Career Advice: Accounting vs Marketing vs HR

Dear Jarus,

Four years ago, I sought your advice on choosing between banking & finance and accounting. I switched to accounting in my second year. I was on first class before making the switch. I tried my best to maintain it but I couldn’t. I found out that I wasn’t all that good with numbers. I just struggled to pass accounting courses but made good grades from non- accounting courses. I basically crammed accounting courses with the aid of solving lots of past questions and so I was lucky not to fail any course in school. I just graduated last year with a CGPA of 4.xx. I have been reading for ICAN because it would be useful in the future.

Yesterday, one of my mentors who is an accountant advised me to build my career around sales & marketing and I would thank him all the days of my life. I have been pondering over this. Funny as it seems, I hate numbers, I love theory and anything qualitative. I am thinking of dropping the thought of writing ICAN, not because I won’t pass but because I find accounting boring and I am not a fan of calculations.

I am thinking of going into human resource (HR) by writing CIPM but the field is not as promising as the accounting field.
My question goes thus;
1. How relevant is CIPM?
2. Should I continue with ICAN because I may need it in the future?
3. Should I consider a career in sales and marketing as advised by the man?

I consider you as a higher authority in career mentoring and would like to get your views on the aforementioned.

I am an ardent follower of your posts o JarusHub. Many thanks Sir, you are really inspiring many. Keep it up.

Response:

Hi John,

Thanks for the kind words.

I will advise you follow your passion (and that advised by your mentor who is closer to you and knows you better) by pursuing a career in sales and marketing. In fact, sales and marketing can be a faster route to top management position than accounting. In my former place of work, I know 2 men that studied accounting and started their careers in finance department of the company, but switched to sales after a year. Few years later, they had risen to GM level in sales department when their mates (and even former superior) in finance were just becoming managers. One of them later went to NNPC as Group GM for retail and the other is currently the CEO of a major cement company.

So, yes, skilled sales guys tend to have great careers as your mentor noted. This may be because finance/accounting is a support function in companies while sales/marketing functions are at the heart of the business – results are easily noticed and get you faster rise in career ladder; and you are more visible, which helps your rise.

I go with your mentor’s advice if your skillset matches marketing/sales more. But I will recommend you continue with your writing ICAN exams especially as you think you can pass it and as an accounting graduate, you gave just 2 stages to write. The cert may be useful in the future. Actually, one of the men I used as examples above is a chartered accountant.

Finally, you have mentioned 3 career paths in your question, and I will rate them as follows based on your skillset/goal: sales/marketing > accounting > HR.

The reason I rate HR low is, at entry level, there is a low demand for HR and most people just get posted to that department at such level. If you restrict yourself to such HR job opportunities at this stage, it may be very tight. Even with CIPM.

All the best.

Jarus

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