Identity theft
Most of you know I've been "gotten" by identity thieves twice now, and I'm always looking for more information on it. I went to a seminar yesterday on Fraud and Identity Theft (unfortuately I've got to be well informed about this stuff for work) and brought back some info I think folks might be interested in
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1. Describe a day at work. What tasks or duties are involved (overtime)?
2. What personal or personality charactaristics are important to have in this career?
3. Please describe the physical setting where you work.
4. If I choose this career, where are some places that I could work?
5. Would you mind telling what the average salary range is...entry thru max. pay?
6. Please describe advancement and promotion opportunities associated with this type of career.
7. What advice would you give me in locating and obtaining a job in this field?
8. Would you encourage someone to enter this field and why? What is the future outlook like in your field?
9. What was the training/schooling/background experience to get into the career? How did you get in?
10. What are the greatest advantages about this career? Disadvantages?
11. Are there licenses or credentials required? If so, what type?
12. Could you suggest sources or individuals for more information?
13. If you had to do it all over again, would you select this career?
Reply
1. Gee, a day at work, everyone is different, so I'll give you what today is likely to be. I started off the day reviewing customer holds. A number of our customers pay slow, so I have them on what is known around here as a hold. Every order for those customers has to be approved by me or one of the owners. Once I sign off on the holds I'll return them to the appropriate sales person. If any customer is past due enough that I won't release the order, I'll call the customer and request payment. Usually I'll end up leaving messages, at which point I'll set the order aside for later. After I'm done with those, I'll process any credit card orders that came in before I got here. The computer program for the credit cards is on my computer, so I end up having to run those. Once those are done, I'll check for any credit reference requests. These are faxes (usually) that other companies will send to us asking for credit history (ie: high credit, how they pay, how long you've done business) on a customer who has listed us as a reference on their credit application. We only do commercial credit, so this is information on a business rather than an individual. After that, I'll process any new credit applications. Because I get a lot of unsolicited applications, I'll only process apps for those customers who have an order pending, or who have called me and say they want to order, but the account needs to be set up first. I'll also spend time reviewing and approving the accounts payable items that are for office use (ie not material or directly related to material). Other things I'll do during the day is call customers who are past due for collections, I do customer service stuff (around here, if they don't know what else to do with it, they give it to me), I review and write up credit and debit memos, answer all sorts of questions regarding accounting, material returns, computer problems, etc.
2. Negotiating skills, being willing to learn and if you don't know to go find out, being able to be firm yet not rude, patience, and have at least a basic knowledge of accounting.
3. I work in an office attached to a warehouse. We're the corporate office, and we have sales, accounting, purchasing, etc, up here.
4. Credit is a job that you can do in almost any field. Just about every company out there has a credit manager of one sort or another. They can be called many different things including bookkeepers, office managers, or accounting.
5. That's hard. It really depends on experience, education, size of the company, region, and industry. I am actually on the low end of things at $36k/yr, but I've heard of people making as much as $100K/yr. The average range around here seems to be about $5-50K though.
6. You can go lots of places, once you make credit manager, depending on the company, you can become the CFO. Usually though, corporate credit manager is the high point, and you just end up getting more tasks to oversee.
7. Check with your local division of the National Association of Credit Management, they usually have a good job board up on their websites with listings. The group down in your area is the Credit Management Association. There are also other groups that are more specific and don't have the national affiliation such as the Bay Area Credit Professionals.
8. If they have the right attitude for it, absolutely. I enjoy my job, but not everyone has the right temperment. The world will always need credit managers in one capacity or another.
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9. I happened into this job by accident (like most people in credit management do). The company needed an honest dependable credit manager in a hurry and they knew I was looking for a job. I have an accounting background, but a lot of people just fall into credit management as a careeer without formal training.
10. Advantages: Everyday is different, you don't really have a daily drudgery, and you do so many different things that is it always interesting. Disadvantages: Sometimes dealing with customers is frustrating, particularly whtn they won't pay their bills in a timely fashion.
11. Required, no, available, yes. NACM provides education for those who want it, and have three levels of national cerification that you can test for to achieve. The certifications tell employers that you know your stuff, and keep up on the latest laws and information.
12. www.nacm.org is your best point to start with, and they have links on their site to local affiliates.
13. Yes, I really enjoy my job.
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