Best Jobs For Former Accountants [2023]

It’s tough to be a accountant nowadays, and more and more of them are losing confidence in their own profession.

While the amount of people majoring in courses preparing people for a job as a accountant isn’t necessarily dropping, fewer and fewer people are applying to become accountants in the first place and the workforce itself is looking grim.

With so many accountants no longer sticking around, this begs the question:

What are they all doing now?

We were curious, so we looked through the resumes of former accountants to see what kind of jobs they were moving into after leaving the field. There were thousands of answers, so we made the cutoff at the top 100 jobs.

But given that there are some very surprising and interesting items on this list, we’ve decided to highlight a few of those instead.

Best Jobs For Former ACCOUNTANTS

Some of these items are admittedly more attractive than one another as far as actually working the job goes, but one way or another, you’ve got to admit they’re eye-catching.

The full list of those jobs can be found below.

Detailed Ranking of the Most Common Jobs of Former ACCOUNTANTS

Rank	Job Title	%
1	Senior Accountant	6.03%
2	Controller	3.82%
3	Staff Accountant	3.76%
4	Accounting Manager	3.31%
5	Finance Analyst	2.99%
6	Accounts Payable Clerk	1.52%
7	Senior Finance Analyst	1.45%
8	Chief Finance Officer	1.14%
9	Bookkeeper	1.1%
10	Office Manager	1.1%
11	Finance Manager	1.09%
12	Consultant	1.0%
13	Accounting Clerk	0.96%
14	Assistant Controller	0.91%
15	Cost Accountant	0.89%
16	Accounting Supervisor	0.81%
17	Finance Director	0.77%
18	Administrative Assistant	0.72%
19	Business Analyst	0.69%
20	Owner	0.67%
21	Human Resources Coordinator	0.57%
22	Tax Accountant	0.56%
23	Business Manager	0.53%
24	Payroll Administrator	0.52%
25	Vice President	0.5%
26	Customer Service Representative	0.49%
27	Manager	0.48%
28	Analyst	0.47%
29	Certified Public Accountant	0.45%
30	Tax Preparer	0.45%
31	Finance Controller	0.45%
32	Accounts Receivable Specialist	0.44%
33	Auditor	0.43%
34	Accounting Assistant	0.43%
35	Account Manager	0.43%
36	Senior Staff Accountant	0.43%
37	Accounting Consultant	0.42%
38	Substitute Teacher	0.41%
39	Accounting Analyst	0.41%
40	Human Resources Manager	0.4%
41	Billing Specialist	0.4%
42	Internal Auditor	0.39%
43	Sales Associate	0.38%
44	Project Accountant	0.37%
45	Operations Manager	0.36%
46	Cashier	0.33%
47	Assistant Manager	0.33%
48	Volunteer	0.33%
49	Accountant-Contractor	0.32%
50	Accountant And Office Manager	0.31%
51	Corporate Controller	0.3%
52	Finance Consultant	0.29%
53	General Ledger Accountant	0.28%
54	Accounting Director	0.27%
55	Charge Bookkeeper	0.26%
56	Project Manager	0.26%
57	Associate	0.26%
58	Corporate Accountant	0.25%
59	Treasurer	0.25%
60	General Manager	0.25%
61	General Accountant	0.24%
62	Senior Auditor	0.24%
63	Supervisor	0.23%
64	Account Analyst	0.23%
65	Accounts Payable Supervisor	0.23%
66	Senior Analyst	0.23%
67	Internship	0.23%
68	Accountant/consultant	0.23%
69	Plant Controller	0.21%
70	Teacher	0.21%
71	Accounts Payable Manager	0.21%
72	Budget Analyst	0.21%
73	Payroll Specialist	0.21%
74	Fixed Asset Accountant	0.2%
75	Owner/operator	0.19%
76	Tax Analyst	0.19%
77	Comptroller	0.19%
78	Finance Officer	0.19%
79	Accounting Associate	0.19%
80	Revenue Accountant	0.19%
81	Finance Administrator	0.19%
82	Team Leader	0.18%
83	Payroll Manager	0.18%
84	Assistant Vice President	0.17%
85	Finance Specialist	0.17%
86	Control Accountant	0.16%
87	Program Manager	0.16%
88	Director	0.16%
89	Senior Tax Accountant	0.16%
90	Office Administrator	0.16%
91	Fund Accountant	0.16%
92	Accounting Technician	0.15%
93	Senior Manager	0.15%
94	Tax Associate	0.15%
95	Division Controller	0.15%
96	Account Leader	0.15%
97	Senior Associate	0.15%
98	President	0.14%
99	Account Auditor	0.14%
100	Administrator	0.14%

Most Common Jobs For Former ACCOUNTANTS

These are all good jobs, all of them either utilizing some skill that a accountant would have or being a stepping stone to a different career.

Here’s the thing about these jobs though — they’re pretty much exactly what you’d expect a lot of former accountants to do.

How We Determined the Best Jobs of Former ACCOUNTANTS

Using resume information from our database of over 7 million resumes, we looked at all resumes that listed accountant under their work history. Then we looked at which jobs showed up on their work histories following their stints as a accountant, sorting them by their most frequent.

That’s how we made the initial ranked list.

To make our list of most interesting jobs, we looked through the ranked list to see if any positions:

Showed up in fewer than 1% of all new jobs
And, were not part of the 100 most common jobs in our database

Author

Chris Kolmar

Chris Kolmar is a co-founder of Zippia and the editor-in-chief of the Zippia career advice blog. He has hired over 50 people in his career, been hired five times, and wants to help you land your next job. His research has been featured on the New York Times, Thrillist, VOX, The Atlantic, and a host of local news. More recently, he's been quoted on USA Today, BusinessInsider, and CNBC.

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