Money isn't everything if you choose a career outside the Big Four firms.
The so-called glitter and glamour of a career in commerce or a position in one of the Big Four accounting firms holds no appeal for Michelle Hejl. The 27-year-old Monash University graduate earned credits and distinctions throughout her degree. However, unlike peers who were reaching for the stars in the corporate world, Hejl wanted to work as a tax accountant for a suburban practice.
"I had pretty much made up my mind after my first year that I wanted to be a chartered accountant," she says. "I picked my subjects so that I would be eligible for the CA [chartered accounting] program."
Hejl has been a tax accountant for three years, working at Melbourne firm Lowe Lippmann for the past 18 months. She recently completed her CA qualification. During her final year at university, she received a lot of positive feedback about working as a chartered accountant.
"I heard about the benefits of the variety of work as opposed to doing the same work day in and day out. No two clients are the same and problems sometimes arise which require you to do research. In commerce, as an assistant accountant you would be doing the same reconciliations and the same processing every month, which didn't really appeal to me."
Hejl chose tax as her speciality rather than audit and financial reporting because she was more interested in servicing small to medium clients than corporations.
"When I was in high school, I had the idea that I wanted to run my own business. The best way to do that, I thought, was to get an understanding of small businesses. The best way to get an understanding of them was to work with them - and business services, where I work, provides me with that opportunity."
Unlike many of her fellow uni students, Hejl gave Big Four representatives a wide berth when they arrived on campus for their recruitment drives in her final year.
"I wasn't really interested in the Big Four, mainly because I had heard about the long hours you do and the kind of workload you have. I'm more interested in having a more balanced kind of lifestyle.
"When it's quiet here, you might get home by 5pm, and when you're doing overtime, you might get in at 8am and leave by 6pm. They are reasonable hours, whereas a couple of my friends who are working as auditors will get in really early and leave really late."
