At one point I was thinking of working for the govn't also, but decided to go the private route.  Now that dc has described what she does and after sitting for the exam, I might take a crack at it also. 

Thanks for the great posts dc, keep it up :)

dcgrrrl,

Thank you for the posts. It is very uplifting and I'm get more curious of their hiring process.

I really appreciate that you take your time for this. I'm so looking forward to Part III.

Here goes Part III - the what, when, how, why, where, and who of applying for jobs.

First, what jobs can CPA-types do?  Once again, I need to back up here.  Most federal employees are on the General Schedule (GS).  The federal job system gives each job function a four-digit number, and those numbers come in handy when you're looking for open positions.  Accounting and budget functions start with 0501 and go through 0599.  Here's a list of those positions:

very nice dcgirl! and to add to that, let me share some of my experience. i'm an auditor with the DoD. this is my first job right out of college. i attended a couple career fairs (mainly looking for private CPA firms) and i saw this job opening from the DoD - "we audit the top defense companies in the nation." sounds good to me. so i applied, got an interview, and got an offer.

the work here is very challenging. we mostly do program audits (those of you that passed audit should know what i'm talking about!). this is something i never learned in school or anywhere. that's where the challenge begins. we have to audit many proposals that the private companies (like boeing or raytheon) submit to the government. then, after the costs are incurred, we do another audit. our audits mainly deals with whether or not costs are allocable and allowable per government regulations. so this is something very different than financial statement audits.

the pay is pretty good. as dcgirl mentioned above, you get multi-grade promotions automatically after each year. so if you start as a GS-7, you'll be a GS-9 one year later. every GS grade jump is about $5,000, so every year you'll get a $10,000 raise, assuming your performance is decent. we work 40 hours a week and every hour more that we worked is accounted for in either overtime pay or credit hours (to be used at another day). stress level is a bare minimum compare to that of the big 4 CPA firms.

As with most government jobs, we get quite a few holidays off. the medical benefits are ok (since they're HMO's). we accumulate 8 hours (1 day) of annual leave and 1 day of sick leave every month. the benefits are there.

Once you're in the government, the government job opportunities are endless. after a couple years, you can apply to many different gov't agencies locally or in DC. i've seen quite a few people leave one agency and going to another. i've also seen some people leaving one agency and working for private industries, especially those companies that they previously audited. so career advancement opportunities are everywhere.

We are also able to travel and help out other offices do work. the great thing is that they are all voluntary. and of course, everything is paid for. we also have trainings to attend to further our knowledge in this type of audit, so don't worry about not knowing a single thing about government auditing.

Is the government the right place for you? that really depends on your style. if you like a stable income, minimal work hours, and don't have to worry if your company's going under, then this is the right place for you.