Introduction

In your exciting journey with your International Mentor you will share your idea of a Dream Job in the Accounting and Finance area. Career opportunities exist for individuals to provide businesses, government, and nonprofit organizations with necessary financial information.

The Task

How do you find out what responsibilities, knowledge, and skills are needed to obtain the dream job of your choice in the Accounting and Finance area? Exciting websites and other resources and possible suggestions from your mentor will help you with this endeavor.

Your findings will be reported in a typed and printed two-page report along with a PowerPoint presentation on your findings. Your final grade will be based on the completion of your e-mail describing your dream job with your mentor, his/her sharing with you, final two-page report along with a PowerPoint presentation on five possible careers of your choice.

The Process

• E-mail to your mentor with Dream Job as your subject.

• Be specific about your Dream Job--what you believe you would be doing for a typical day and what your location would be for your job.

• Request from your mentor to share what his/her dream job was at your age.

• To help you investigate a few careers available that could become reality for your dream job, use salary.com and monster.com. These sites will help you identify a series of jobs needed for a career that include responsibilities, knowledge, and skills. Other resources include: Cool Careers for Dummies by Marty Nemko and Paul & Sarah Edwards and Corporate View by South-Western Publishing authored by Karl Barksdale and Michael Rutter. The websites will also indicate if certain locations have availability for employment, Choose five careers of your choice from the list below or other possible job titles:

• Accountant___
• Systems Accountant___
• Tax Accountant___
• Accounting Supervisor
• Assistant Accountant____
• Auditor____
• Internal Auditor___
• Auditor, County or City___
• Travel Clerk___
• Tax Auditor___
• Budget Accountant___
• Cost Accountant___
• Cost Accounting Supervisor___
• Director, Utility Accounts___
• Edp Audit Supervisor___
• Edp Auditor___
• Internal Auditing Supervisor___
• Plant Accountant___
• Public Accountant___
• Tax Compliance Supervisor___
• Tax Research Supervisor___
• Tax Supervisor___

• E-mail your mentor and share your findings. Remember that your mentor may currently have as a career what you have chosen and may share this insight with you along with other information.

Ideas:

• Focused on specific information
• Narrow ideas
• Contains specific facts
• Includes details to make ideas understandable

Organization:

• Includes a clear beginning and an effective ending
• A sense of completion

Conventions

• Looks clean, edited, and polished
• Attention given to spelling, punctuation, grammar and usage, capitalization, and indentation

Tips for Creating a PowerPoint Presentation:

1. Keep your message focused
2. Keep the design simple, easy to read, and appropriate to the context
3. Choose attractive colors that make the slide easy to read
4. Keep your text concise: Limit each slide to six words per line and six lines per slide; use lists and bullets to help prioritize your points visually
5. Choose fonts, typefaces, and styles that are easy to read and emphasize important text
6. Use visuals to help communicate the message of your presentation: Be careful not too overcrowd your slides; sometimes less is better

	Beginning 1	Developing 2	Accomplished 3	Exemplary 4	Score
Your Dream Job	Does not indicate any details too vague	Does not indicate complete details for responsibilities and location	Description indicates job responsibilities and location	Description indicates great detail of responsibilities and location
Two-Page Report	Not focused on specific information	Ideas not narrowed to manageable proportions	Contains specific facts to support ideas and includes details to make ideas understandable	Looks clean, edited, polished attention given to spelling, punctuation, grammar and usage, capitalization and indentation
PowerPoint Presentation	No attention getter background on topics or preview	Pieces don't fit theme presentation not thorough	Pieces fit theme, thorough presentation	Conclusion with summary of main points, final statement and personal reflection

Conclusion

Many different jobs and positions are available in Accounting and Finance. These people work with, for example, with tax accounting, investments, travel and reimbursements on a national and international level.

Thanks to David Neils, Director of the International Telementor Program for making this program possible for students.

Lighthouse photo from: www.westrec.com/images/ accounting.jpg