11 Alternative Roles for a Career Change From Accounting

There are various reasons you may choose to change career roles, such as a desire for new tasks or a better work-life balance. When changing careers, it's important to think about your transferable skills and your passions. Learning about the different roles you can choose from in the industry or a similar one can help you make your next career move. In this article, we discuss how you can determine if a career change from accounting is the right step for you and list 11 alternative jobs for you to consider where you can still use your accounting skills.

Determine if a career change from accounting is for you

If you're considering a career change from accounting, you can use these tips to transition into a new role:

• Decide if a career change is what you want versus a change in employer.

• Determine your likes, passions and interests.

• Research careers to see if your financial skills and talents align.

• Review your transferable skills that can be valuable in a new line of work.

• Go back to school for new credentials.

• Update your resume to reflect on your new career objectives.

• Apply for jobs and attend interviews.

Related:

• How to Become a Contract Bookkeeper (A Step-by-Step Guide)

• What Is a Contract Manager? (With Career Steps and FAQs)

11 jobs that offer a career change from accounting

Holding an accounting degree and certification can afford you several high-demand career paths to follow. Here are 11 jobs and salaries to explore if you're considering a career change as an accountant:

1. Financial communications associate

National average salary: $66,906 per year

Primary duties: A financial communications associate often works for corporations, institutions, non-profits or government organisations that are in the financial industry. They generate awareness for a company, serve as spokespersons and handle all aspects of internal and external communications for team members or the public. Financial communications associates explain financial concepts in simple terms in marketing and communications across all forms of media, including print, broadcast, digital or social media. These professionals may also design promotional material and graphics as part of generating awareness for a company. Additionally, other general administrative duties might be part of the daily tasks.

2. Journalist

National average salary: $66,462 per year

Primary duties: A journalist with an accounting background reports information and news about financial markets, corporations and industries for print, broadcast or digital media and platforms. They establish contacts in the financial industry and investigate important stories and current events. Financial journalists also explain complicated money or financial concepts in easy-to-understand ways. To help add validity to their stories, they can interview financial professionals or those who are experiencing financial challenges or successes. It's important that these professionals understand how to write, edit and speak based on the medium they're sharing their information.

3. Forensic accountant

National average salary: $77,983 per year

Primary duties: A forensic accountant examines budgets, spreadsheets and electronic data to figure out where missing or misused money is and how to recover it. They present evidence and financial findings to law enforcement and often testify in court proceedings related to financial crimes, showing documentation of their audits. Forensic accountants can work for public and private companies. They can share their findings with their managers, law enforcement or other important officials in a report or presentation. If investigating a business, these professionals may identify its assets and trace where it allocated the funds.

Read more: How to Become a Forensic Accountant (With Step-Guide)

4. Reconciliation specialist

National average salary: $83,238 per year

Primary duties: A reconciliation specialist is a specialised accounting professional who balances general accounting ledgers with bank balances and ensures financial policies and procedures within an organisation are effective. They oversee the cash flow of a business with all financial transactions, including cash, credit, debit, loan payments and more. They're responsible for reporting any discrepancies between the bank statements and a business's accounting ledgers and ensuring the payroll is accurate and on time. Depending on the company they work at, they might handle collections of late payments from other institutions.

5. Banker

National average salary: $85,717 per year

Primary duties: A banker handles various financial transactions on behalf of customers and clients, often working with loans, retirement accounts and opening accounts. They can hold administrative or executive positions for local, national or international banking institutions. Bankers aim to maximise the profit of a bank while limiting the amount of risk. These professionals may also inform and sell bank services and products to clients, such as safety deposit boxes. This can help maintain the financial safety of the clients and increase the revenue for the bank. Bankers can help resolve challenges the clients are experiencing with the bank.

Read more: How to Become Investment Banker (With Steps Guide)

6. Mathematics teacher

National average salary: $86,096 per year

Primary duties: A maths teacher educates students in various grade levels about general or specialised topics within mathematics. They plan and prepare lessons and activities, provide assignments, grade homework and give exams to assess a student's progress. Maths teachers attend meetings with parents, guardians and other staff members and document the abilities of their students, often through report cards. This professional may also spend one-on-one time with their students when the student is finding the course material challenging and requires extra help. Former accountants can use their knowledge and experience to help students understand various maths subjects.

Read more: How to Become a Math Teacher in 5 Steps (With Skills Guide)

7. Entrepreneur

National average salary: $88,629 per year

Primary duties: An entrepreneur is an individual who starts a new business venture, sometimes related to their idea or invention. Entrepreneurs invest their own money or secure other funding to create their company or brand and often try to be adaptable, hard-working professionals to reach success. Entrepreneurs may handle all aspects of their business, like making phone calls, writing emails, doing interviews and leading production or service, particularly at the beginning of their business. A financial entrepreneur may kick-start a financial firm or financially support a start-up organisation.

8. Production manager

National average salary: $96,122 per year

Primary duties: A production manager is a professional who works in the entertainment industry, helping media production companies with their accounting needs. In this role, they often collaborate with the studio finance executives to determine budgets and make adjustments as needed by the producers. Some other primary duties of this position can include scouting shooting locations for the production, providing transportation and housing for crew and cast members and hiring contract vendors for the set, such as catering. They also ensure the production has applied for and has the permits required for shooting on location.

9. Financial planner

National average salary: $98,662 per year

Primary duties: A financial planner is a professional who assists clients with planning and meeting their current financial needs. They can create short-term and long-term financial goals with their clients and determine how they can achieve those goals with realistic, actionable steps. Some areas of specialities that a financial planner can work in include tax, estate and retirement planning. They may use tools such as analytical and data software to help develop client plans or make recommendations for the client to implement. The client types can vary for this role from an individual to a family to an entire business.

10. Business analyst

National average salary: $104,753 per year

Primary duties: Business analysts are professionals who help businesses ensure they're operating efficiently across all departments. This can include recommending where a business can benefit from strengthening different processes, such as making improvements to the human resources department or the marketing team. Some other primary duties may include using software and applications to analyse extensive sets of data and prioritising where a company can make improvements in its technical and functional needs. A business analyst can forecast, budget and perform financial analyses. It's also important to understand the goals, needs and strategies to help any organisation achieve its objectives efficiently.

Read more: How to Become a Business Analyst (With FAQs and Answers)

11. Professor

National average salary: $187,869 per year

Primary duties: A professor prepares and delivers lectures to students at the undergraduate or graduate level. As a former accountant, these professionals can use their expertise and experience to seek academic roles and lecture and tutor on financial topics like accounting, budgeting, principles of marketing and banking. Finance professors work at universities and other higher educational facilities and often publish research papers and reports in the financial education field. For their classes, they create lesson plans, grade assignments and exams and use their office hours to help students with their course work.

Related: A Guide to Writing a Career Change Functional Resume

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