In the News: New Hot Spot for Young CPAs

I’m writing this blog post from the AICPA’s E.D.G.E Conference in Austin, Texas. E.D.G.E. is an opportunity for CPAs to gain management and leadership skills, while networking with leaders of the profession and discussing emerging issues. And since the conference is aimed at CPAs and practitioners with 5-15 years of experience, I’ve had an opportunity to speak to a number of younger AICPA members about the opportunities and challenges they’ve faced in their careers. My colleague and friend Heather O’Connor has posted a couple of great live blogs from the conference and there are a lot of tweets on the #AICPA_EDGE hashtag you can check out to get a better sense of the content in the sessions.

Conferences are a great place to meet likeminded CPAs, learn about the issues facing the profession and help navigate the next steps in one’s career. Can’t make it to a conference this year? No worries, the AICPA has announced the launch of the Young CPA Network Community to help young CPAs enjoy many of the benefits of conference attendance from the comfort of their laptop or mobile device – like networking and career development.

As Accounting Today’s Accounting Tomorrow blog reports, AICPA built the Community to empower and guide young CPAs along their professional journey.

“We created this community because we found that our young members desire connectivity with peers beyond traditional social media platforms," Donna Salter, senior manager of the AICPA young member initiatives program told Going Concern. "We hope to inspire a sense of belonging – by nurturing their loyalty to the world of accounting and the AICPA as their professional home - while also appealing to those young CPAs who desire a closed forum discussion.”

Hosted on aicpa.org, the Community is open to AICPA members who have passed the CPA Examination and are between the ages of 22-36. Young CPAs register and create customized profiles to interact with their peers.

Salter described the process of creating a profile on the Community to AccountingWEB, "it's very quick, very easy, and pretty simplistic." She added that it took her about a minute to create her profile. “All we're asking for is the name of their company, what their title is, their e-mail address, and a professional photograph. They can upload more information if they want, but it really doesn't take that much time at all to complete."

The Community features an interactive discussion forum, blog section, events calendar and articles about the profession developed by alumni of the AICPA Leadership Academy on a variety of topics, such as volunteerism, that are designed to provoke discussion.

"[The articles featured in the community] are written from a young member perspective, and the readers can respond to the article and have an interaction online about what they did to become involved in their state society," Salter said.

Young CPAs can access the Community, as well as a wide variety of additional resources on the AICPA’s Young CPA Network.

James Schiavone, AICPA Staff.