My story is sad these days and its making me lose sleep and I am tense most of the time.

My Situation:

I graduated in May 2008 with an MBA with majors in accounting and took few additional courses to complete my CPA requirement in the fall of 2008. From Jan 2009, I joined Becker in class study for CPA exams but my prep. was way too slow which I realize now and was able to pass my first exam in Jan of 2009, since then I managed to pass FAR, BEC and AUD but my 18 months window expired in July of 2011 and I could not pass REG within that window and my FAR score has expired. I am turning 30 end of this year and have NO job experience on my resume, right now I am in Canada and presently residing in a small town with not many job opportunities, it will take me another 2-3 years to become a Canadian citizen and then try for jobs in USA.

Suggestion:

What should I do in my case, I am thinking of trying to get some voluntary work with a small CPA or CA local practice. I have applied couple of Accounting/Bookkeeping jobs, but I am not sure whether such jobs would be helpful to me if I get one- as the job requirement says completion of some training and good with QuickBooks and simply accounting software.

Please Suggest:

What should I do in my case, what kind of job should I take and also should I continue my CPA journey? If I continue my CPA journey it will be another 1.5-2 years and till that time I will be stepping into 32 year of age and hopefully will be eligible to apply for jobs in USA…

Another worst scenario is if I don’t get any job in this small Canadian town, should I continue to study for CPA exams and make sure to pass them but in the end I will still have no work experience.

Can someone please suggest and advise me what I should do?

This is going to sound harsh...

You're a degree collector. 

Degree collectors are people who have lost sight of the fact that the whole point to what we're doing is to get a desirable job.  Instead, the degree collector seeks out extra degrees, classes, and certifications that will make his resume "more marketable".  With each additional degree/certification obtained, the degree collector still gets the same response to his resume (little interest, if any, from employers).  The degree collectors solution is that he doesn't have enough degrees/certifications, or he doesn't have the most desirable mix of degrees/certifications.  So he goes back to school and the cycle continues.

You are the end-product of this mentality.  You are 30 years old with no job and no work experience.  You are over-qualified for bookkeeping jobs, and quickly approaching an age where you'll be too old for entry-level public accounting jobs.

What can you do?  Drop everything you're doing and get a job.  And not just any job.  If you want the CPA, you need a public accounting job.  From this day forth, you need to milk your connections for everything they're worth.  Talk to your friends, your girlfriend's friends, friends of friends, about the type of work you're looking for.  Do they know anyone at Deloitte, PWC, Ernst & Young, KPMG, BDO Seidman, McGladrey, GT, etc.  Ask them.  Everybody knows somebody who works there.  Ask to sit down with them for lunch.  Tell them you're highly interested in public accounting and you think you'd make a great fit.

Stop studying.  Most new associates with offers for public accounting firms have not even started studying for the CPA.  Yet they have offers, and you don't.  Start networking your ass off and stop with the useless studying.

Hi Jorge,

Your words are not harsh. You are telling me the right advice. Yes I was trying to collect degrees because I couldnot work in USA during my MBA and then recession came and my husband and I couldn't move to canada after becoming permanent residents of canada, so I started studying for CPA to utilize my time. Now I am trying hard and will take your advice to dig into my contacts...don't know any accounting folks in canada/toronto where I intend to move. But I will join all the professional networking associations to land up a entry level accounting position.

Thanks,