Earning a CPA or CMA Earns You More

Welcome back to #WeAreGreenKey, where we shine a spotlight on our powerhouse recruiting team. 

Recently, we caught up with Olivia Eberle, Recruiter on the Accounting and Finance team at Green Key. Olivia started her recruiting career at Green Key about a year ago after she transitioned from a career in public accounting.

Can you share your career journey and how you progressed to your current role?

Sure. After I got my Bachelors in Accounting, I started my accounting career in public audit with a firm that no longer exists and after spending some time there I realized that accounting might not be for me, so I wanted to try a different route. That’s when a recruiter from Green Key reached out to me about an accounting role, which I ended up working in for about 6 months. That role helped me solidify my thought that accounting was not for me, but I still wanted to use my degree. So, I reached out to my recruiter from Green Key to ask about recruiting and now I am here.

What have been some of the most rewarding aspects of your career? 

Even though I had to learn the sales side of the business, there are a lot of rewarding aspects to my career. Firstly, I love being able to help candidates who are looking to change not just their career or role but their lifestyle. I love that I can help them take their careers to another level and I can successfully place them in a role that will help them reach whatever goal they want to achieve. Another rewarding aspect is the fact that I can be my authentic self in this job. It’s very nice to be able to work in a role where I can express my personality and connect with people every day.

How do you balance the use of AI technologies with traditional recruitment methods in accounting and finance, ensuring a human-centric approach while leveraging the benefits of automation and data-driven insights?

I use ChatGPT almost every day for a couple in a couple of different ways specifically for searches and when I am recruiting for a new role. I also use LinkedIn recruiter’s AI tools that are really helpful when it comes to building searches, so I use those and then I also go back to ChatGPT. I use ChatGPT sometimes with resume writing because I really like helping my candidates with their resume. Some people just have never had resume guidance, which is something that I received at my college.

What advice would you give to candidates looking to stand out in the accounting and finance job market?

To candidates, I would say your resume is the thing that makes the first impression, so spend a good amount of time writing it and have a couple of different resumes on file. Especially, if you’re looking for different types of jobs, for example somebody like me, coming out of public accounting looking to go to private. There are a couple of different tracks that you can go on and you can write your resume in a couple of different ways to be a little bit more tailored to each. Additionally, I think that being yourself in interviews is really important. A lot of people don’t realize that even though they are working within accounting, which at times can be very solitary work you have to be interactive, and I think candidates are more successful when they’re willing to step outside of the box.

How do you stay updated on changes and developments within the pharmaceutical industry to better serve your clients and candidates?

I have a few main ways, I follow probably hundreds of companies on LinkedIn, some of which are our clients. I’m also a member of different CPA Society groups on LinkedIn where people will talk about different changes to the CPA exam or changes to audit guidance or tax guidance that kind of helps me stay in the know. I also use Reddit, there are a lot of accounting and finance pages on Reddit where I hear or read about things like layoffs before, they are public or, if there’s a merger happening sometimes like somebody will post it on Reddit before you even hear about it in the news. Lastly, I read a lot of news publications like the New York Times and Microsoft News like the articles that just pops up on your computer.

Do you have any new professional goals, either for yourself or your team?  

Yes, so in the grand scheme of things, I am pretty new to Green Key but with the growth of our Morristown office I would really love to continue to help others and help find another recruiter or two to join our office. I would also like to continue to help my co-workers develop their skills especially if they didn’t come from an accounting background.