Jessica Keefe

I would say that the mentorship I've gotten along the way has been the most influential for me. I don't feel like I really learned what I'm doing just from school - I mean, not that I didn't learn a lot in school, even the master's program, you get the basics, but you don't really learn what you're really doing or apply concepts until you're on the job. I've worked side-by-side with a couple managers and partners at other firms, and even here now, that are great mentors. I'm even reconnecting with people I used to work with now that I previously worked with at other firms, so it's been a full circle. The accounting profession's small, and you see how small the world is when you jump from firm to firm, and you're seeing people you used to work with again. The experience that I have and being at all these different firms, working with all these different people, has really shaped my professional journey.

Be open to anything and everything. When I started, I was given individual work, trust estates, and then business tax returns. I said I didn't really like doing the business work, so I shifted over to high net worth individuals more. But I guess, yeah, be open to whatever the accounting profession brings. Accounting can bring you in many different directions - you can be working for a public accounting firm, you can be at a regular company doing month-end close type of work, or doing bookkeeping in a certain area. There's lots of outlets where you can go. Just kind of being open-minded, even if you're starting at a big four firm, you never know who you're gonna meet, where it's gonna lead you. You could end up working for a client. So yeah, I would just say that anyone just remain open to the opportunities that it brings you, even though it's a tough profession to kind of get into.

One of the biggest challenges is that larger firms are bringing on a lot of clients but they don't have the capacity in-house, so they're outsourcing a lot of work overseas to try to make the workload easier, but you really can't in this profession. You have to be kind of one-on-one, face-to-face with clients and developing relationships with clients. That's one thing I like about a smaller firm - they vet clients. Being available for clients, I think, is the number one thing. Another major challenge is recruiting and retaining staff. A lot of kids now don't want to sit for their exams, or they don't even want to do accounting. A lot of people aren't even declaring accounting as their major now. It's tough to recruit students. Where I just left, they hired a bunch of interns and tried to hire them for the season and bring them back full-time, but by the time you've selected who you want to hire, they get offers from other places, they leave, or they don't even want to do it anymore. It dwindles down to one or two people. Finding good staff, finding staff that are willing to do the work - I find that a lot of students coming out of school don't really want to be doing the work that this profession demands. A lot of young kids just don't want to take notes when you're giving directions. It's hard to find young staff that want to do this work and stay in this profession.

Being available for clients and developing trusting relationships is really important to me. I believe in working one-on-one, face-to-face with clients and developing relationships so you can be timely with your responses and build that trust so they know you're doing good work and supporting them whenever they need support. Things change throughout the year - clients pass away, they need planning done - and just being available and having expertise to help them in any way you can is crucial. It's a relationship business. I also value having connections to outsource work if we can't do it in-house, whether to a larger firm or through my connections with law firms and financial firms. That's how we get work in the door, but I also have past clients and other relationships that want to continue to work with me.