In honor of National Apartment Careers Month, we shine a spotlight on professions within the multifamily housing industry. Accountants embrace a multifaceted career that stays relevant even when the winds of change blow their hardest. Their versatile skills sets prove useful in various arenas of the field, offering the professionals options for growth and new challenges. Across the board, accountants enjoy the dynamic atmosphere of the housing industry. It’s not a matter of sitting at a desk for hours, pushing paper and crunching numbers on the same tasks day after day. Tiffany Godley, Senior Accountant at Avison Young, values the flexibility offered by the field because it allows her to remain passionate about her job and interested in her continued growth. “It’s not monotonous by any means. There are new challenges every day; the market is changing every day. Real estate offers so many different avenues to take: apartments, retail, hotels, commercial properties, building–once you’re in, you’ve got so much flexibility. It’s actually hard to get bored.” That flexibility comes in the form of vertical and latitudinal job tracks. Real estate firms open a world of career options for accountants. Sandy Roberts, Controller at Thomson Companies, discovered that her degree and experience qualified her to wear many hats within the company. “[A controller’s] responsibilities can vary, from financials from the beginning to the end of projects, as well as human resources, payroll and beyond. Accountants are under a large umbrella with lots of potential.” Such endless possibilities make accountants an invaluable part of the housing industry. “Accountants become the go-to person that’s always in demand,” she says. Such demand has not seemed to dwindle in face of increasingly sophisticated software. Rather, advances in technology have enabled accountants to perform their jobs more efficiently without...

February may be best known for its short duration and lineup of “fun” holidays – the Super Bowl, Valentine’s Day and Presidents’ Day always make the second month of the year quite delightful. It’s also a month to celebrate career opportunity in multifamily, with the National Apartment Association’s National Apartment Careers Month. “We find that many people who would make good candidates for apartment industry jobs simply are not aware of the many career opportunities to be found in our industry,” said Maureen Lambe, CAE, Executive Vice President, National Apartment Association Education Institute (NAAEI). “College Hospitality, Marketing and Business management majors are especially suited to our industry but have never heard of us. It’s also an opportunity for us to encourage hiring managers to not just look for previous industry experience when evaluating job candidates but also to look for those core competencies that are key to the industry, such as delivering good customer service, solid problem-solving skills and the ability to juggle many different tasks without dropping any of them.” Post-recession, the multifamily industry has rebounded strongly, creating many opportunities for employment. Apartment careers typically offer work that will be interesting and involve varied tasks, people skills, and excellent chance to advance in the company. As John Cullens, president and founder of ApartmentCareers.com, told us in 2012: “The job growth we’re going to see because of new development that has to happen is going to have our industry grow somewhere in the 20 to 25 percent range in the next 8 years. We had a lot of units that needed to be added to the mix.” Some apartment industry vocations are already seeing shortages of qualified candidates. That’s why the NAAEI has created professional development programs that aim to get workers ready for skilled...