasks. We have a team in India who does all that. What we do is analyze that in order to make managerial decisions.
I think that the industry is definitely changing. It's less mundane than in the past. But at the end of the day, in every job you have to start off with the fundamentals - even in finance or consulting. You're not going to be making decisions or recommendations on the first day of the job. It takes a while for you to learn before getting to that managerial position. I think accounting is an industry where the expertise you gain can be carried and leveraged in different areas.
Earning a Chartered Accountant (CA) or similar certification can be a challenging process. What drives you to persevere and succeed?
Knowing what you want to do early really helps. I decided early on, based on my personality and careers tests, that I would be a good fit for accounting. At that time, I started focusing on my accounting courses. I started to slowly build my accounting knowledge from Grade 10. Now, I have a pretty good understanding of the industry. And I'm still learning additional information on top of that. Once you reach a certain point in an industry, you begin to understand how it works. And it gets a lot easier. Everything you learn on top of that actually becomes very interesting.
So a lot of people say accounting is boring. That's the beginning. When you start off, trust me, it's very boring. But after a certain point, the learning curve is gone. You finish it, and say, "This is actually making a lot of sense now."
My advice would be: If you know early that you want to do accounting, get the CPA courses over with ASAP. Once you start at your firm, the firm will pay for your training and your courses. Ivey does a really good job of giving you that bundle of CPA courses. Then you exit Ivey, work for a year, write the exam, qualify, work for another year and a half, and earn your designation. Then you do whatever you want!