013: Earning a Certification

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today we're talking about earning a professional certification or license because it will boost your career and your earnings potential. A certification should be central part of professional foundation to showcase your expertise and dedication to delivering the best advice and work ethic to your organization. I encourage you to add earning a certification to your individual development plan this year. Please enjoy the episode. Welcome to the Finance Leader Podcast where leadership is bigger than the numbers. I am your host, Steven McLean. And this is the podcast with developing leaders in finance and accounting. This is episode number 13 and we're gonna be talking about certifications and licenses. And we're gonna be talking a lot about your professional development. I believe that we all need to be continually growing and improving. I don't know the source of this quote, but it really talks to what I believe about your professional development. And I quote, be not afraid of growing slowly be afraid, Onley of standing still. I believe that you need to build your professional credibility and expertise, and through a professional license and certification, you will be able to do that. And this is why you should be earning one. A certification gives you credibility for being a professional and an expert in your field. During this episode, I will be talking about certifications that you can earn and also mention the organizations that sponsor them. But I want to put out as a disclaimer that I have no affiliation with any of them other than my membership in American society and military comptrollers. And if any of that changes in the future, I'll update the episode description. All right, let's talk about earning a professional certification or a license, and I'm gonna go through a few reasons why you need to add this to your I. D. P. This year. I believe that a certification a license is a key part of your professional development, especially for someone who works in finance and accounting. And I just believe that it just gives you more credibility. And it showcases what you know in your field. And I believe that it's a critical part of your overall professional portfolio, which, of course includes your college degree, your advanced degree, your experience, your skills and abilities, your knowledge and also your mindset. So I recommend that you add a certification or a license to that so that it rounds out your professional portfolio throughout this episode. I'll probably be using certification most of the time instead of just license, as we all know, that some of these are actually licenses that are issued by the state. But I'll probably just stick to the word certification. The second thing I want to mention is that it is difficult to earn a certification and so that sets you apart from your peers if they don't earn one. Want to encourage everyone working in a leadership position to recognize how difficult it is to earn a certification and why it matters to get this done and why it brings credibility to you. Most of the certification bodies usually require some years of experience in the area that you want to be certified. It also requires a study of doctrine in the law pertaining to the area of study that you have chosen, and sometimes the certification body requires a professional who is currently working in that area of expertise to review and acknowledge your experience, and that just gives you further credibility. The sponsoring organization is a recognised body of experts and they sponsored the certification and also the follow on training. So when you go through a certification process, this recognised body of experts are saying that you have earned the certification. You have the right number of years of experience. You have the skills and you have the knowledge to carry on and hold that certification, and that gives you credibility. And sometimes a government body has to issue you a license to operate. Within that certification, for example, a certified public accountant has to take the state exam in order to be certified. You also have to do continuing education to maintain the certification that ensures that you are staying on top of the most current changes. That helps you provide the best advice and for you to be able to continue your duties in the area that you're working in for your organization. And when you are a member of the certification body, it ensures that you know the latest knowledge and changes to your certification area. So you stay current on what's going on in your field so that you can continue to provide the best advice. Another reason why earning a certification is very important because we're seeing more and more jobs that air requiring a certification or they at least listed as a as a preference. And you're going to see a lot of the accounting, managerial and senior leader jobs require, or at least prefer you to have your C p A. I continue to recommend to everyone that I get a chance to talk with. You know, add a certification to your resume, go ahead and get it done. Complete the requirements and just boosts your potential. And even if they were looking for a C P. A. Sometimes if you have another certification that it may help you get to position anyway, even if you don't have your C P. A. Having a certification has shown that it will boost your earnings and also boost your career. There are numerous studies available that shows earning the certification does boost earnings and boost your potential. I believe that the earning of any certification will boost your career and boost your potential for certain positions within the organization. It proves that you are dedicated to becoming an expert in your field, okay, just want to give you a few final thoughts and as you move from individual contributor to manager and through the middle ranks. I still believe that having a professional certification will boost your credibility and show that you're dedicated to providing the very best work, the very best advice, the very best ideas to the organization that you can pull from that body of knowledge that you have studied. It's a lot of work, but it's definitely worth it in the end, and definitely here to convince you that you need to add this into your goals today. Next, I want to take you through a few certifications that you can earn and also mention some certification bodies that you can look at to apply to get the certification. So, of course, we all knew the certified public accountant is the one that will definitely set you apart and, of course, is often required. And it's highly sought after your earnings and potential will grow higher than the others if you get a chance to earn it. If you have the time and the resource is and Buddy able to get this done in your career than definitely highly recommend earning that coveted C p A. And it's gonna require a lot of work, but definitely worth it. In the end, when I close out the episode, I'm gonna share a few numbers with you on the earnings potential of a C P. A. Next one I want to talk about is the certified management accountant and the Institute of Management Accountants offers. This is a certification. And for all the organizations that I'm gonna mention today, I'll add a link into the show notes that you can download for auditing. You can earn the certified internal auditor certification and the Institute of Internal Auditors provides that certification. If you're working in Treasury, you can earn the certified Treasury professional certification, and that is offered by the Association for Financial Professionals. If you want to earn a financial modelling certification, you can work on the financial modelling and valuation analysts certification, and that's offered by the Corporate Finance Institute. If you are working in military or the government, I'll go ahead and briefly mention a few certifications that you can earn and work on. That's what I did. I earned the certified Defense Financial Manager Certification, which is sponsored by the American Society of Military Comptroller's The Department of Defense, has its own finance certification program. So if you ever work for them, you can work on that and get that completed. And if your government civilian, you can earn the certified government financial manager certification and that is sponsored by the Association of Government Accountants. So for an easy win today, I recommend that you add earning a certification or license into your individual development plan. If you don't currently have one, if you lead a team and sure you're talking with your team members also about earning a certification All right. In this episode I talked about the importance of earning and professional certification, and it's just great to have on your resume so encouraging you to get this done. I want to share with you a few numbers I found from several different sources. But I want to talk about a few numbers that The Journal of Accountancy has published, and this is very specific to the certified public accountant. And the average salary in the US for C P A is $119,000 the new C P A's average about $66,000 CPS, with at least 20 years of experience, are averaging $152,000 per year on a recent survey, CPS have shown to be averaging around 5% annual salary increases for the last several years. There are, of course, very many different variables when it goes under these averages. But we do know that earning your CPI will more than pay for itself with additional salary and also greater promotion opportunities. So I just wanted course, encourage you to earn that professional certification and get it added to your resume, And it will just continue to provide that credibility to the organization that you're working with. I want to give you a final editorial thought. A few weeks ago, I shared a few bonus episodes, and I discussed how businesses should become more recession proof. I believe that if we're gonna build strong, sustainable companies in the future, we need to shift our focus back to the balance sheet because this is where we really show the financial health of our companies. The balance sheet reveals how long your company can withstand a major economic downturn. Now I want you to think about that, and then please let me know your own thoughts again. I believe that we need to start shifting our focus back to the balance sheet instead of just a profit and loss statement so that we can build sustainable companies, companies that have a stronger financial health who can withstand economic downturns and arm or able to withstand any kind of shocks to the system We want to build strong, sustainable, long term cos next episode I'm gonna be talking about developing a purpose and a vision for your team. Have you ever showed up to the offers and wondered why you were there other than for a paycheck? Well, we'll get into that. I hope you enjoyed the finance leader Podcast. I am dedicated to helping you grow your leadership. I hope you enjoy the show. You can get this episode wherever you find podcasts. Please join our community on Facebook, the finance leader podcast Facebook Group. This will be our community to grow within the finance and accounting profession until next time you can check out more. Resource is as steven McLean dot com and sign up for my updates. So you don't miss an episode of the show and now go lead your team and I'll see you next time. Thank you