Entry-Level Jobs to Start Your Responsible Career in Accounting and Finance

As mentioned in my previous posts on responsible careers inoperations and in marketing and sales, the good news amid the current USjobless recovery is that a number of responsible careers are available to recent graduates and emerging responsible leaders. Over178 entry-level responsible jobs added to our justmeans job board over the past 40 days. This means that if you are a recent college graduate looking to make a difference in our world (and were not among the 12% of applicants that were accepted for the Teach For America Program), you have a vast array of responsible opportunities that can serve as a springboard to launch your responsible career, and enable you to get paid to make a valuableimpact on society and our planet!

Today we'll focus on accounting and finance careers. Of course with the reputation of financial firms, and theircreative accounting practices, I would understand if you did not find a career in finance or accounting the least bit attractive.After all, in traditional businesses,accounting and finance are all about squeezing value out of every aspect of the business, through cost saving initiatives in operations, getting a lower price from vendors, or getting consumers to pay more for your products and services. Furthermore, the image of the traditional accountant, most often pictured as an individual with large glasses hunched over a keyboard crunching numbers is not the ideal version of an exciting career to most young professionals.

Today, things are different though. Indeed, you have a number of responsible career options in accounting and finance. These responsible careers actually enable you to make an incredible impact on our society and our planet! Indeed, strong accounting and finance skills are needed in new fields such as for examplecarbon accounting, and carbon trading. Furthermore, socially responsible businesses are charged with the difficult task of measuring economic, social and environmental value creation. A solid foundation in accounting and finance would be a tremendous asset to help these organizations best quantify their social and environmental impact. Of course, any entity, whether it is a business, a nonprofit, or a government agency has to conform with a highly regulated financial accounting system and has to forecast what their future financial needs based on their projected growth. All of these tasks require employees with accounting or finance skills. Therefore, if you have accounting and finance skills, you will be very much sought after across sectors.

Job growth in accounting is estimated at 10 percent through 2018 while demand for financial analysts is anticipated to grow by 20 percent through 2018 (source: US Department of Labor). These job growth patterns have been primarily attributed to the increasing complexity and global diversification of investments and growth in the overall amount of assets under management. Of course,socially responsible investing (or patient capital) is also having an tremendous impact on creating responsible career options in accounting and finance. This is all good news if you are interested in responsible career options in accounting and finance. Let's now look at a sample of opportunities you have in finance and accounting for organizations, products and services you can believe in (as previously mentioned, remember that job postings are 'wish lists'):

• Accounting Supervisor - Reach Out and Read (Charlestown, MA) - Would you like to oversee the accurate and timely recording and reporting of accounts payable expenses and payment of vendor invoices/check requests for a nonprofit organization that promotes reading and school readiness for young children by partnering with pediatric health providers?


• Grant Coordinator - Preschool California (Oakland, CA) - Would you like to assist with budgeting and book keeping as well as write reports and track grant progress for a nonprofitworking to increase access to high-quality preschool for all of California's children, starting with those who need it most?


• Program Assistant - American Society of Transplant Surgeons (Arlington, VA) - Would you like to provide book keeping and administrative support for an organization thatprovides travel reimbursement for eligible living organ donors to travel to transplant centers for the donor evaluation, surgery and medical follow-up?


• Project Manager - Center for Ecological Technology (Northhampton, MA) - Would you like to develop budgets, schedules, and clients agreements for a nonprofit dedicated to develop and promote technologies which have the least disruptive impact on the natural ecology of the Earth?


• Senior Finance Manager - Witness, INC (Brooklyn, NY) - Would you like to provide complete fiscal oversight and financial administration of an organization that is dedicated touse video to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations?